Creating Distances:Liberal Ideal Confronting Industrialization In A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is read either as an attack on the British society with the advancement of American ideals, or as a critique of the progressive development of technology with the aggressive expansion of national power. However, seldom do critics analyze the distance created between Hank Morgan and the Arthurian court, and between Hank Morgan and the reader, through writing techniques such as frame narrative, humor and satire. The techniques Twain adopts in creating distances enable the reader to depart first from a romantic version of the medieval world as is described in Malory’s book, and then from the justification of Hank Morgan’s liberal ideal as he puts it into practice. The sequence of the two departures leads the reader from an escapist view about the romantic past to problems present in nineteenth-century America. In distancing Hank Morgan from the Arthurian court, Twain reminds the reader of the liberal ideal which is core to the American nation. And in distancing the reader from Hank Morgan, he further calls into question the fast industrial development and its dehumanizing effect on people which violates the very ideal of the nation. The sadness on the framing narrator’s part traceable in the postscript reflects Twain’s disappointment in the American ideals of liberty and equality as it confronts industrialization, whose mechanizing effect dehumanizes people no less than illiberal forms of social institution.I argue that through writing, Twain calls attention to problems of industrialization in nineteenth-century America with the intention to keep the nation on track of its liberal values.