Eruptions of Performance: Hank Morgan and the Business of Politics

DEREK PARKER ROYAL

XXTRITING TO William Dean Howells in August 1887, 'VV about a year and a half into his work on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain commented upon the evolving nature of his political vision. This change, he wrote Howells, was fueled by a recent rereading of Tho- mas Carlyle: "When I finished Carlyle's French Revolution in 1871, I was a Girondini . . . & now I lay the book down once more, & recognize that I am a Sansculotte!-And not a pale, characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat" (Twain-Howells 2, 595). His sympathy for the revolution and its liberating possibilities grew to an almost bhnd admiration, so much so that by the time his novel was finished in 1889, he would write to Howells: "Next to the 4th of July & its results, it was the noblest & the holiest thing & the most precious that ever happened in this earth. And its gracious work is not done yet-nor anywhere in the remote neighborhiood of it" (T-H 2, 613). The backdrop to this democratic enthusiasm was a Europe that, to him, was still mired in the dark ages, a de- caying bastion of immorality, blind servilty, and human bondage. During this period of his life, tlere was no starker contrast than that betweeni the American project and the lin- gering legacies of monarchy. Twain was increasingly concerned about the oppressive political systems not only abroad, but at home as well, and his support for fledgling labor movements and burgeoning re- ptblics gave him the opportunity to vent hlis buiring anger at injustice. Even A Connecticut Yankee, his heteroglossic

(11) 12 JITM M ITDWEST QUARTERLY foray into political rlietoic, could not contain his amibtious fre between its covers. In w-hat has now become one of Twain's onost critically quoted passages, hle told HoNwels upon the noxvel's com(]pl7ehion that "if it weti e oTnly to wnrte over agyain there wouldn't be s-o mnanry things left ot.t, TIley buirn in mTe; & thley keep mnultiplying and multiplying; but now they cant't ever be said. Anid besides, they would require a lhbrary-& a pen warImleCd-uip in hell (T-H 2, 613). Contemporaneous wvitlh hiis progressive enthusiasmins was, paradoxically, Twain's whole-hearted investment in capital- isin. Froml his early days in the California mininilg camps he had schemed to attain financial success one way or another, buit no project had ever so violently seized his imagination- and his purse-as did jamnes W. Paige's typesetting rnacune On one level, Twain's faith in thiis technlological wonder com- plemernted hiis political liberalismn. As Julstin Kaplan writes: T'he Yankee anda the Maclhinie were, twinned in [Twvain'sl midiLl. Both wiere tests of a perfectible world in whlich, corntrary to all his insights and experiences, friction and mecthanica}l dhfficulties were equivalents of0iglorance and superstition. Both expressed a secular religion which had ais an unexamined article of ifaih a belief not in eternid life but in pemetual m otioII. (281) Yet, in a mnore profound wvay, his inivestniemit presupposed a stronig capital-ist imnpulse that stood in slharp conflict with his progressivism. It encouraged a frointier individualisml ntot dis- similar fromi that rnurtured by the financial mnagnates whomra Twain warmnly befriended l:ater in his life. Those whio invested in telc-iology and capital: helped to create a new cultural, if niot aesthetic, elite. By coTflating the status of bothi artist and technologica innovator, Twain betrayed irn noIuncertain teriris the desirability of a position far above that of the comr- mnon worker: 'An inventor is a poet-a true poet-and nothing in any degree less than) a high order of poet" (Business Man, (14). The writer as capitalist, then, held a privileged position in Twain's miind that was iIn:many ways irreconcilable with his more democratic tendeneies. CONNECT7CUT YANKEE 13

Alonig with the tensions inherenit in Twain's discordant roles as democrat and capitalist came the increasing specter of failture that hounded botlh projects. Paige's typesetting machine, the most immediate symlbol of progress for Twain, turied into a financial bane that became a tragic obsession for the author. By the time he finished A Connecticut Yankee in late 1889, Twain had sunik about $150,000 into Paige's "poetic"' expression, with no tangible hope of ever seeing a return. So too with his hopes for the American project, con- stantly tested by robber barons, lynchings, and political cor- ruption. Wedged between the peaks of his financial hopes and liberal enthusiasms were the deep valleys of social and political despair, a darkening of a creative vision that woueld eventually lead Pudd'nhead Wilson to place in his calendar, "It was wonderftil to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it'> (Pudd'nhead,224). During this time the creative outlet for Twain's tenuous balance of eagerness and disappointment was Hank Morgan, a pragmatic common man who comes to Camelot with an eye for enterprise and a head full of liberal ideas. In one sense he represented for Twain the democratic impulse and the possibility of the revolution whose "gracious work is not doine yet." Ilank is a one-mai show of political emancipation, a living advertisement that promises to free the masses with a granid spectacle of staged effects. Yet, underneath all of the glitz. and showmanshliip lies a darker reality that periodieally bursts forth in an angry volley of destruction. This is the Yan- kee who