1/28/07

The last several chapters of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court brought about an interesting conclusion to the story. The way Mark Twain wrapped up the novel did not answer some of my questions, but it also did not leave things available to be doubted.
It turns out the Yankee’s scientific advancements of the sixth century resulted in the total destruction of the society and kingdom he was working to create. He overcame the large numbers of opponents, but his group of followers were killed by the amount of death and decay. It is somewhat ironic that it turned out this way, but it answered my question as to how history was not going to be altered by the Yankee’s implementation of thirteen hundred years of invention and scientific achievement. All of the inventions that were ahead of their time were bound to change history, but if no one remembers them, the course of history will not change in the slightest. In addition, the enemy he wanted most to overcome, the Church, ended up being behind the Yankee’s downfall. Another interesting thing I noticed was that the spoken languages of Clarence and the Yankee were switched. By the end of the book, Clarence spoke just about perfect 1800’s English, and as the first and last chapters of the book indicate, the Yankee speaks in the English of King Arthur’s time. His view on where he belongs also changes by the end of the book. For a time after first being transported to the sixth century, he feels that he is either in a dream or has time traveled away from his home. In the postscript, the Yankee indicates that he now believes his time travel and the fight at the end were all a dream and that his true home was with Sandy and Hello Central in the time of King Arthur. One thing that does not make sense to me is that Merlin’s magic, which failed to work every other time throughout the book, seems to have worked in the end sending the Yankee back to the 19th century. His time travel is the only concept from the book that physically does not make sense, but at least Twain is consistent.