All The Tropes

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (view source)

Revision as of 15:09, 7 January 2023

517 bytes added ,  1 year ago
m
removed Category:Literature using HotCat - it's in the infobox, so there's no reason to specify it again manually
VisualWikitext
m (trope=>work)
m (removed Category:Literature using HotCat - it's in the infobox, so there's no reason to specify it again manually)
 
(7 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown)
Line 1:
{{work}}
{{Infobox book
''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' is a classic 1889 novel written by [[Mark Twain]], about, well, [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|exactly that]]. Hank Morgan, a resident of Hartford, Connecticut, suffers a blow to the head and inexplicably awakens to find himself in sixth century Britain. There, he is able to convince King Arthur that he is a powerful wizard and ends up assuming the job of the king's adviser, and attempts to impose modern technology and values onto the society.▼
| title = A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
| original title =
| image = Connecticut Yankee frontispiece by Beard.jpg
| caption =
| author = Mark Twain
| central theme = Yankee ingenuity can do anything - except change people's opinions
| elevator pitch = A Connecticut Yankee falls through time to King Arthur's court, where he attempts to modernize the country
| genre = Satire, Science Fiction
| publication date = 1889
| source page exists = yes
| wiki URL =
| wiki name =
}}
▲'''''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court''''' is a classic 1889 novel written by [[Mark Twain]], about, well, [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|exactly that]]. Hank Morgan, a resident of Hartford, Connecticut, suffers a blow to the head and inexplicably awakens to find himself in sixth century Britain. There, he is able to convince King Arthur that he is a powerful wizard and ends up assuming the job of the king's adviser, and attempts to impose modern technology and values onto the society.
 
The novel is both a satire and a seminal work of time travel science fiction. The story has been adapted many times for film, television, and other forms of media. Surprisingly enough, given the book's popularity, most literary critics rank ''Connecticut Yankee'' among the worst of Twain's written works.
 
It's in public domain; the full text can be downloaded for free at [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/86 Project Gutenberg].
{{tropelist}}▼
 