tells Morgan le Fay to hang her musicians and who destroys the last remnants of knight-errantry in one horrific explosion. Taken as a whole, Hank Morgan is the creative embodiment of Twain's problematic relationship with political authoiity. Flank may have been intended as the salvific spokesman of nineteenth-century liberalism, buit throughout the novel his project is continuously being undermined by his authoritarian tendencies, usually springing from business interests, working alongside his contemporary progressivism. The conflict between the writer as revolutionary and the 14 THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY writer as capitalist found its full expression in the figure of I-mank Morgan. This can be seern by focusing on-i the compo- sitional dynamics of Hank and exploring the ways in which Twain uses him to express the various discourses operating withinl the text and within the cultuire at large. The problem of interpretinig the Yankee-his ambiguous intentions, his multi-voicedness, and hlis lack of a ceintered moraity-is symptomatic of Twaini's own problematic relationship with politieal and busiiness authority. Twain's focus oni authority and aithority figures not only permeates his later fiction, but can be traced back to some of his earliest writings. Embedded in texts such as 7he In- nocents Abroadi, Roughing It, and Lfe ort 'he Mississipps is a fascination with men of pover-ruilers of nations, stage driv- ers, ande riverboat pilots-that at times borders on the deeply reverenitial. In th-e boyhood tales Twain creates miajor char- acters like Tonm Sawyer lwhose showmanship both playfully entertains and selfishly mainaipulates) as well as minor hgures such as Colonel Grangerford and Colonel Sherburn (men commanding power through the barrel of a gun) that signif- icantly impress their aucdience, mIost particularly the you-ng Huckleberry Finrn. As dominating as these early figures are, it is not until his later writings that Twai-n most fully explores the dynamics of power arid its place wit.hin tlhe culture of his tim2e. -In A Connecticut Yanttkee in King A thfi rVs Court, Pudld'head WVilson, and thlle unfinished Mysterious Stranger manuscripts, he reveals the volatile anld potentialy dangerous side of authority, a dtplicitouis mainer that complicates any attempts at benevolence. What is more, in all of the major works preceding A Connecticut Yankee, Twain invests op- posing impulses within different personalities, and any dialogue between those imnpulses takes place on lie level of character interaction. Tom, Huck, and the narrators of the travel books may all be (to one degree or another) complex clhar- acters, but nione truily possess a collectioll voices tat express themselves in a constant state of violent contradiction. I-n A Connecticut Yankee, however, the political anid philo- CONNEC TICUT YANKEE L5

sophical oppositions are contained within the single vessel of lHank Morgan, making character assessment difficult, if not impossible, in ways that it is not for Tom or Huck. Indeed, critics have read Hank in any number of ways, many of which are antithetical to one another, and none of vwhich suggest in and of themselves any adequate sense of closure: as a model liberal democrat, a dictator, a robber baron, a showman, a political machine, a colonizer, an entrepreneur, and an artist. (For further discussion of Hank in these guiises see, respectively, Everett Carter, Chadwick Han- sen, Ann Douglas, Judith Fetterley, Thomas Fick, David Sewell, Lome Fienberg, and JohII Dinan.) Yet if the conflict withiin Hank is a dialectic between any of these possibilities, it is one that refuses a synthesis. As George Toles describes it, Twain's creative imagination can be likened to a houise of non-adjoiining ehambers: "Situated in one room, his x4sion successfully accommodates itself to its dimensions, however limited. For the time being, no othler room exists. After an indefinite period has elapsed, [the author] awakens, as it were, in anotler room, and the process repeats itself' (65). Furthermore, there is no neat progression in the novel from one ideological space to another, such as from emancipator to enslaver/destroyer, no steady disenchantment with either liberalism, technology, or Arthurian romance. The deimo- cratic and authoritarian sides of Hank are present from the very beginning, creating an irresolvable tension that, far from weakening the novel, on the contrary highlights one of its cenitral themes: the unsteady dynamics of political authority. HI-ank's democratic spirit is clearly evident throughout the text in greater or lesser degrees. Like a true nineteenth-century liberal, his sympathies rest not with persons and their offices, but with constitutional ideals. "You see, my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to wateh over, and to care for, and be loyal to" (Yankee, 112). To Hank, in the guise 16 1TIIE MIDWEST QUARTERILY of a Jacksonian democrat, the proletariat or freemen lbold a privileged position' They were the nation, the tetual Natiorn they were about all of it that was useful, or w3orth savinig, or realy respect-worthy, and to subtract thiemni would have been to subtract the NaltionI andl leavxc hehmid sonme dregs, sonie refutse, in the sthape of a king, uol)it. and gentry, idle, unproductive, acquaintecd mainly witl tle arts of wastinig anid destroy- inig, and of n1o sort of use or value in an;y rationidly colnructed world. (109(-1-0) ft wo-uld not do the Yankee jstice to suggest that his ,words are