Response to Literature

The Prince and the Pauper

People are easily changed by their discontentedness. Hoping for more than they should get and not appreciating their own lives have caused them to forget who they really are. Their lives might become worst or better, but they have lost themselves. As in the story of Mark Twain’s The Prince and The Pauper, Edward Tudor and Tom Canty were both discontented with their lives at that time, so they both made a wrong decision as to exchange their status.

Tom Canty and Edward Tudor were born in the same day, but their lives were in a big difference. Tom Canty was a pauper, and his family was poor. His father was a criminal and always hit him when he was drunk. Tom didn’t like his life like that as a beggar, and he wanted to be a king and hoped to stay away from his violent father’s beatings. He always acted like a king among the poor kids and learned the royal life from an old priest. On the other hand, Edward Tudor was the Prince of Wales. His mother was dead, but his father was holding the throne of England. After Edward had met Tom, Tom told him the life outside the palace. Full of the heart of admiration and adventure, Edward said he would give up the throne to live outside the palace. He thought the life out there was much better than the life in the palace. The people outside the palace could play whatever they wanted and watched different kinds of performance that he wouldn’t have a chance to see in the palace. It was thought to be more fun than being in the palace. Both of them had shown their eagerness to start their new lives.

Since Tom and Edward looked alike so much, they decided to change their clothes to feel the comfort of the royal clothing and the emptiness of the old rags. Because Edward had forgotten to change back to his royal clothing and went out to scold the soldier, he was thought to be the pauper. Tom was asked to stay in the room and wait for his return, but Edward had never come back. Here came the switch, the switch which changed the lives of these two kids, from royal life to pauper days and from poor to rich. This clearly showed the changes and consequences of being not contented with lives.

Both characters changed their dissatisfactory life, and did they enjoy it? The answer could be yes and no for Tom, but it was probably no for Edward. Both of them were thought to be mad and ill. Tom had become the King of England and enjoyed the royal life, but he knew nothing about the people and things happened in the palace; so he was thought to have an illness that caused him mad and memory loss. He was under some pressures from the officers and nobles to remember where the Great Seal of England was. Without any clue about the seal; he didn’t know what to do. Whereas Edward was beaten by Tom’s father, who thought he was his son. He claimed himself the king, but everyone ignored him and thought he was crazy. They mocked, insulted, and humiliated him. Fortunately, he had a friend who was a noble protected him from a lot of harms. At last, Edward was not happy at all and determined to go back to the palace to regain his throne.

In the end, both of them had switched back their status as before. Edward had become the King of England, and Tom was granted as the King’s Ward. Both of them had learnt a lesson of appreciating who and what they were. Their discontentedness had given them a lot of troubles, so being contented of who they are could make them realize the meaning of lives and get the most out of it.