▲{{tropelist}}
* [[Ax Crazy]]: Morgan Le Fay. Literally.
* [[Badass Nickname]]: Hank Morgan's title is "The Boss"
Line 13 ⟶ 27:
* [[Brick Joke]]: "Hello, Central."
* [[Clarke's Third Law]]: Hank uses this to his advantage, performing many "miracles" with his knowledge of science and engineering.
* [[Combat Pragmatist]]: Hank, but also the knights -- Hankknights—Hank notes when he's charged by three knights simultaneously that there's none of this chivalrous one-against-one stuff.
* [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]]:
** 52 boys with <s>modern</s> 19th-century technology vs. 30,000 knights. Guess who wins...
Line 29 ⟶ 43:
* [[Gatling Good]]
* [[Gentleman Snarker]]: Hank is this way with almost everyone, but especially the nobility. It usually goes right over their heads.
* [[Giving Radio to Thethe Romans]]: Hank gives many modern devices such as the telephone to medieval Britain, although most of them don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of how these things actually work.
* [[God Guise]]: A late 19th-century American is sent back in time to the Dark Ages and becomes an important member of King Arthur's court, using his advanced scientific and political knowledge to greatly improve the quality of life of the kingdom, while also discrediting Merlin (revealed to be a fraud) with his own advanced technology and intelligence that makes him look like a true Sorcerer. In the end, {{spoiler|he's kicked out of the kingdom and he and a small number of his allies make a defensive position with a dozen [[Gatling Good|Gatling guns,]] dynamite, and electrical wiring that allows them to defeat 30,000 of England's soldiers.}}
* [[God Test]]: Done memorably when a charlatan claims to be able to tell people whatever is happening anywhere in the world. After listening to various plausible tales of the doings of foreign potentates, Hank takes his turn: "Tell me what I'm doing with my hands behind my back right now."
Line 35 ⟶ 49:
* [[Handwaved]]: There's no explanation for how Hank got to Camelot in the first place. Similarly, {{spoiler|the paradoxical implications of existing in two places at once while he sleeps for 13 centuries}} are also never addressed. There's a reference to "transmigration of souls" but that doesn't explain how Hank's body (and clothes) change centuries either.
* [[Hand Cannon]]: It's interesting that no-one refers to Hank's revolvers as this. However, the Colt Dragoon was one of the most powerful handguns of its day.
* [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters]]: The thesis of the book seems to be that it's not the time period, the society, or the level of technology and infrastructure that make people do evil things, it's just basic human nature. This being a Twain book, however, there a few stubborn kernels of optimism that refuse to be stamped out in the book. Whether this is a straight example of this trope or a subversion depends on the reader's interpretation.
* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: On first meeting Clarence the page, Hank comments that he's no more than a paragraph.
* [[Jerkass]]: Medieval society is arranged to specifically encourage and reward this sort of behavior on the part of the nobility and clergy. It is, in effect, the Empire of the Jerkass.
Line 42 ⟶ 56:
* [[Knight Errant]]: Hank reluctantly becomes one, and the knights of the round table also qualify.
* [[Lawful Stupid]]: The denizens of Camelot always put the rules before good sense or basic human compassion.
* [[The Munchausen]]: All the Knights of the Round Table -- noTable—no-one ever questions another knights' tale of adventure, no matter how ridiculous.
* [[Medieval Morons]]: At least, in Hank's eyes. There's also that situation with Sandy and the pigs...
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: The story starts as an amusing fish-out-of-water story and a satire of Arthurian legend, but by the end it's a rather grim lampoon of modern England and America that saddles us with a real downer ending.
* [[More Dakka]]: The final charge of the knights vs. [[Gatling Good|Gatling guns]].
* [[Never Bring a Knife Toto A Fist Fight|Never Bring A Sword to A Gunfight]]: {{spoiler|During a joust Merlin steals Morgan's lasso which he's been using to rope one knight after another. Everyone thinks The Boss is finished...only for him to draw a [[Hand Cannon|Colt Dragoon]] and gun down his charging opponent. Morgan then challenges anyone who thinks he didn't fight fair to attack him then and there -- and has an [[Oh Crap]] moment when several hundred knights charge him at once. Fortunately they break and run before he runs out of bullets.}}
* [[No Endor Holocaust]]: Averted. After the final battle in which tens of thousands of knights are killed, Morgan's hand-picked band start getting ill from all the decomposing bodies. {{spoiler|It's implied that these people died because Morgan was the only one who could have negotiated a truce, enabling them to escape the cave they were in.}}
* [[Princess Classic]]: Also deconstructed, as the ladies of the time are as rude as anyone else.
Line 55 ⟶ 69:
* [[Ridiculous Future Inflation]]: In anticipation of which, medieval Britain's new decimal currency is the cent, composed of 100 milrays.
* [[Snipe Hunt]]: Averted. Everyone but the Yankee actually expects the harebrained quest they send him on to turn out to be genuine.
* [[Spanner in Thethe Works]]: Discussed. "The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't know the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him."
* [[Stable Time Loop]]: Though averted in one animated adaptation -- Theadaptation—The hero wakes up in the present-day hospital and immediately goes to an encyclopedia to look up King Arthur...and bursts out laughing when he finds a picture of [[My Horse Is a Motorbike|the king straddling a motorcycle]].
* [[Stranded Withwith Edison]]: Hank is impressively knowledgable about the details of 19th-century technology, even leaving aside the part where he's apparently memorized a 6th-century almanac.
* [[Tear Jerker]]: Frequently, particularly when the Yankee takes the King out incognito to see what peasant life is really like.
* [[Talkative Loon]]: Sandy, though Hank realises she's not actually crazy; she just lives in a world where people seriously believe that enchantments can turn princesses into pigs. Although she goes on and on driving him to distraction, Hank starts warming to Sandy once her quick talking gets him out of a sticky situation.
Line 63 ⟶ 77:
* [[Timeline-Altering MacGuffin]]: The inventor himself.
* [[Time Travel]]
* [[Trapped in Thethe Past]]: Hank Morgan
* [[Values Dissonance]]/[[Deliberate Values Dissonance]]: In-Universe,between the Yankee and the Arthurian Britons. The reader may also feel some disassociation from the Yankee's worldview, which is probably intentional.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Nineteenth Century Literature{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:ALiterature Connecticutof Yankeethe In19th King Arthurs Courtcentury]]
[[Category:LiteratureMatter of Britain]]
[[Category{{DEFAULTSORT:A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]], The}}
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/673841...1997477"