without sincerity or that lhe operates in a printarily Ma- chiavellan way, nmerely spoulting off a rletoric of liberation in order to better mnake his way itto the vestments of 'Boss- dom.' Nor is it solely patriotic can-it. Twain's notebooks angS letters of the time are filled with sinmilar seintimiients, especially wvleni making Europe thte subject of his musiings. T-o his Eng- lish publisher he, wrote, "I wanted to say a Yankee m-aechanic's say against miornarchy aind its several natural props" (Twaii's Letters 2,524-25). The 1888 publication of Matthew Arnold's "COvilization in tlhe Ulnited States" left Twainll particularily in- cen1sed. in hiis essay, Arnold argues that despite its mnaterid prosperity, America laeks any real sense of cultural distiuc- tion. and conitrasts its nagging philistinism to the civilization evovMing frcirn European history. All of tihis confirmed Twain's belief in an- Enland whiose mEalnnered refiniemenits Tmasked a deeper savagery. His notebooks bear witness to h3is outrage against Arnold's "suiperfiia polish" (Notebooks, 383), filled with arguments and invective that he would later transfer to the miouth of his working-class Yankee: "'There are shams & shams, there are frauds & frauds, btut the transparentest of all is the sceptered one, . . A moniareby is perpetuated pi- racy. Irn its escutcheon should always be qcuartered the skull & cross-bones" (401). In the novel Twain makes varous attempts to deconstruct Arnold's binary oppositioni between English cilture and American phllistinsm. For instan-Ice, when iiank aknd Sandy witness a Chatuceriani procession of CONNECTICUT YANKE'E 17 the noble pilgrims, the Yankee notes the nascence of English culture: What they regarded as the merry tale went the continual rourld and caused no miore embarrassmient than it woulld hlave caused in the best Englislh society twelve centuries later. Practical jokes wordiy of the English wits of the first quarter of the far-off nineteenth century were sprung here and there and yonder along the line, and . . . you could niote its progress al the way by the sparkling spray of laughter it threw off from its bows as it plowed along; and also by the blushes of the mules in its wake. (Yankee, 194) Making pigs of niobility, idiots of knights, and "human sheep" (114) out of one of the most heralded societies in Western culture, Twain constructs a clear juxtaposition between the barbarous tradition of Arnold's England and the republcan legacy of America. Yet, buibblng just beneath the surface of Hank's liberation rhetoric is an ambition that refuses to be contained. During the above-quoted speech to a roadside audience of haggard peasants, Hank notices that there is one who demonstrates a sincere interest in his words. "This one's a main," he strate- gicaly notes. "if I were backed by enough of his sort, I would make a strike for the welfare of this country" (112). After Hank waxes democratically over the violent tyranny of the crown and the need for a "new deal" to sweep it away, he reveals that "I got [the man] to lend me a liffle ink from his veins; and with this and a sliver I wrote on a piece of bark- Put hitm in the Man-Factonyj" (114). The irony here is over- whelmi-ing. In order to imake his "strike," Hank transfers the letting of blood from an existent regime based on divine right to a nascent one based on capital. He performs a similar transfer wlhen he later frees one of Morgan le Fay's torture victims. Seeing a young man stretched out upon the rack for a enme he probably never committed, Hank asks the queen whv she held him accountable in the, lack of evidence. In words that betray his commnodified jurisprudlence, he implores le Fay, "%7here is the profit?" (154). Using his leverage as a repre- serntative of Arthur, Hank soon secures the freedom of the I'S THE MIDWEST' QUARTERLY condemned mianll and his wife He then goes oin to emiploy the rhetoric of democracy to consolidate his owni meanls to power: '"I'll b)o0k yoiu both. for my colonIy; you'll like it there: it's a Factoiy where I'm going to turn groping and grubbing automnata into iann" (157). The Factory, thenl becomnes a political way station between varying structures of auithority. Mixing politics with buisiniess, Hank consigrs his thankfuil flock to a space that is at one and tlhe same time a much- lauded sanctuary of freedom and the production line to a future apocalypse. The Yankee's keen btusiness sense is what allows him slowly to consolidate his power. After erecting himself as "The Boss--an apt term for the former Conniecticut forernan- he attempts to uirndernminle the establishment by comrmodify- ing its ideology. The kniightly qulEest becomes a salesman's gamne to unload cakes of soap and stove polish, creating a need where one did not exist and thereby ensuring lank's continued grovth. At the Valley of Holiness, l1ie spots a particularly alluring biusiness opportiinity. One hermiit wihose "fame had penetrated all Christeindom" demonstrates his faith by rapidly bowing as he prays. hIalnk ruminates, "It seemed a pity to have al this power going to waste," so he makes of the hermit a htuman motor for a primitive sewiing machine, able to turin out "upwards of eighteen tholulsand first-rate tow-linen shirts, which was ten a day" (213-14). Thtese debasernents do have their democratizing purpose, for by turning chivalry and me- dieval faith into a commercial venture> Hank would be strik- inig a blow at wlat he considers the prinary source of slave mentality. "This would undermine the Church. I