Tom Canty

Character Analysis

Tom Canty is the underdog. He's the poor kid born in the slums of London who's thrown into the glittering world of the palace. Everyone loves a good rags-to-riches story, so we're totally cheering for Tom—and hey, it doesn't hurt that he's actually a nice kid on top of all of that.

A Pauper

What's a pauper? Well, a pauper is basically a poor person, but there's a little more to it than that. A pauper is also someone who depends on public aid to survive. Unfortunately for Tom, he was just one queen away from actually receiving that kind of assistance: in his day, being a pauper meant begging in the streets... which was illegal, by the way.

Wait, you ask: how were people supposed to survive if there was no assistance and begging was illegal? Well, don't ask King Henry VIII, 'cause he probably doesn't care.

Okay, so things aren't so great for Tom: he's poor, there's no assistance, and he could get thrown into jail for trying to help his family. On top of everything else, the part of London he lives in is pretty violent:

When he came home empty-handed at night, he knew his father would curse him and thrash him first, and that when he was done the awful grandmother would do it all over again and improve on it; and that away in the night his starving mother would slip to him stealthily with any miserable scrap or crust she had been able to save for him by going hungry herself, notwithstanding she was often caught in that sort of treason and soundly beaten for it by her husband. (2.4)

So on top of it all, Tom's dad and grandmother are abusive to him, his mother, and his sisters. Sounds like the kid just can't win.

Now, if you were living Tom's life, wouldn't you dream of something better?

A Dreamer

Tom's a dreamer. He wants a better life partly because he can actually imagine what a better life might look like. He can even imagine what it's like to be a prince. So how does a kid from the slums of 16th-century London get these kinds of ideas? Well, that's where Father Andrew comes into the story.

Father Andrew's the one who teaches Tom how to read, write, and think about things like princes:

[H]e put in a good deal of his time listening to good Father Andrew's charming old tales and legends about giants and fairies, dwarfs, and genii, and enchanted castles, and gorgeous kings and princes. His head grew to be full of these wonderful things, and many a night as he lay in the dark on his scant and offensive straw, tired, hungry, smarting from a thrashing, he unleashed his imagination and soon forgot his aches and pains in delicious picturings to himself of the charmed life of a petted prince in a regal palace. (2.5)

Gradually, Tom begins to use Father Andrew's stories as a way to escape his own life. By thinking of all these magical and fantastical situations, his own problems seem less terrible.

That's not the only thing that comes out of Father Andrew's stories. Tom also starts to act like a prince. He changes his speech and manners so much that everyone else in the slums starts to look up to him. Even grown-ups treat him like he's royalty.

All of this is kind of weird, but it's important for what happens next to Tom. Think about it, would your average street urchin be able to pass himself off as a prince? Even though Tom does a pretty iffy job, at least he had a head start from Father Andrew's stories. He even knew a little bit of Latin, and that helps convince the royal court that Tom's legit.

On top of that, since the people in Tom's neighborhood already know him to be a little strange and obsessed with princes, it makes Edward's appearance seem a bit more normal. After all, it's not so big of a leap to think that Tom might have gone insane and imagined himself a prince. He was already acting like one.

There's a point to this, by the way: Tom's success at passing himself off as a prince shows that poor people, given an education and the opportunity to succeed, can do just as well as anyone born into money.

A Kind King

If you could pick one word to describe Tom, it might be "kind." We mean, the very first thing that Tom does as king is say this: "Then shall the king's law be law of mercy, from this day, and never more be law of blood!" (11.21). There will be no more killing people for no reason, at least while he's around. That's a pretty far cry from King Henry VIII's style—which was to send 70,000 people to death by beheading.

This shift in policy is so dramatic that we can see why Twain would come up with the idea of a beggar taking the crown. How else would you explain that the son of King Henry VIII was such a gentle and kindhearted king? Something weird happened, and that weirdness is Tom. Well, that's Twain's story, anyway.

And everyone notices. When Prince Edward asks Blake Andrews about the new king, he says:

"What king, indeed! God-a-mercy, what aileth the boy? Sith we have but one, 'tis not difficult to answer—his most sacred majesty King Edward the Sixth—whom God preserve! Yea, and a dear and gracious little urchin is he, too; and whether he be mad or no—and they say he mendeth daily—his praises are on all men's lips; and all bless him likewise, and offer prayers that he may be spared to reign long in England; for he began humanely with saving the old Duke of Norfolk's life, and now is he bent on destroying the crudest of the laws that harry and oppress the people." (27.41)

We'll translate that for you. "King? We have the best king ever, and he's doing more awesome things every single day. Yeah, his people like him."

But not only is Tom kind to people like him, he's even kind when you wouldn't expect him to be. For example, he's the only person who stands behind Prince Edward when no one else believes that he's the real king. Tom even helps Edward remember where the Great Seal is, even though everyone wants to kill Tom once they find out he's an imposter. That's one kind kid.

Once a Pauper, Always a Pauper

So far, it sounds like Tom is the best king ever, right? So why would we want him to leave the throne? He's kind, he understands the suffering of poor people—what more could you want?

Well, it seems the best reason that Twain can give us is that he's poor, or at least from a poor background, and that just doesn't qualify you to be a king in 16th-century England. There are some other complications, too: even though Tom seems to be acclimating pretty well to this whole being rich thing, he still has family out there.

When Tom's mom shows up at the coronation parade, Tom starts to hate being king all of a sudden:

She embraced his leg, she covered it with kisses, she cried, "O, my child, my darling!" lifting toward him a face that was transfigured with joy and love […]The words "I do not know you, woman!" were falling from Tom Canty's lips when this piteous thing occurred; but it smote him to the heart to see her treated so;[…]she seemed so wounded, so broken-hearted, that a shame fell upon him which consumed his pride to ashes, and withered his stolen royalty. His grandeurs were stricken valueless; they seemed to fall away from him like rotten rags. (31.13)

Tom doesn't want to start a fancy new life if it means that he has to hurt people who care about him—and that includes not just his mom and his sister but Edward, too. It's more proof that Tom is a good, decent kid at heart. Twain tries to give us a happy ending for Tom when he tells us how Edward gave Tom and his family money to make their lives better; that's great and all, but the fact that this probably would never happen in reality drives home the point there are some serious problems with a system that keeps people like Tom poor and hopeless.