REVIEW AND ANALYSIS BY: Ian Dosland
Hank Morgan is the Connecticut Yankee Twain writes about. He is an industrialist who is living in the North shortly after the reconstruction of the South, post-Civil War. His character seems to be a caricature of what is thought of the archetypal Northern industrialist: modern, pragmatic, sly, wholly inartistic, and in the case of this story he is "chronocentric". Hank lives by the notion that his time is as good as things would get: people are "free" men and are in control of their own destinies. There is a certain glass-half-full-ness about Hank's character. From a political standpoint, Hank Morgan is a libertarian. He finds patriotic symbols to be empty, exemplified in his view of flags: "to be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, do die for rags-- that is a loyalty of unreason" (93). Hank thinks that, "the country is what is important, and that the governing institutions are extraneous" (93). He believes in the power of markets, and is wary of what he calls the "tyranny of trade unions" (265).
For reason's I shall not give away, Hank is thrust back to the time of King Arthur. He is met by a knight, and immediately taken captive. Hank is under the assumption that everyone must be crazy. Despite being surrounded by people of the same nature, he is still certain that lunatics surround him. He also finds out that he is to be killed. This is the first instance where Hank's enterprising nature comes into play, by "playing his cards" to the best of his abilities. Throughout the book this is his character's great strength.
Hank constantly refers to the medieval people as: "children, simple, dull-witted, animalistic, White-Indian, modern savages," and so on. Here is where we find the real shift in Hank's character. He is supposedly a pragmatic man who is against institutional discrimination and slavery, and already at this point in the novel he has adopted the mentality of the slave master. Regardless of this mentality, Hank frequently makes references to the status of slaves and of the unearned power of the King and nobility.
As a capitalist, Hank is confronted with a society where anything that he knows how to produce is new and innovative. At this point, Hank decides to build factories to produce the conveniences of his modern time. Two of the interesting items that come to mind are soap and oven-cleaner. Hank understands Freud's (now) age-old adage that "soap is the measure of civilization". Here is Hank, giving these medieval people their first taste (or smell) of civilization. It doesn't matter that they are an organized society with a hierarchy and laws, because the material goods are what matters, in Hank's mind. The stove polish is the item that stands out the most amongst Hank's wares. The fact is, at this point in time people do not have ovens! This does not matter to Hank, the "venture capitalist"! If there is no need for something, he simply creates a need for it; it is simple enough for him to tell people they need this item (140).
Hank’s soap factory spews out pollution with no regard to its impact on others. At one point the King and Sir Lancelot choke and gag from nausea as a result of the emissions. This is a testament to what it was like for people living in the post-Civil War South during reconstruction, when the carpetbaggers (Northern industrialists) came to the South and began establishing factories.
There are hints of pre-existentialism in this Twain work. Hank frequently acknowledges the power of the church, and the need to break down the church's stranglehold on society at large. He plans to do this by instituting a more laissez-faire version of Christianity. Hank refers to the church as the heavenly despotic power, and thinks it’s power over people is the most absolute, perfect, and effective. There are peasants who are, by definition, not slaves. However, Hank views the church as the slave master, because in England at this time it is believed that one's social position is given by divine-providence. This means that to complain about your social position is to go against the will of god.
Hank realizes that many of the people in prison are innocent, and the only explanation for their predicament is that "God is teaching them a lesson" (133). Hank finds it is difficult for the people of the Middle Ages to unlearn what religion has engrained in them. In the end, he learns it is impossible. The only people who are able to stick with Hank in the final battle are the young. Mark Twain is telling us that we will not be able to change the engrained beliefs of people who have spent their lives in the South during slavery and thereafter; the only hope is to change the views of the young.
The biggest piece of Twain’s social commentary brings to light the hypocrisies of Northern prejudices versus Southern culture during the reconstruction. It is difficult to un-learn everything your culture has taught you, and this commentary forces us to empathize with the post-Civil War Southerners. Hank exemplifies this when he states that, "the prejudices of one's breeding are not gotten rid of just at a jump" (87). He continues later in the novel stating, "training is all that there is to a person...there is no such thing as nature" (126). Here Hank is saying that everything we think about the world around us is taught to us, we are neither born with knowledge nor notions of superiority. Hank, with his knowledge, feels as if he is a god among men. He believes the slave owners of both times, "regard [themselves] as superior being[s]" (190). Yet Hank had fallen victim to the same false-consciousness: he had become the noble, the slave master, and the boss (the noble title given to himself).
At one point, Hank speaks against the Corporation Act and the Literacy Test, which keep free men from participating in government using rules and tests with loaded questions. Despite Hank's feelings on this, he resorts to the same biased testing when giving examinations to his would-be military officers (196). This is another instance where Hank's actions contradict with his beliefs.
After living in the Middle Ages for a while, Hank begins to lose touch with who he was. He becomes accustomed to the practices of this old time. He has composers and writers killed (118), and their works smothered. Though we may find this hard to swallow, it is not unbelievable that he has been broken of his old ways. This is another commentary piece on the South during reconstruction, showing that over time, people could in fact change their practices, even if it goes against what they would normally do.
Hank describes how in the South, like in the Middle Ages, it is the common men who fight for the institutions that oppress them. Here again is the false-consciousness: the loyalty to rags and patriotism that get the lower classes to fight while the nobility sit and wait for the outcome.
When Hank and the King are disguised as peasants, and then sold into slavery, another parable of Southern slave life came to light: the idea that even when a slave is freed, he is no free man. The only reason one is free is because of a document that proves his status. At one point in the story Hank and the King are asked for proof of their freedom. Being without this, Hank and Arthur are quickly put in fetters. Arthur is soon relieved of the false-consciousness that legitimates his place as King being ordained by God. God does not come to the rescue of the King. Even upon the King and "the Boss'" pronouncement that they are of this noble status, no one believes them. This is where Hank and the King witness first hand that there is "nothing diviner about a king" (280).
Looking at the artepolitik, both visually and literally we can see that there are strong political messages in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court regarding slavery, government structure, religious political power, and North-South relations before and after the Civil War.
What we see in this story is Hank Morgan, the stereotypical Northern industrialist. He is sent into King Arthur’s time, and becomes everything the carpetbaggers of the South during reconstruction are thought to be. Though his heart is in the right place, he does not understand Southern culture. In his geocentric point of view, what is good for the North is good for the South. This is the root false-consciousness of Hank Morgan, and what makes Hank the –centric person that he is.
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