Twain’s Worl�
Common Core State Standard ELA: Reading Informational Text and Literature (6.1-10 through 12.1-10)
Politics and the Connecticut Yankee
In 1889, Mark Twain published his novel A them if they supposed a nation of people ever existed,
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Like much who, with a free vote in every man’s hand, would
of Twain’s writing, this book uses a simple, humorous elect that a single family and its descendants should
story to explore injustice and inequality. In this reign over it forever…to the exclusion of all other
novel, Hank Morgan, a practical, self-confident man families—including the voter’s; and would also elect
from Hartford and a foreman at the Colt Factory, is that a certain hundred families should be raised to
transported back to the Middle Ages, finding himself dizzy summits of rank, and clothed on with offensive
in King Arthur’s England. Morgan is disgusted at transmissible glories and privileges to the exclusion of
what he sees: not only the lack of technology, but the the rest of the nation’s families—including his own.
inequality in society created by monarchies and a lack They all looked unhit, and said they didn’t know;
of democracy. In this passage, Morgan tries to explain that they had never thought about it before, and
democracy to medieval peasants. In this extract and it hadn’t ever occurred to them that a nation could
in the rest of the novel, Twain uses the England of be so situated that every man could have a say in
King Arthur to represent injustice throughout time: the government….You see my kind of loyalty was
although it seems that Twain is writing about the loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its
Middle Ages, he was really writing about his own time: office-holders. The country is the real thing, the
the nineteenth century. substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to
watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions
We came upon a group of ragged poor creatures are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and
who had assembled to mend the thing which was clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be
regarded as a road….yet they were not slaves, not comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter,
chattels. By a sarcasm of law and phrase they were disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for
freemen. Seven-tenths of the free population of the rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—that is a loyalty
country were of just their class and degree: small of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to
“independent” farmers, artisans, etc.; which is to say, monarchy, was invented by monarchy;
they were the nation, the actual Nation; they were let monarchy keep it. I was from
about all of it that was useful, or worth saving, or Connecticut, whose Constitution declares
really respect-worthy, and to subtract them would have “that all political power is inherent in the
been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some people, and all free governments are founded on their
dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility and authority and instituted for their benefit; and that
gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible
arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use right to alter their form of government in such a
or value in any rationally constructed world. And yet, manner as they may think expedient.”
by ingenious contrivance, this gilded minority…had Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees
elected itself to be the Nation, and these innumerable that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn
clams had permitted it so long that they had come out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for
at last to accept it as a truth; and not only that, but a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be
to believe it right and as it should be….The talk of the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not
these meek people had a strange enough sound in a excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is
formerly American ear. They were freemen, but they the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not
could not leave the estates of their lord or their bishop see the matter as he does.
without his permission [and had to pay the landowner
with most of the crops they grew themselves]. I asked
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Images
Maps and
If you are interested in finding out more about
the museum and its educational programs, go
to www.marktwainhouse.org
Observe this illustration from the novel. How is it an example of metaphor? Why would the idea it expresses
be relevant to both medieval and nineteenth-century politics? Is it relevant today?
Word Power
Research
1. Find out the meaning of the underlined words—can you use them
correctly in an original sentence? How does knowing the meaning of the
Questions
words enhance your understanding of this extract from A Connecticut 1. Hank Morgan notes that although the peasants he meets are technically free, they still have to work for landowners and, in
Yankee in King Arthur’s Court? fact, owe them money. Can you compare this description of medieval peasants to sharecroppers in nineteenth-century America?
2. Mark Twain uses Connecticut as an example of democracy. Why is Connecticut called the “Constitution State?” Why would
2. How is this passage an example of the use of “metaphor” in writing? Mark Twain, who grew up in Missouri before the Civil War, be eager to promote American democracy as a product of New Eng-
land’s culture?
3. Are any of the issues in this article relevant to today? Are they relevant to your life?
