There is much more.Twain's mystery novel Pudd'nhead Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day.Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior(低等的)to whites，especially in intelligence，Twain's tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth.A slave gave birth to her master's baby and，for fear that the child should be sold South, switched him for the master's baby by his wife.The slave's light－skinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave－holding class.The master's wife's baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave.

　　The point was difficult to miss：nurture(养育)，not nature，was the key to social status.The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice—manner of speech，for example—were, to Twain, indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims.

　　Twain's racial tone was not perfect.One is left uneasy，for example，by the lengthy passage in his autobiography(自传)about how much he loved what were called “nigger shows” in his youth—mostly with white men performing in black－face—and his delight in getting his mother to laugh at them.Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing reality.His frequent attacks on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness that they did not.

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