## [DC] A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - an engineer attempts to modernize medieval England

* Author: u/Timewinders *
* URL: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/86/86-h/86-h.htm
* Score: 15

* Created: 2014-08-03T00:13:46

### Post:

[Link to content](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/86/86-h/86-h.htm)

### Comments:

> **u/Timewinders** [+10]  (3 minutes later)
> 
> I'm actually really surprised that no one else has recommended this since it's a classic. It's a deconstruction of romantic ideals of medieval society common in novels at the time, as well as a deconstruction of modern society at that time. It also has some rational elements that I think people here would find interesting, though it's been a long time since I read it so I don't recall exactly how rational it was. I included the project Gutenberg link because it has pictures but here's a link without pictures: http://www.literature.org/authors/twain-mark/connecticut/ . Also, this book is in a similar style, though I haven't read it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lest_Darkness_Fall.

> **u/None** [+2]  (21 hours later)
> 
> They also made a movie based on this starring Bing Crosby. Less about modernizing medieval England and more about jazzing it up, perhaps.

> **u/chaosmosis** [+1]  *and with strange aeons, even death may die* (2 days later)
> 
> The ending always felt shocking to me. Came out of nowhere. Was Twain trying to give a message, with that, or was it just lazy writing?

>> **u/Timewinders** [+3]  (2 days later)
>> 
>> Which part of the ending? I'm not sure how to interpret it either, but I think [Connecticut Yankee](#s "maybe Merlin's use of magic at the end was to further drive home the futility of Hank's actions. He managed to make all that progress, but much of it was undone by the Church, which was heavily entrenched in the society. They managed to defeat the attackers, but the bodies made them sick. Then it turned out that magic existed all along. Perhaps the point was that changing a culture can be a very difficult and often futile, depending on how much change you're trying to affect. Hank really rushed things, and society couldn't adapt to the changes, so it lashed back. Or maybe since Hank ended up calling for Sandy and Hello-Central and had delusions about being back in King Arthur's Court before he died, the point was that even as he attempted to modernize medieval England, he still misses it, liked it on some level, and was influenced by it. Maybe Twain was making a point that despite how terrible medieval society was, Hank's society wasn't that great either, considering the result of the modern technology used in the battle. Twain was a misanthropist, especially in his later years, so maybe he was saying that since Hank failed and many of his followers betrayed him despite all he did for them, human nature, and human tendencies to believe superstition, quickly resort to violence, etc. were the real source of the problems in medieval society and Hank, as an idealist, was not equipped to fully recognize and address it. Maybe Hank's loss to Merlin in the end despite their long rivalry was symbolic of how Hank ultimately failed to modernize England. Of course, Merlin's spell could have just been a convenient way to send him to the future to make the structure of the story work. It's pretty ambiguous.")

>>> **u/chaosmosis** [+2]  *and with strange aeons, even death may die* (3 days later)
>>> 
>>> I agree with your interpretation. But I felt there wasn't enough effort or time invested setting that up. For 95% of the book, Boss was winning easily.

>>>> **u/Timewinders** [+3]  (3 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Fair enough. The book was more comedic early on but ended up shifting later. I'm not sure why, maybe it was the circumstances in his life or maybe he just had long breaks between working on his novels, but it's not the only book of Mark Twain that changes near the end. Huckleberry Finn is probably my favorite book by him, but the last section was pretty inconsistent in tone.

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