mean [it] xwould be a step towvard that. Next, education-next freedom-anid then she would begin to erumble" (139). Again, his huimanistic code eventually gives way to a darker incompatible vision. The intendled beieficiaries of his egalitarian enterprise also become chattel for his eivihzation factory, inaking of the entire enterprise a nihihstic machine constructed solely for self-preservationi. This gets to the heart of l lank's double-edged view of man. Alongside all of h1is rnaud- CONNECTICUT YANKEE 19 lin sentime-ntality and his impassioned diatribes against social, economic, and political inequality is a bitter contempt for the single-mindedness of the common worker. TRhe tenuous dynamics of this attitude become especially poignant in his ac- quaintance with Marco. After listening to Marco express his joy in the death of his master, a treasonous comment in cer- tain circles, Hank celebrates the man's admission as an instance of pure bravery: "There it was, you see. A man is a mani, at bottorm. Whole ages of abuse and oppression cannot erush the manhood clear out of him. Whoever thinks it a mistake, is himself mistaken" (300). Yet, with a terse condem- nation that woluld embarrass even Twain's vilified Matthew Amold, Hlank himself makes that very mistake. Immediately after this laudation, Hank notices Marco's condescension to a slave, and he cries in a state of exasperation "Well, there are times when one would like to hang the whole human race and finish the farce" (302). Th-iis inconsistent view of human nature is prevalent throughout the text. Intermingled with all of his sympathetic and empowerinng rhetoric lie contemptu- ous references to the people as "white Indians" (20), "chil- dre-n" (30, 67, 94), "animals" (40, 54, 109), "nothing but rab- bits" (63), "4intellectual. moles" (67), "donkeys" (93), "'modified savages" (108), "human sheep" (114), "big chil- dren" (120) "a polished up court of Comanches" (129), "in- cornigible idiots" (234) and finally, perhaps the Yankee's most demeaning and poignant epithet, "human muck" (427). IHis readiness to disown his democratic discourse and condemn the human race does not necessarily expose his compassion as false-just as his compassion does not preclude his contempt-but on the contrary, it reveals the unsteady juxtapo- sitionI of competing impulses at work in Hank in an almost symbiotic fashion. Hank's egalitarian attitudes bring him closer to working-class Camelot, and as a result give him the popular recognition he craves. At the same time, this recognition feeds into his need to "boss" the population into a productive collection of subordinates, a problematic condi- 20 THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY tion which be at timues cotunters wvithl an-othier foray into demii- ocratc rhietoric. hn his oration orn "the ever-memorable and blessed Revo- luition," flank again exposes the inherent tensions Within his vision of liberty. 'Tlhere were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we wouild buit remember it and conisider it: the on.e wrought mI 5r- der in hot passion, the other in heartless cold Hood, the one lasted mere months, the other hiad lasted a thousandl years; the oIne inflicted death uponi tein thousand persons, the otheer uponi a hiundlred millions" (I Ll). What are the hbrrors of the r'nomnentaiy Terror" of freedomn lie reasons, in comparison to the "real Terror' of monarechy? Thins passage fosters a cu- mious exercise in1 political double reading. On the surface Hank uises the "blessed Revolution" as a conirparative device to illtstrate the uniifathomable atrocities of fedl gvern mrents, Below the surface, however, another language is at vork. By constructing a tenuous binary and dwarfing onie atrocity to another, he is actually encouraging a rationalization of terror. "Whlat is the horror of swift deathl by the ax," he argues, compared wvith life-long death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heart-break? what is swift death by light- nEing, compared with death by slow fire at the stake?" (112). Ini this sense, the figure of Hank as am empowered hero is complicated by his willingness to view people, not as an end in themselves, buit as a means to a pulrely abstracted and highly problematic notior of progress. in the struggle. toNvard a better world, sueh arguments of terror are often used for ideological posturing, by both revolutionaries and reaction- aries alike. Even though Hank realizes talt it will take a violent rev- olttior, not a series of graduial reforms, to overturn thle in- stitution of chivalry, be nevertheless distancese himself from that possibility. "What this folk needed, tlheni, was a Reign of Terror and a gutillotine, amid I was the wrvg matn for them" (183). His intentions for chaIge are subtler and mnore peace- ilnature, yet at the samrne timte they betray a desig fbr domination that runs counter to the democratic rietoric he CONNECJICUT YANKEE 21

