A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – Mark Twain

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – Mark Twain, 274 pgs.

This novel tells the story of Hank Morgan, a 19th century engineer from Hartford, Connecticut who through a strange turn of events finds himself in the 66h century England of King Arthur. He is almost immediately captured by a knight upon his arrival in the 6th century and taken to Camelot where he learns he is to be executed in a couple days time. Using his superior modern wit to escape the situation, hank sets out on a grand process of introducing 19th century technology, know-how, education, and values to Arthur’s realm.

The novel is filled with many humorous moments as is apt with other fiction from Twain but there is also a distinct dark side to the story that becomes ever more apparent. The impact of the past with the present (at least at the time of writing) results in the dismantling of the romantic view of the past while simultaneously reveals the faults in the belief of scientific and social progress. The England of Arthur is depicted as one where the people, although not generally subjected to the institution of slavery, are for all purposes the equivalent of slaves. The ‘freemen’ of the day have no rights whatsoever and are subject to the whims of a nobility whose only entitlement to rule is blueness of their blood. The Church is similarly depicted as repressing force against the mass of humanity. The protagonist Hank struggles endlessly to awaken in the people a sense of social justice and outrage at being treated as dirt by their noble lords. He is constantly frustrated in his attempts though and concludes that the level of indoctrination is so deep in the people that only large structural changes and the rise of a new generation will provide the seeds for a revolution to overturn the existing order.

Hank Methodically sets out to accomplish just such a revolution by starting clandestine centers of education and industry, all the while keeping an eye on the Church so as not to have his program disrupted. With the introduction of modern technology and education, ‘progress’ moves along at a steady pace. But with all the advances to society also comes the capacity to disrupt and destroy as much if not more. In seeking to replace the controlling ideology of the Church, Hank inadvertently sets up a rival ideology that demands the complete submission of the people as well.

Twain’s criticisms of the 19th century become all the more apparent when applied against the backdrop of an age unrecognizable to ours. It is rather amazing that the problems he confronts, free market capitalism, mechanization of war, political ideologies, confidence in a historical progression towards a better society, would all come to the fore in the 20th century as pressing questions confronting a world with the ever growing capacity to destroy itself. The novel stays true to Twain’s pessimism concerning his day and the ‘damned human race’ ends with a truly terrifying scene. All good novels have to concern themselves with themes that go deeper than the mere story that they tell. Twain certainly does not disappoint with this effort.