Mark Twain's a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
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Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: A Discussion Guide By David Bruce Copyright 2013 by Bruce D. Bruce SMASHWORDS EDITION Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support. Cover Illustration The cover illustration is from the 1889 first edition of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. ••• PREFACE TO THE DISCUSSION GUIDE The purpose of this book is educational. I have read, studied and taught Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and I wish to pass on what I have learned to other people who are interested in studying Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. In particular, I think that the readers of this short introduction to Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court will be bright high school seniors and college first-year students, as well as intelligent adults who simply wish to study A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court despite not being literature majors. This book uses a question-and-answer format. It poses, then answers, relevant questions about Twain, background information, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. This book goes through A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court chapter by chapter. I recommend that you read the relevant section of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, then read my comments, then go back and re-read the relevant section of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. However, do what works for you. Teachers may find this book useful as a discussion guide for the novel. Teachers can have students read chapters from the novel, then teachers can ask students selected questions from this book. The quotations from the novel come from this source: Twain, Mark. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Edited by Bernard L. Stein. This book will use short quotations from critical works about A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. This use is consistent with fair use: § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use Release date: 2004-04-30 Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include — (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Source of Fair Use information: < http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107>. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON MARK TWAIN • Samuel Langhorne Clemens (later Mark Twain) was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, but grew up in nearby Hannibal (his family moved there in 1839), which became the village (called St. Petersburg) in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Hannibal was located on the Mississippi River and had 2,000 inhabitants. • Sam was the sixth child of John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton. • Sam’s father owned a grocery store. • Sam’s Uncle Quarles had a farm on which slaves worked. Sam sometimes stayed at the farm during summers, and he saw slaves being beaten. • Hannibal, Missouri, was a slave-holding community. The slaves were mostly household servants. • When Samuel L. Clemens was 12, his father died. Young Sam dropped out of school, then began work as an apprentice in a printer’s shop to help support his family. Then he worked under his brother, Orion, at the newspaper called the Hannibal Journal. • In June of 1853, Sam left Hannibal and started traveling, working for a while as a journalist and printer in places such as St. Louis, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Iowa, then becoming a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. The man who taught him the Mississippi River was Horace Bixby, pilot of the Paul Jones. • Sam served briefly in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, but deserted and headed West to search for gold (unsuccessfully). • He became a reporter and humorist for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, where he adopted the pen name Mark Twain. One story of the name’s meaning is that it is the cry given when a river man measures the depth of water in the Mississippi River and finds that it is 12 feet (two fathoms). “Mark Twain” means “Note that there are two fathoms of water.” (A fathom is six feet.) Two fathoms of water is enough water for a riverboat not to be in danger of hitting bottom. Sam used the pen name Mark Twain for the first time on February 2, 1863. Another account of the origin of the name is that Sam used to call out “mark twain” when entering a favorite Western saloon. In this case, “mark twain” meant “mark two more drinks on my tab.” • As a reporter, Twain was a social critic. In San Francisco, he wrote about the inhumane treatment of illegal Chinese immigrants and of the poor. • In 1869, Twain’s published the book (his 2nd) that was the most popular of all his books during his lifetime: Innocents Abroad. This humorous book tells of his travels to Europe and the Holy Land. • On February 2, 1870, Sam married Olivia Langdon. Her family was prominent in Elmira, New York. Sam and Olivia soon moved to Hartford, Connecticut. • Twain’s next book was Roughing It, published in 1872. This humorous book told of Sam’s experiences prospecting for gold. • In 1873, Twain published his first novel, The Gilded Age, which was co-written by Charles Dudley Warner, about corruption during the 1800s. • Twain published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876. • Twain published The Prince and the Pauper in 1881. • Twain published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885. • Twain published A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court in 1889. • Many of Twain’s investments failed and he became deep in debt, but he went on long speaking tours and earned the money needed to pay his debts and have some money of his own. • Although Twain was a humorist, late in life he grew deeply pessimistic and pondered the existence of the nature of God (if God in fact does exist). • Twain died of angina on April 21, 1910. • In The Mysterious Stranger, Twain wrote, “The Human race in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon — laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution — these can lift at a colossal humbug — push it a little, weaken it a little, century by century, but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” Twain often used humor to mock colossal humbugs. INTRODUCTION TO A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT • Camelot is the court of King Arthur in sixth-century England. • Merlin the magician is one of the chief enemies of Hank Morgan the Connecticut Yankee. • The Yankee believes in many modern ideas: • The separation of church and state. • Freedom of religion, including the right to choose which religion to believe. • Progress. • Science and technology. • Freedom of speech. • Newspapers to distribute news to the people. • Equality, meaning that no one can claim to be better than anyone else simply because of their ancestors. • Democracy. • Education and literacy. (By “training,” the Yankee means education. His Man Factories are schools.) • Meritocracy, meaning that you get the job if you are qualified to do it instead of getting it because of your noble birth, even if you are an ignoramus. • Free trade. • The Yankee is opposed to many things: • An established church that is supported by the state. In this case, it is the Roman Catholic Church, because it is the ONLY church in sixth-century England. Protestantism won’t come into existence until Martin Luther (1483-1546) starts it hundreds of years later. • Aristocracies and nobles. • The divine right of kings. • Slavery. • Ignorance and superstition, including belief in magic. • Hunger, poverty, and misery. • Classes of society, in which one class looks down on another. • You will read about many horrible things in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but they have a basis in reality. The notes in our edition give the sources of accounts of many of these events, but some happened in 19th-century America and not in 6th-century England. • Twain satirizes King Arthur’s England, but he also satirizes 19th-century America. (Many of the ideas of 19th-century America are still current today.) Twain’s satiric sword has two edges. • Twain shows that our modern-day, scientific society poses its own dangers. For example, today the United States has weapons of mass destruction that would amaze King Arthur’s Knights.