A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 1089Hank uses his power as “The Boss” to reorganize
the government into departments and surrepti-
tiously infiltrate the countryside with the makings of
“civilization,” including schools, factories, and even
a newspaper. Within a few years, these institutions
have grown so substantially that the country has
effectively transformed into a civilization that meets
19th-century standards. A young page, whom Hank
dubs Clarence, is his staunchest ally and right-hand
man in these enterprises.
After defeating the institution of knight-
errantry, the Boss’s final goal is to democratize the
nation through a bloodless revolution. This plan is
thwarted when his child with Alisande la Carteloise
(“Sandy”) becomes ill, and they must go abroad. He
returns to find a civil war raging and the country
under the church’s interdict. His proclamation of
a republic in the wake of King Arthur’s death
stirs the knights and the entire country against the
Boss and his small band of supporters; the knights
are decimated by the superior technology of the
republicans, but the Boss and his gang are in turn
defeated when they realize that the wall of corpses
that encircles their enclave prevents their escape and
is slowly poisoning them with its putrefaction. Mer-
lin places an enchantment on the Boss, and he alone
escapes death to reawaken back in the 19th century.
Kristine Wilson
commodIFIcatIon/commercIaLIzatIon
in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
The Boss Morgan, the character whose narrative
comprises the majority of A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur’s Court, resolves to make the best of his
situation when he finds himself inexplicably trans-
ported from 19th-century America to sixth-century
Britain. He quickly notes his own business savvy
and his advantage in possessing foreknowledge of
the future and determines to “boss the whole coun-
try inside of three months.” Indeed, once he has
achieved a position of power, he takes on the title
“The Boss.” The Boss’s commitment to modern-
ization, efficiency, technology, education, and self-
determination satirizes the enterprising but greedy
nature of 19th-century American business.
The Boss’s vocabulary is littered with metaphors
derived from commerce, which he uses in reference
to abstract concepts, inanimate objects, and human
beings alike. The interchangeability with which he
treats these contexts reflects the hypocrisy of his
concern for the welfare of the peasants; he consis-
tently objectifies individuals in both speech and
practice. His attitude toward Sandy as a machine
that consumes resources, “using up all the domestic
air, [so] the kingdom will have to go to importing it
by to-morrow,” extends to women in general when
he classifies some as “society’s very choicest brands,”
thus equating them with commercial products. He
later decides to marry Sandy, since local customs
regard her as his property.
The Boss’s interactions with Merlin also bear
the mark of business. After he destroys Merlin’s
tower with blasting powder, “Merlin’s stock was flat.”
When the Boss is asked to restore the water to the
well at the Valley of Holiness, he contends that “two
of a trade must not under-bid each other. . . . Merlin
has the contract; no other magician can touch it till
he throws it up.” The Boss sees Merlin as nothing
more than a fellow charlatan and business com-
petitor in the wizardry “racket.” While humorous in
contrast to the speech of the sixth century, the Boss’s
language, particularly as he uses it to commodify
other people, provides evidence of the ruthless com-
mercialism that shapes his reasoning and ethics.
In keeping with his fashioning of himself as a
powerful magician, the Boss decides to strategically
disseminate particular bits of information in order
to secure his reputation. When performing his so-
called miracles, he notes that “[m]any a small thing
has been made large by the right kind of advertis-
ing.” He also uses advertising strategies to sub-
liminally infiltrate the country with a desire for the
products and advancements he plans to introduce
in his modernization efforts, which he believes will
even further secure his reputation and power.
To accomplish this end, he uses the influential
knights to broadcast intentionally placed messages,
which develops into a campaign to turn them all
away from knight-errantry and toward “some use-
ful employment.” He begins recruiting them to
wear sandwich-board advertisements while can-
vassing the countryside. Ostensibly an effort to
“civilize” the people of the sixth century, the earliest
advertisements are for hygiene-related items, but