easily espouises. This exposture becomes apparent as soon as Hanik enters the kingdom. Being "a practical Connecticut mani," he takes account of his predicament and sets his goals accordingly: I made up my minid for two thinigs: if it was still the nineteenth century and I was among lunatics and couldn't get away, I would presently boss that asylumn or know the reason why; anid if on the other hand it was really the sixth cenituiry, all right, Tdidn't want ariy softer thiing: I would boss the whole country inside of tiree monlths, (17) Once he discovers his temporal location, he quickly realizes the unlimited entrepreneurial possibilities of his rule: '"1 wouldn't have traded it for the twentieth [centujry]. Look at thie opportunities here for a mani of knowledge, brains, pluck, and enterprise to sail in and grow iip with the country. The grandest field that ever was; anad all my own; not a competitor nor the shadow of a competitor" (62-63). It is strikingly ob- vious whNy Hank prefers Arthlur's world to his own. Here he, an inconsequential factory foreman back in Connecticut, is the most educated man in all EDgland, and to Hank knowledge eqtuals power. His audience is ignorant of the sources of his jerrybutilt "miracles," and Hank is content to keep them that way. Indeed, their ignorance is the source of his power. When the monks of Camelot witness his newspaper for the very first time, they are spellbound by it-"Ah-h-a miracle, a wonder! Dark work of enchantment"-and when they in- quire as to its nature, Hank purposely denies them the knowledge. He would much rather be admired than be uniderstood, as he basks in the monks' complete reverence: These grotuped bent heads, these charmed faces, these speaking eyes-how beatutiful to mel For was not this nmy darling, and was riot al this mute wonder and iinterest anid hoinage a most eloquient tribute and unforced comziplimnent to it? . . . I sat motionl-ess, steeped int sat- isfactioni, drunk with enjoyment. Yes, this was hieaven; I was tasting it onice, if I mnight never taste it more. (262) FHank craves admiration in an almost orgasmic way, for it is something that was absent back home. In the nirneteenth century lhe is notlhiing rnore than a common worker and "could 22 THLE[v MiDWEST QUARTERLY drag a seine down the street any day andi catch a hiiunBdred better imen than mnyself" (63). His Jacksonian celebration of th-e free laborer, all that is "usefil, or worth saving, or really respect-worthy" in a nation (109), begins to pale when placed alonigside the promirises of a reputation. Hereini lies the par- adox of Hank's missionJ in Camelot: if he succeeds in educat- inig and liberating the freemen, then he ultimately loses tthe source of h:is power, privileged knowledge. The effects of mass enlightenmnent would place h1.ank in a society that colild prod-uce, in his o-wni words, "a hundreed better men than myself," a coniditioln that he finids flar from satisfactory. Haink easily falls prey to these entrapments of the ego. There are momentswhen his self-aggrandizement seems be- nign, noth-iing more than the jeffersonian admission of equal- ity that hie carries throughout CamFelot. His pronouncements, Hanik is careftl to add, should never be seein as absolute: "Thlat wasn't a law; it wasn't gospel: it was only an opinioni- imy opinion, anid I wvas only a man, one miani: so it wasn't woIth any more thanithe pope's-or any less, for that miatter" ( 61). Hidden within this egalitarian text lies another, more meni- acing meaninlg, indicating anothier double play at work. OIn the onie h-and, tl-he target of Hank's criticism is the Churel, his most formidable opponent and the primary obstacle to inidividutal expression. Yet Twain is careful to reveal that it is the Pope, the absolute power in sixth-centuy Cathtolic Eng- land, and not Kiing Arthutir, th-ie Pope's metaphysical subor- dinate, to which Hank chooses to compare hlimself An inm- plication here is that by juxtaposing his opinion and the Pope's, Ha!nk is exalting h-is position within the comn1111UIity. In this reading, the offset words "or any less, for that matter" contain ani elevated, if niot foreboding, ring to them. They are at once a noble admission of individual au:toInomy and a carefully constructed challenge that srnacks of the most grandiose ambition. Hank's egoistic assuminption of authority is born ou1t else- wlhere. Although he abhors the titles of the nobility, Flank quicEkly anid gladly dons o-ne of his own-The Boss-when he CONNECT7CUT YANKEE 23

sees that it will suiit h1is purposes: "Thait suited me. And it was a pretty high title. There were very few THE's, and I was one of them" (69). Even before he is bestowed with his cotrtly title, he manieuvers his way into the graces of the crown by assuming one of his own-"the Supreme Grand High-yu- Mucka-mn-uck" (39)-whvile at the same time indirectly com- paring his mission with that of both Columbus and Codes, two other outsiders, "mysteriouis strangers" if you will, wh1o did not hlesitate to place themselves in a privileged position. In order to democratize Camelot, an essentialization of his own power becomes, inl Hank's eyes, a necessity. "I was no shadow of a king; I was the substanee, the king himself was the shadow. My power was colossal; and it was not a miere name, as such things have generally been, it was the genuine article... I was a Unique" (63). lIe does not hesitate to refer to himself as "a real artist" (39), "a superior man" (38), and "a superior being-and I was. I was aware of tlhat" (224). Along with all of these earlier statements, then, it comes as no surprise when, on the gallows in London, Hank places his life above that of King Arthur's. His position becomes "more important, not merely to me, buit to the nation-the only nation on earth staniding ready to blossom into civilization" (373). Here he takes the ultimate step in authoritariani poli- ties: the will of the nation becomes embodied in the will of its "boss." Hank personifies, in many ways, Rousseau's highly problematic notion of the general will, a "natural." social con- tract by whiclh individual interests are