that his beliefs have changed for the better, but after a couple of days, Tom once again maltreats his colored servant. "For as much as a week after this, Tom imagined that his character had undergone a pretty radical change. But that was because he did not know himself" (45). At this point, Mark Twain seems to imply that we are all aware of the evils behind slavery, but are unwilling to do anything for the betterment of the current state of affairs in society. Allow me to use a metaphor. Owing to his limitations, the issue of slavery though closely surrounding him, is far away from the lamp-post of his attention: it is dim, it passes by him, like a caravan of shadows, or like the landscape seen in the night from the window of an illuminated railway compartment-the passenger (Tom) knows that the slavery exists and it is wrong, but for the time being the railway carriage is far more significant. Chambers, the real Driscoll's inheritor, becomes another tragic individual, who during slavery is often mistreated by both whites and blacks. Chambers becomes Tom's bodyguard and the spanking bone on whom Tom unkindly discharges his frustration and rage. Pg.36 "Tom had risen. The other young man (his brother Chambers) was trembling, now, visibly. He saw what was coming, and bent his head sideways and put up his left arm to shield it. Tom rained cuffs upon the head and its shield, saying no word....Seven blows-then Tom said, "Face the door-March!"....then he flung himself panting on the sofa again and rasped out the remark, "He arrived just at the right moment; I was full to the brim with bitter thinking, and nobody to take it out of. How refreshing it was!-I feel better." Even when Chambers saves Tom from drowning, Tom attacks him with a knife. At the end, after Chambers is reaffirmed as the legitimate inheritor of the Driscoll wealth, he cannot adjust to life in a white setting. The real heir suddenly found himself rich and free, but in a most e...
