A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court

The institution of an aristocracy contrasts with democracy, a central ideal of Americans. The exploitation of a lower class, who have no say in their position, by an idle upper class is in direct conflict with the idealistic vision of American society. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain attempts to highlight the disconnect between aristocratic rulers and their subject’s strife, the enslavement of lower classes by aristocracies, and the societal benefits of democracy.

Throughout the novel the Twain presents the nobility as completely unaware, or uncaring, of its subjects’ struggles. Twain employs slavery to illustrate the aristocracy’s ignorance to the cruelties of their governing. After being captured, and sold, as

a slave the Yankee describes the king as “become the bitterest hater of the institution I had ever heard talk” (Twain 249). The king’s transition from a defender of slavery to adamantly condemning it stems from his experience as a slave. This reveals his ignorance to the strife of his subjects as only experiencing the hardships firsthand allowed for the king to see the negative aspects. Twain also reveals the nobles’ blindness to the status of the lower classes through the Yankee’s interactions with the plebeians. When the commoner Marco is criticized, by the Yankee, for be willingly to turn in his cousins for the murder of their lord, Marco states “All rejoice today that he is dead, but all do go about seemingly sorrowing, and shedding the hypocrite’s tear, for in that lies safety” (Twain 212). The nobles of the story, who are representative, for Twain, of nobles everywhere, are so unaware to the atrocities of the system that they believe the lower classes regard them with extreme reverence. Twain holds that the lower classes are required to put the nobles before their own families. The nobility’s view of commoners is evidence of their insensitivity to their hardships.
One of Twain's main purposes in writing the novel is to reveal the enslavement of lower classes by a nobility. Schaefer states that “He believes that monarchy is a superficial and self-serving institution, doing nothing but continuously tormenting those whom it should lead” (Schaefer). The slave-like status of plebeians under aristocracy was adamantly opposed by Twain, who found "Details on outrageous treatment the poor... in W. E. H. Lecky's The History of England in the Eighteenth Century (1887-88), Charles Ball's Slavery in the United States (1836), and George Kennan's accounts of slave labor under the czar... in Century magazine (1887-88). When he returned to his manuscript in the summer of 1888 he was ready to mount an even more severe attack on tyranny" (Gerber). Twain gathered his information, to condemn tyranny, from a wide variety of sources. His attack was not just on the mostly European version, of an idle aristocracy ruling a working lower class society, but also unjust autonomic systems of any sort. Twain illustrates the injustices of such a system with the interaction between the nobles and the commoners. The commoners are required to “harvest his grain for him gratis, and be ready to come at a moment’s notice, leaving their own crop to destruction by the threatened storm…” (Twain 74). Twain characterizes the lower classes as no more than slaves as they are required to put their lord's needs even before their own subsistence. The nobles’ complete lack of regard for the commoners’ lives in a central part of Twain’s opposition to autocracy. Morgan Le Fay, although one of the more extreme examples Twain creates, exemplifies this disregard for the commoners’ lives. After the Yankee calls the murder of the page a crime Morgan Le Fay exclaims “‘Crime!'...‘How thou talkest! Crime, forsooth! Man, I am going to pay for him!’” (Twain 107). Morgan Le Fay’s casual killing of a page is employed by Twain to illustrate the atrocities committed by nobles. These are not thought of crimes, by the society, as the commoners are seen as nothing more than a resource to exploit. In his life Twain “welcomed the rise of unions as an equalizing power between owners and workers” (Gerber). Twain’s disdain for aristocracies is evident in his support of unions. The basic structure of an aristocracy is inequality and unequal power. Twain's disgust is evident as he "[Makes] pigs out of nobility, idiots of knights, and "human sheep" (114) out of one of the most heralded societies in Western culture, [he] constructs a clear juxtaposition between the barbarous tradition of England and the republican legacy of America" (Royal). Twain viewed the American system as the most just government. His disdain for the English governing system comes from his capitalist tendencies.
To the capitalist Twain, this unjust distribution of power, and unequal opportunities, was unacceptable.

For Twain democracy and capitalism was the only just form of society. Democracy was seen by Twain as the only just form of government and of society. The democratic tendencies of the Yankee conflict directly with the societal norms of Arthurian England. Twain holds that monarchies are fundamentally flawed “which is to say they were the nation, the actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, or worth saving, or really respectworthy; and to subtract them would have would have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king , nobility and gentry…” (Twain 73). Commentary Twain illustrates his view of the uselessness of an aristocratic government. The lower classes do the work while the nobles collect the gain. This open exploitation is in direct conflict to Twain’s democratic ideals. Twain employs his promotion of a capitalist system to free the commoners from the subjugation of the monarchy. Hank's capitalist programs "do have their democratizing purpose, for by turning chivalry and medieval faith into a commercial venture, Hank would be striking a blow at what he considers the primary source of slave mentality" (Royal). Although many of Hank’s reforms are self-serving they also generally done to benefit the society as a whole. Hank has knights peddle items such as soap and stove polish that create a need where one was not, this helps cement and expand his power by promising “continued Growth”

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Throughout his novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain voices his opinion that monarchies, disconnected from the lower classes, turn their subjects into slaves. Concluding remarks Twain’s political views, and personal moral standing, heavily influenced the commentary and social message of the novel.