vested in a sovereign bodly that, by the mere fact of its existence, represents the collective interest of society. This emphasis on a reputation is central to Hank's power machine, and in his own practical way he realizes it. From the very beginning he sows the seeds of his suceess by ma- nipuilating the masses. He performs his "miracles" with a flurry of bravado and the intention of stupefying his atudience. "The money's in the dletails," he tells the reader, "tlhe more details, the more swag" (74). Similarly, "I never care to do a thing in a quiiet way; it's got to be theatrical, or I don't take 24 TIlE MIDWEST' QUARTERLY aniy interest in it" (309) Thiis is the Toni Saawyer side of Hank, die perfornie- who knows that sho(wng off with a variet of effects is the best way to captur e ani audience. Such colorful displays have their own -formulaic nmethods, Much like th-e lesson Twain had learned oin the lecture eireuits early in lis career. Hank explains that "it 'is wa a god thing to let your atdience have a chiance to wvork up its expectancy' (221). Inl the Vallev of Holiness, he reveals a formula that goes a long¢, way in explainiing tlle n-esnienzing effects of tdte Nurem- berg rallies: Wlew you- are going to (do a mniracle for an ignorant race, you wantt tO get in every detail thlat will cotunt; you want to make all th-e properties imnpressive to) the piubli eye; you want to makef matters comfortable for your head guest, tllen you ctan turn yourself loose and jilay your effects for all they are worth. 1 I now thle value of these things. for I know humnan nature. Youi can't throwv too muchl style inzto a lmliracle. It costs trouble, and work, arid sonietimeos mone, hult it pays ins the e-nd. (219-)

Thle grand display with Merlin's tower, for instant e, is coiln modified in terms of Hanik's authorithn: it "solidified m3Sy power, and madle it i-nipregnable' (62). This is exactly what the Ya£kee wants. By investing in a repurtation, I-lan1k realizes that he will later he able "to turn- it to somiie valuable account" with tthe xwe-stricken rkiniltitudes (226). To Hank, niothing is mrore imriportant than the recogniition of h-iis authority by the mnasses. "To be vested withl efmtormnotis atl.thority is a fine thinEg; hut to hiave the on-looking woirid co-nsent to it is a firner' (62). As with any authoritarian, as lorng as the Yankee possesses thlis recognition, his stature is as- sured; wh7leni mt begins to Nvane, hie becomes both disturbed and resentful. After the explosion of Merlin's towfer, Hank cann.:ot understand why it is that nobov asks hirn for his an- tograpli.. Similarly, lie becom es upset inmediateclv after the restoration of the htohl fountain when another magiciani attempts to stead Ihis spotliglt. After defeating hlis rival anid as- sunriig h3is reputation was -ini the sky, again," Ilank takes a business sch:ool approachi to the political lesson to be drawn: CONNEC7TCUT YANKEE 25

"Yes, a mnan can keep his trade-mark current in such a country, buit he can't sit around and do it; he has got to be on deck and attending to business, riglt along" (236). Perhalps this greed of recognition and its place within Hank's political program are nowlhere more evident than in his encounter with the blacksmith DowleyIHank and King Arthur are traveling the countryside masquierading as peasants in order to give the king a firsthland impression of his impoverished subjects, thereby maling the Yan:kee's democratizing task easier. Oni their journey, they befriend Marco aind treat him to a grandiose banquette that will impress his guests, one of whom is the relatively well-to-do Dowley. What begins as an exercise in good will soon becomes for H-fank a game of economie one-uip-manship. Dowley, a self-made mana prone to boastfulness, becoimies a "crushed inan" by comparison when he learns how much the feast costs, and Hank cannot lielp but take comfort in the blacksmith's defeat: "Yes, Dowley was a good deal wilted, and shlrunk-ulp, and collapsed; he had the aspect of a bladder-balloon that's been stepped on by a cow" (319). Later, d:uring a discussion wvith Dowley on political economy, Hank's competitiveness takes on a much more aggressive tone: "I rigged up my pile-driver, and allowed myself fifteen miinutes to drive him into the earth-drnve him all in-drive him in till not even the euive of his skull shou-ld show above the around." When Dowley does not fall for Hank's rhetorical traps, the Yanikee feels that he "could have shot him. from sheer vexation" (324). HIs fantasy of murder and burial leaves no question as to the underlying focus of his intention. In an egomaniacal flourish filled witl conltempt for his adversary, Hank rails: think of the circumstances! the first statesman of the age, the capab'est man, the best informed man in the entire world, the loftiest uneroswvned headi that had moved through the clouds of any political firmamrelnt for centuries, sitting here apparently defeated in argument by ar ignorant cou-ntry blacksmitlh! (328) What enrages Flank so is not Dowley's reluctance to admit defeat-he is, after alL, only an "ignoranit country black- 26 T2HE' MIDWEST QUARTERLY smiith"-but the admiration bestowved upoin himn by his au- dienee. Even under the guise of peasant garb, Hank still de- nmands recognitioni. The scene concludes with a violen-t brawl fromyr whlich Hiank and the ling are strategically able to extri- cate themselves . "We stepped aside and looked oft while fthey rolled and struggled, arid gou-ged, and pounded anrd bit, wfhi the strict