![]() He then takes Tom to his royal rooms, and listens to the stories of a boy who is free to go where he wishes. Prince Edward, a "truly noble" lad, instructs the guard to bring the boy to him. The actual switch happens quickly-Tom is spotted gazing at the Prince of Wales, and having attracted the negative attention of the guards, is being beaten. Thus Twain is careful to create a plausible basis for how the boys carried off the switch. Tom himself escapes the meanness of his own life by reading and creating his own small kingdom among the other poor boys of the area. His father is a brute and a criminal, his mother and sisters are illiterate and brutalized. Tom Canty, the pauper, is more than simply poor. The prince of the title is the future Edward VI, son of Henry VIII, and Twain is setting his sights on specific matters of injustice in a fashion nearly Dickensian. In fact, "The Prince and the Pauper" is set concretely in a specific period of time in a specific location-London, in late January of 1547. ![]() Twain was not interested in generically moralistic pablum for youth. After all, it was written by Mark Twain, NOT Little Golden Books. Each learns both the good and the bad of the other's world, and in the end they go back to their original positions, having learned a Moral Lesson about appreciating their own lives. ![]() Two boys, oddly (and conveniently!) identical, change clothes and step into each others' lives. ![]() I bet, like me, you think you already know this story, don't you? ![]()
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