The Clothes Make The Man.

In The Prince And The Pauper, it's interesting to see the presence and influence poor parenting has on the children involved. Evidently, both parties are lacking true parental influence or care, or even attention in general. Upon arriving at their unfamiliar homes, the boys are dealt very different treatments, but given very similar reactions. Rather than seeing the clear difference that would be expected of a true parent, the boys are received in a manner that implies suspicion and concern because of the utter ridiculousness of their claims.

Obviously, the story is set up in a way that implies that there "did not seem to have been any change made", and thus good parenting skills would not be in keeping with the story's significance, plot, or author in general. However, I find it difficult to believe that a true parent would be unable to detect the subtle differences between two humans, regardless of the intensity of their identical appearances. For example, I know numerous sets of twins that are considered identical, but close friends and family have absolutely no problem differentiating one from the other. Thus, one could clearly draw the conclusion that these boys, one born to immense poverty and the other to the throne of a nation, are not truly that different from one another at all. Neither of them have family in the ideal sense, instead having duties forced upon them and specific expressions expected of them, albeit in very different ways.

With that said, what is it that truly makes one man different from another when they have nothing like family to help define them? And for that matter, what is the difference when two men are equally stripped of their facades, or in this case, said facades are switched entirely? With a mother or father that cannot differentiate their own children from another's, are they truly a mother or father in every idealistic sense of the word, or have the males and females in question simply been reduced to animals on the quest to breed and propagate?