and wordless attention to business of so many bull- dogs" (338). It is significant that it is the Yankee's business reputation, his views on free trade, that ignites the party's distrust and violently turns one of his much-heralded freenen against another. Wlhen Hank puts hiis aggressive reflex down as a mere display of "humnan nature," something that "any- body woild have done" (328), he reveas the self-serving impulses tlat underltie even tle most noble rletoric of collectIie freedoin. As Han-k demonstrates tim-le anid again, there alwavs rests a dark and potentially destructive force hiddepn bel:ow the deemocratic gloss of h-tis actions. Much like his transplanted nineteenth- century, "feneed away fromU the public eye' yet 'boomming uder its very nose," Haank possesses bothi the promise of liberation and threat of annihilation, a snioldering dialogue of conflict that Twain effectively captures in e im- age of the volcano: "T'here [the civihzation factory] was, as sure a fact, as substantial a fact as any serenie volcanlo, stand- inlg innocent witl its smokeless stummit in the blue sky ard giving n}o sign of the rising hlell in its bowels" (82). Volcanoes held a particular fascination for 'rwaifi. In his earliest works they fuinction as a symbol for bothi desolation and regeneration-see for instance tthe ascent of Vesuvius in Tim Innocents Abroad anid Sam's Haleakala expeditioin In Roughingr ft-as well as a metaphor for Twain ms a writer (Lynn, 248). In an extenided yet highly re-vealing passage-romn LkSfe on tdle Mississippi, Twain luses voleanic imagery to describe the dynamics of oration and hoW such eruptions of performaince violently capture its audience. With words that could effectively describe Twain's hell-warmed peTn as well ais Hanik's own branid of miracle-making, he says: CONNEC7ICUT YANKEE 27

Anid now the stranger stepped back one pace, took off his soldier-cap, tossed it into the winig, and began to speak, with deliberation, nobody listening, everybody laughing and whispering. The speaker talked on unembarrassed, and presently delivered a shot which went hoime, and silenice and attention resulted. He followed it quick and fast, with other telling things; warmed to his work and began to pour his words out, instead of drippinig thern; grew hotter and hotter, and fell to discharg- ing lightninigs and thunder,-and now the house began to break into applatuse, to which the speaker gave nio heed, but went hammering straight on; unwound :his black bandage and east it away, still thurn- dering; presenitly discarded the bob-tailed coat anld fltng it aside, firinig Up higher and higher all the time; finally flung the vest after the coat; and then for an untimed period stood there, like another Vesuvius, spouting smoke and flaime, lava and ashes, raining pumice-stone anld ciniders, shaking the moral earth with intellectual crash upon crash, explosiorn upon explosion, while the mad multitude stood upon their feet in a solid body, answering back witlh a ceaseless hurricane of cheers, throtuglh a thrashing snow-storm of waving handkerehiefs. (394- 95)

This volatile force seething beneath the surface of Hank's placid liberalism is what turs a potentially constructive con- versation witlh Dowley into a violent free-for-all. When Hank prepares to take on the blacksmith in debate, he does so gradually, building to a crescendo effected to explode into a most dramatic climax. He states, in language reminiscent of the above passage: Well, when I inake up mny mind to hit a mnan, I don't plan out a love- tap; no, that isn't my way; as lonig as I'm going to hit him at all, I'm going to hit him a lifter. And I don't jiump at him all of a suddein, and risk m-naking a blundering half-way business of it; no, I get away off yonder to one side, and work tup on him gradually, so that he never suspects that I'm going to hit him at all; and by and by, all in a flash, he's flat of his back, and he can't tell for the life of him how it all happened. (Yankee, 328) Siinilarly, flank destroys Merlin's tower in a "vast volcanic fountain of fire" (59), and in the Valley of Holiness he em- ploys a combination of ghastly phrases and fireworks to create a spectacle that will solidify his reputation. Staniding before 250 acres of the valley's faithful, Hank carefully builds on 28 2THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY aucience expectation and then-:lets loose with "one of the best effects 1 ever inveiuted': "Thiere [tthe fires] were, 'll going at onlce, red, Hlue, green, purple&!-four furious volcanoes poTr- iing vast clou-ds of racdianit smoke aloft, and spreading a blind- ing rainbowed nioonicday to the furthest confinies of tie valley followed by -a vast founitain of dazzling lainc es of fire [that] vom-nited itself toFwadt the zenith wtlh aLihissing rutish, autd burst in m1id-sky inito a storn of flashing jewels'- (221-23). Even his newspaper, a velicele designed to help destroy chlivalry and thie Church19 is aptly titled:}, thle Weekly HoSaI'nnalipeeand Liteary Volcano. During his last years in Camelot. Hank hias a difficult timne mainaftaining the teinuouis ba-lance between progress an-id de- strIuctionl. At his jousting natch with Sir Sagraimour he effec- fively ehminates t:he remiiaininig obstacles to his sixth-century Utopia, buit does so in another volcanic volley of force. Twain has strippeed a-way thie lFst remnants of Hantk's liberal rhetoriec leaving onlvy a farcical and hyperbolic Violence chuaacteristic of some of the best southwestern storytlelling. (M'Viany