A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Todays paper is a book report on Mark Twains Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court, which is an adventurous book about a man named Hank who travels from 1879 to 528 and on. This is the time of King Arthurs reign. The author introduces many characters that explain the different types of people in those times, such as Merlin, a professed magician, Morgan Le Fay, King Arthur's sister, Marco, a pretended freeman, and many others. I will give a quick overview of the book, write about what I learned, and give my personal opinions throughout this paper. Beginning with the content, I will first write explain what the book is about.

Hank found himself walking on a road with scraggly half naked people gaping at him like he was crazy. He found out from a young boy named Clarence that is was the year 528, and Hank was to become the servant of Sir Kay. Sir Kay put Hank in the dungeon after he spoke without being spoken to, and stripped his clothes. Hank desperately wanted to escape, but found that there was no way out except to lie. So he told Clarence to tell the king that he was a magician, magicians were widely respected at this time, and of course the king asked to see him at once. However, the already well known magician Merlin, predicted that Hank was lying, and he was put up on the stake to be burned if he didn't prove himself. Luckily, because of his higher knowledge, Hank pretended he was changing the weather by knowing when an eclipse was coming, drawing in the sky with his fingers by using fireworks, and overall amaze the people of the 6th century with his "inventions". After seeing what Hank could do, he put Merlin on weather duty, and hired Hank to be the one and only BOSS ------- a new found magician. Hank soon had a similar amount of power to that of the King, but once 5 years had passed, he was getting bored with his easy life and decided to take a journey.

Hank went to several towns with his group, some men and a woman named Sandy, and on the last leg of his trip, he came to a town called Hopewell. In this town there was a "holy fountain" that was broken, and apparently unfixable. Merlin even declared that it would never be fixed. When Hank came into town, he found the reason that the fountain wasn't working; a leak in the pipes. He and his servants fixed the fountain in the middle of the night, and called the fixed fountain a work of magic, which of course, everyone believed. In this town and in many other times in the book, an idea of thought was introduced, for the author wanted to convey the way he believed people thought about certain things back then. In Hopewell, a new "magician" showed up. Everyone believed his powers of knowing what anyone was doing in that moment were real, and never tried to test him. However, Hank knew this "magician" was a fake, and tested him, asking him what he was doing with his hand, which the man couldn't see. Of course the man couldn't answer, and made an excuse to protect his reputation. Hank worked around this excuse and still managed to show up this new "magician". This part in the book really showed me how people have changed over the years. In the 6th century, most people believed the impossible, and didn't think twice about mind reading or other phenomena such as that. But nowadays, nobody would believe a mind reader without running several hundred tests in a specified lab.

The king came to Hopewell to go on a journey with Hank, that Hank proposed to open Arthur's mind to the rest of the world. This journey was going to be a journey of two freemen. (In the 6th century, this term was referred to someone who was a not a slave, but did not have much choice in their life. For example: A freeman can grow crops on their land as they please, but if a noble needs land for their food, or food for their family, they can come right over to a freeman's land and take what they want, and the owner can do nothing about it. Usually freemen are poor, and are sometimes called peasants.)

Hank and Arthur disguised themselves as peasants, took a couple off satchels, and began their journey. At first, the king had much trouble with his role, he would not bow when a noble came by, he would stand straight up and walk like royalty, and he would talk like he was giving orders. Therefore, when nobles passed by, many times, Hank and Arthur were whipped. For a long time, this journey continues. They come to a house where the family is dying of smallpox, and they have no money, no food, and their house is a horrible pigsty. King Arthur risked his life to help the family until they died that night. This was an example of his bravery. They also went to the house of a freeman named Marco, and they stayed there for a while. He had a nicer situation then most; his house was big, he had lots of land, and a well paying job. At Marco's house, Hank tried to teach him and his friends new ideas, new ways to think of things, and instead of taking them in, Marco and his buddies chased them out of town and tried to kill them. Nobles came up to save them from Marco, but the nobles actually took them to be sold as slaves! Hank and Arthur learn the life of a slave, and soon escape, however they are caught and Arthur almost gets hanged. In the end he is saved, and knows much more about the world, and even considers ending slavery. Hank also gets married and has a daughter, but does not live to see her grow up.

In this book I learned about the culture, the people, and the king of the 6th century. Although this was fiction, I believe the author did a very good job of explaining how he thought the people lived in that time, and to me, it seemed fairly accurate. Mark Twain created characters that made it seem as they were real people, and it was easy to imagine them through his descriptions. I also learned a little bit about the King himself. King Arthur was obviously not very aware of the challenges his subjects were going through, but he was very involved in his reign. He fought many battles, and in history books is known as a military hero. He was very brave and understood many ideas according to this book. To be honest, while I was reading this book, I was confused in many places. I actually had to go back and read some parts over so I would know what was happening. For me it was one of the more difficult books I read, because I really had to process and think about the heavy content. I would recomend the book to anyone who wants to learn about the 6th century in a fun way, and also get some classic english literature in. In this book report, I wrote about the story, my opinions, and what I learned. Overall, the book was hard to read and confusing at times, but the learning involved was rewarding.