Marxist Criticism of A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court Anonymous 12th Grade

The late nineteenth century in the United States saw the peak of the buzz and commotion that is presently known as the Industrial Revolution. Caught deep within the gears of this mechanized movement, both socially and financially, was one Samuel Langhorne Clemens, best known as Mark Twain. Twain's ideas on industrialization were based on practical experience, due in part to heavy investment in, and loss from, a newly developed type-setting machine as well as an acute interest in the universal ramifications of such modernization (Kaplan 12). It is amid such an economically turbulent and technologically elevated era that Twain conceived, wrote, and published the critically complex A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court. Twain's vision of sixth century England as seen through the eyes of "Yankee" Hank Morgan is the setting for biting social commentary on what was occurring throughout the States, especially in his home region of the Northeast.

Technology was not the only area experiencing rapid growth, but new political and economic theories abounded and Twain was aloof to these changes. A Connecticut Yankee attacks specifically three institutions which Twain had dealt with and experienced first hand: capitalism, slavery, and...