A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court Essay

After reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, I realized that you can’t always continuously read a book for more than two hours. The book started with the prologue or as Mark Twain called it, “A Word of Explanation” starting on page 11. This section, as it should, introduces the main character and how they, or in this book’s case, he got into the situation he is in currently. Until chapter two, did the book finally grab my attention. It goes on to explain that this main character named Hank Morgan, who lived in the 19th century, thinks that he is in an insane asylum, only to find out that he had somehow gone back in time, to the 6th century, after being hit over the head with a crowbar. With a turn of events, Hank was able to convince King Arthur that he was indeed a wizard. The book goes on to explain how this time traveler was able to turn this seemingly land rid of commonsense to one closely related to our modern world. However, the book didn’t catch my interest all the time causing me to reread pages upon pages until I finally understood what I was reading, but did manage to capture my attention at some points, though very few and
seemed to have unrealistic ideas and events occur, First off, this book often lost my attention. Yes, there would be parts that did catch my attention due to the comical satire. But more than I could count, I had to reread pages over and over to actually realize and absorb what I was reading. Sometimes, I even had to read aloud to myself to help me understand what I was reading. The book seemed to add irrelevant information that wouldn’t be of interest of the reader which would be pages and pages long. Yes, you could argue that the details added were important during the time that they were put into the story and you and other people didn’t have trouble with understanding each page, but I did not understand every page the first time I read it. Secondly, the book seemed a bit unrealistic.
This man, Hank Morgan of an unknown age, seemed to know how to easily make an explosive power with easily attainable materials in the 6th century as shown on pages 49 and 50. Hank also seems to be able to remember how to coin money, make newspapers, start a school, and more feats of “greatness”. How can someone remember when exactly a total solar eclipse is about to take place over 13 century’s ago? Although he is only off by one day, he seemed to remember the year and the time of this total solar eclipse. Hank also seemed to be able to easily understand all of the old english that would be spoken throughout the book. It doesn’t help the fact that he was from Connecticut, but he still seemed to be able to easily translate this old english into modern
english. Finally, this book did have many good parts. Although, the book didn’t really catch my attention the majority of the time, there still were plenty of times A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain did catch my attention and kept me interested for a bit. For example, when Hank was being taken to be burned alive and his lucky predicament that the solar eclipse occurred right when his death was upon him as stated on page 42 and 43. Another time I was entranced by the book’s writing was basically anytime satire occurred. Like when Mark Twain wrote that King Arthur and his nobles didn’t seem to question this lady as she explained a 44 princesses aged to 26 were being kept in a castle guarded by three brothers with each 4 arms and a single eye in the center of their forehead, called ogres. Hank later went to find out that the lady had been lying and it was simply only pigs as the princesses, a pigsty being the castle, and swineherds as the ogres, as stated on page 129, 130, and 131. Overall, the book did catch my interest a few times that satire and science came into play, but overall, the book practically caused me to reread it every page. I would recommend the book to someone who is all for detail and likes reading about fiction books set in medieval times with a hint of satire. Otherwise, I’d encourage any of my peers to read it to get a general knowledge of medieval times along with new vocabulary words into your daily life.