read dle violence at the end of tte iovel as an abrupt darkening of Twain's narrative vsion. However, inF terrns o-f the comriposi- tional significance of tfie iovel, see howard C. Baetziold [459] and Everett Carter [432]. Both dlemonstrate that the canrage at the end of the novel wa,s plannied from the beginning, and that in conceiving it '[warn was pullling from}Tl hTs early soutlhwestern experleitece.) After cleanly downinfig ten knights with his revolver at the jouLstinig mnatch, Hank basks iii the euphorna of the moment, for "tlhe march of clVlization was begin. H-oxw did I feel? Ah yotu never cou3ld imagine it" (393). His prosject is comTIplete' civilization com-nes to Camyelot i the foiri ofnmass proiodtctioi, communication, and travel, and hFank eveni mnakes planis to export his forn of governmenit overseas. Blit perhaps his most ffective-and m-iost irODniC- sluccess collies wvhen lhe indoctrinates the nobility into a cap- italhist Ideology. Hlank tunriis the Rounitd T able into a mned&evai stock market, teiporariity leaVilg Camelot t) nrn itself, and onece again busine:s5 niterests-in this case Sir Launcelot's CODNNECTICUT YANKEE 29

insider trading-transform-n democratic intentions into a deadly violence. After tlhe war anid the interdict, The Boss responds with his final volcanic eruption of authority, one that completely exposes the megalomaniac tensions at work in his character. Standirng before his small band of youthful warri- ors, H[ank rallies the forces with a cry, 'We will kill them all," which is folowed by a "loud and long continued applauise" (433). The dramatic performer has learned his lesson well, for with the mere touch of a button-one of the most pow- erful images of vested authority-he brings his show to a thunderous standstill with a firestorm of "fifty electric suns" anid gatfing guns that "vomit death," killing twenty-five thou- sanid men (a number greater than that of the "minor" Reign of Terror he refers to earlier). Resounding joy is Hank's onlv response to such a holocaust: "there was a groan you could hear!" (440). The apocalyptic crescendo at the Battle of the Sand-Belt, as sudden and as drastic as it may seem, is but the final expression of a dialectic tension incapable of any true synthesis. Hank's utopia-n aims are never able to withstand the surges of his own inflated ego, and in the end the whole enterprise breaks up, as if otit of a sense of childish frustration. Twain may have intended to use the Yankee to celebrate the Amer- ican project, but he was nonetheless familiar with the capitalist engine beliind that system, and how its dangers lay in an uneasy state of negative possibility, A democratic liberalism fueled by an economy that nurtuires an unrestrained in- dividuaiism can easily give birth to saviors and tyrants alike- yet with no ready means of clistinguishing one from the other. Suich an arrangemenlt is tenuouis at best, deadly at worse. This. whetler inteinded or not, is perhaps the ultimate lesson to be drawn from Twain's problematic hero. Behinid the amusing exhibition of the Yankee's lariat, lies the self-serving reality of a dragoon revolver.

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Carter, Everett. "Thbe Meanoing of A Coutiect'tInt Yisakee" Amnerican Literature50 (1978), 419- 40. ODian, Johnli S. 1-TankMorgan: Artist Runl Amuck. Memmarottsetts Studies In EnglIhh 3 (1972), 72-77. D)Oglasg;S Ann. Art ald Advertising in A Connecticult Yankkee T1he 'Robber Banon' Revis- ited." Canadian Revtiew of A7ne2carn Studes 6 (1975), 82-)95 Fetteledy, Judith. Yankee Showmnan and Reformer.: 'The Character of Matk Tvain's flank MorganS " Texas Studies in Literature riid Language 14 (197:3), 667-79. Fick, Thomas H-. "Mark Twain's Machine Politics: Unyisetaphoring inlA Conne ticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court. Anm•ri'ogm Literary Reatimsm 20 (1988), 30-42? Fienbberg, Loise "T'wain's Connecticut Yankee: '?in Entrepreneur As a Daimonic llero." Mvodern Fiction Studlies 28 (1982), 155-67. Hlasen, Chadwick. "Thne Once arid Future Boss: Mark Twainfi's Yankee " Nimteentet -Cen- teAfl 1ictioin 28 (1973), 62-73, Kaplan, Tustin. iMr. Cle/ose's rind Mark Tuwin: A Biography. New York: Simon, 1966. New York: Touichstone, 1983. Lynn, Kenneth S. M14ark iwaian and Southwestern Hsamnor. Nvestportt con,nedticut: Green- wvood Press, 1959. Sewe'1 l, Davkl R. "Hank Morgan and the Colornization of Utopipa" Ainertenoin Transecen&eta? Quarter-ly,3 (19891, 27 44. Toles, Geeorge E. ".ark Twain asid Piddnhead Wilson: A House Divided." No vel (1982), 55-75. Twain, Mark. A Conntecticfut Yankee in King Arthbr's CGoot. 1889. Ed. Bernard Stein. Berke- ley: University of Califoniia Pess, 1983 Life on the MIssissippi. 1883. Ec. James M4CGx. New York: Pengisin, 1984 .Mark TTwain, Business Matt. Ed. Sarnuel C Webster. Boston: Lttle, 1946. Mark 'i'wain-Howells Letters. Ed. H. N Smith nd W. M. Gibsoi. 2 svols. Cambridge: Reward University Press 1980. -. Mark To am's Letters. Ed. A. B Paine. 2 vols. New York: Ilarper and Brothers, 1917. - Mark Ttains's Notebooks &Jossrntal, Volume II (1883-1891). Eds. R. P. BroNwiniig M. B. Frank, and L. Sahano. Berkeley' Uiiversity of California Press, 197 9. . Psdd'nheadi IVilson and Those Extraordinary Twarcs. 1894. Ed. Mklcolm Bradbury. New York: Pengtini, 1986. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: Eruptions of Performance: Hank Morgan and the Business of Politics SOURCE: Midwest Q 45 no1 Aut 2003 WN: 0328801683001

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