A Study Guide for Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Mar 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535828208

Book preview

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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Mark Twain

1889

Introduction

Throughout the centuries, people have looked to the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table as the standard for a harmonious society. In the stories that have been passed down, knights were bold and chivalrous, fighting real and supernatural foes for the honor of themselves and the ladies they pledged themselves to. The king wisely watched over his subjects with an eye toward justice. In 1889, Mark Twain published the novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court to debunk the myths. The book has a man of Twain's era magically transported back to Camelot, the court of King Arthur. What he encounters is not a mystical time of dragons and sorcery, but a time of ignorance and suffering, when anyone who claims to have witnessed a supernatural event is believed by all. The King's court is balanced atop an unjust social system that ignores the rights of the working people and confers divine rights upon nobles who, having been born to wealth and power, have no idea of justice. The book's protagonist makes himself more powerful than the legendary magician Merlin by performing tricks that are simple for a man with contemporary knowledge. In addition, the protagonist sets about making wide-reaching social reforms, only to find that enlightenment ultimately does not work with superstitious, naïve people.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court continues to be as relevant today as it was in Twain's time. As a social satire by one of America's great humor writers, it remains one of the funniest books in our nation's literary history.

Author Biography

Mark Twain (the most well-known pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemons) was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, and grew up in Hannibal, a Missouri town along the Mississippi river. Hannibal was to play a significant role in some of Twain's most popular books and stories. When Twain was twelve, his father died. Twain then helped support his family by going to work as a printer's apprentice. After several failed business partnerships with his brother Orion, he took off across the American west, selling travel pieces to newspapers.

In 1857, Twain left on a trip to South America, with a contract to write about his adventures. While traveling down the Mississippi