Book Review - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

[jakewright]

I feel like you completely miss understood this book. Probably, because from the beginning the protagonist had to use his "superior" knowledge of the world to stay alive! This book was published in 1890. Mark Twain having lived in the time of slavery and civil war. Even after the end of slavery he witness the way different races and classes treated each other. Mark twain used this story to lay out the evil in such practices as slavery and class discrimination. The dangers of religion used for power. I know you said you would never read this book again. However, you really need to give it another go. This time, look at it through the eyes of a man who lived through the times that mark twain did. And also dont forget that this is satire with a lesson. Mark Twain was kind of famous for that.

[CaligulaInvictus]

The satire is about how New Englanders have an air of unearned superiority and the character of Hank is the embodiment of exactly that. Why would Clemmens write views that he deemed superior into a yankee? Remember he was from Missouri and spent his best years on the Mississippi river. He declared himself to be a Confederate. The satire was not of Ancient English civilization, but rather the works of New England airbags like Thoreau and Emmerson. Try to read Walden in all it's preachy hubris and not see a direct correlation to the hot air that exudes from Hank. If you read this book and were agitated by the main charater, that's because he was written to be an insufferable fussbudget.