1090 Twain, Mark
these items become supplemented by increasingly
frivolous commercial products, such as gentlemen’s
furnishings and stove polish (yet there are no stoves).
Moreover, the knights are “equipped with sword and
battle axe, and if they couldn’t persuade a person to
try a sewing machine on the installment plan, or
a melodeon . . . or any of the other thousand and
one things they canvassed for, they removed him
and passed on.” Although the Boss refers to the
knights as “missionaries,” his execution of commer-
cial advertising through brute force dramatizes the
ruthlessness of business. Commerce becomes, quite
literally, cutthroat when consumers offer too much
resistance.
The Boss seems to believe his actions are in the
best interest of society, and he passionately advocates
for democracy, equality, and freedom from feudal
servitude. He criticizes the institutions of slavery
and the exploitation of the peasant class at length,
and he develops fiscal policies regarding taxation
and wages that purportedly ensure a more even dis-
tribution of wealth. But in his actions, the Boss does
not dissolve class hierarchies or institute democratic
business and political practices; he simply reconfig-
ures the way in which exploitation is carried out,
doing so in the name of improving social welfare.
He consistently objectifies people, sending worthy
candidates to his “Man-factory,” one of the many
experimental laboratories in which he trains elect
individuals to a particular modern skill or trade. He
also experiments with economics by implementing
free trade and protection systems in separate regions,
using real people and villages to test the efficacy of
each theory without regard to the ramifications this
experiment has on their quality of life. The Boss
also uses a renowned hermit at the Valley of Holi-
ness to both manufacture and endorse tow-linen
shirts, which are then sold at an exorbitant price to
pilgrims and marketed nationally by the knights.
Although this business line exploits the hermits,
the pilgrims, and the knights, the Boss fails to see
the similarity between himself and the exploitative
feudal nobility he so often criticizes.
The Boss consistently negotiates and judges
sixth-century culture, politics, and people through
the lens of 19th-century commercialism. The para-
doxical conflict between his advocacy of democracy
and his self-serving objectification and exploitation
of nobility and peasants alike might be read as anal-
ogous to the conflicting aspects of the American
dream and thereby serve as a dark satire of com-
mercialism in a liberal democracy.
Kristine WilsonScIence and tecHnoLoGy in A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
When Hank Morgan, a 19th-century American,
awakes in sixth-century Britain, he quickly surmises
the advantage afforded him by his knowledge of
modern science and technology. Hank initially uses
this advantage simply as a means of self-preserva-
tion: His apparent foreknowledge of an eclipse saves
him from execution, and his savvy with explosives
enables him to create the illusion that he is a pow-
erful wizard, thereby securing both his life and his
position of power in King Arthur’s court.
Viewing medieval Britain through the eyes of a
19th-century capitalist, Hank quickly assesses his
situation and determines to “improve” the condi-
tions of the local population while at the same time
establishing personal power and wealth. His motives
are ambiguous, however. Although he certainly seeks
financial and political gain, Hank also expresses a
seemingly sincere desire to improve the lives of the
medieval Britons by introducing them to modern
science and technology. He is genuinely confounded
when his plans backfire, and his consternation at
the population’s resistance to “progress” leads to his
despotic last effort at the Battle of the Sand-belt.
Through Hank Morgan, Mark Twain critiques the
19th century’s privileging of science and technology
in the wake of the Industrial Revolution by showing
that, although it improves the standard of living, it
can also be destructive. In this way, A Connecticut
Yankee is a cautionary tale.
Perhaps one of Hank’s most consistent criti-
cisms of the people of the sixth century is that they
are irrational and have no faculty for reasoning. His
emphasis on empiricism and rationality are evident
in the 19th-century idioms he employs throughout
the text. As with the language of commerce and
advertising, Hank uses scientific and technological
metaphors in his speech, implying that technology
has made his thinking more mechanical, efficient,