A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT by MARK TWAIN is one of my favorite classic novels and one that should still have a lot of impact on modern readers.

As a comedy, it doesn't disappoint. Twain's satirical nature oozes from every page. However, reading it only as a comedy is a huge disservice to the work. Aside from the message of the book in relation to the political environment of its own time, there are two, broader underlying themes that I think keep this book from becoming dated.… (more)

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT by MARK TWAIN is one of my favorite classic novels and one that should still have a lot of impact on modern readers.

As a comedy, it doesn't disappoint. Twain's satirical nature oozes from every page. However, reading it only as a comedy is a huge disservice to the work. Aside from the message of the book in relation to the political environment of its own time, there are two, broader underlying themes that I think keep this book from becoming dated. (Note that the following two paragraphs are somewhat anachronistic in regards to Twain's intentions. A matter which I explain at the end of the post.)

The first is a disillusionment with technology. You can't live in the modern world and not understand the productivity paradox in relation to technology, at least on an instinctual level. The more technology one employs on a task, the easier that task gets ... theoretically. In actuality, a chart that depicts increasing dollars spent on technology and increasing productivity will display that the two grow out of proportion to each other. (Imagine one steeply inclined line representing a sharp rise in dollars spent and another more gradually-sloped line depicted a modest rise in productivity. The two grow ever more divergent as they extend into space.) This phenomenon is reflected in the book. The protagonist at first enjoys great success as he introduces a few bits of useful technology to medieval England. The more he pushes improvement on his new environment, however, the less benefit he receives from using technology at all and the more problematic the situation becomes. The moral for today's readers, if there is one, has something to do with "judicious use" of one's knowledge.

The second still-relevant theme is the dangers of trying to advance a primitive culture too rapidly. The "Westernization" of the world is, perhaps, an old and fairly well understood problem at this point. However, understanding the problem hasn't given rise to much real change in policies regarding emerging nations. We (the most advanced civilizations on the planet) still find it convenient to rapidly advance cultures when it serves our own need for resources, regardless of how that advancement affects the base culture. That's my opinion, obviously. Forgive me for getting political. Historically, though, it's true. Native Americans grew increasingly violent when the introduction of horses allowed them to more easily encroach on the territory of neighboring tribes. Once guns were added to the mix ...

To be fair, I think Twain was making a different sort of point. He believed that the Brits were so backward thinking and bound by tradition that they wouldn't adopt improvements no matter how beneficial. They were, in Twain's estimation, essentially hopeless. This message doesn't really fit with my modern moralizing, but as I learned in my college lit courses, authorial intent is (at least sometimes) irrelevant to modern reading.