Today we are going to take a brief look at the Preface and A Word of Explanation sections of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. In these sections we learn a little about our protagonist and a sort of metacognitive narrator who stumbles into him. Additionally, we are going to learn about the protagonist and some of his thoughts about the new, albeit old, world that he now inhabits. If you are just stumbling into this text, this post will help guide you through the introductory portions of the novel.
Preface
In the preface, Twain defends some of his feelings on the book from later accusations related to accuracy. However, as the preface came out in the 1889 edition as well, I assume he was preparing himself against those future critiques.
More specifically, Twain addresses his historical accuracy within the book and, in his own way, attempts to allay the historical perfectionists’ tempers toward he, the writer. Twain writes: “… it is safe to consider that it is no libel upon the sixth century to suppose them to have been in practice in that day also. One is quite justified in inferring that whatever one of these laws or customs was lacking in that remote time, its place was competently filled by a worse one.”
As he states, a pessimistic view of history may be a useful one to use while reading, as even if you disagree with his assessment of the laws and mores of the culture during the sixth century … it was probably much worse than you can imagine. Though funny, Mark Twain was a man of wit and cynicism.
“Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time of King Arthur and the Round Table; said to have belonged to the knight Sir Sagramor le Desirous; observe the round hole through the chain-mail in the left breast; can’t be accounted for; supposed to have been done with a bullet since invention of firearms—perhaps maliciously by Cromwell’s soldiers.” — Mark Twain
A word of explanation
Here, Twain begins the narrative, and our narrator is revealed to be a visitor to Warwick Castle. He stumbles into a “curious stranger” who attracts the speaker through his “candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfulness of his company” as the speaker points out that man talked endlessly.
The speaker takes note of how friendly the curious stranger seems to be with characters of history: sir Beedivere, Sir Bors de Ganis, and Sir Lancelot. Similarly, the curious stranger asks him of his knowledge about ‘transmigration of souls” and the “transposition of epochs,” which will both come into play when the story really starts. The speaker then finds it both fantastical and a little eerie that the curious stranger claims to put a hole through an ancient hauberk himself…with a bullet.
The strangeness of this encounter does affect the speaker, and he retires to his room in the Warwick Arms where he reads Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. The following section is presented as an excerpt, and therein the reader can view chapter eleven of the text, “How Launcelot Slew Two Giants, and Made a Castle Free.” The story details the gallantry and wonder of the knights, their righteousness, and their capabilities as kingdom protectors.
Afterward, the speaker relaxes until the curious stranger returns to imbibe in Scotch whiskey and the comforts of his room. Soon enough, the curious stranger begins his tale of fantasy, magic (of a sort), science, and history. Here, Twain tells the reader to get just as comfortable by the fire and prepare to be regaled.
The Stranger’s History
In the first section we learn a little about the curious stranger: “I am an American. I was born and reared in Hartford, in the State of Connecticut—anyway, just over the river, in the country. So I am a Yankee of the Yankees…” Here, we have a practical man who reveals himself to be extremely capable in matters of engineering.
He tells us: “Then I went over to the great arms factory and learned my real trade … learned to make everything: guns, revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all sorts of labor-saving machinery.” In other words, the man was an inventor, and he was capable of addressing most needs if they should arise and require gadgetry.
Yet, a man of his prodigious talent is bound to get in trouble, he explains, and he is eventually whacked in the head with a crowbar by an ornery coworker named “Hercules.” At that, he falls into a coma and he “didn’t feel anything more, and didn’t know anything at all…”
As he awakens, he is under a tree and is immediately confronted by a man on horseback. After being nearly run through by the assailant, our curious stranger went up a tree and made a deal with the man: the curious stranger would follow the man on horseback (and be his property) for safe passage. After the agreement, the two begin a journey toward the horseback man’s home…even though the curious stranger believes his home to be an asylum.
He states:
“At the end of an hour we saw a far-away town sleeping in a valley by a winding river; and beyond it on a hill, a vast gray fortress, with towers and turrets, the first I had ever seen out of a picture.
‘Bridgeport?’ said I, pointing.
‘Camelot,’ said he.
It is at this point in the story that the curious stranger becomes groggy and so hands the speaker his manuscript, which he had written as a journal and then amended. The speaker sits down by his fire and opens the book while the curious stranger sleeps, reading from where the curious stranger told him to carry on.
Analysis
The beginning of this book was told to me by my mother when I was a child, and she might as well have told me about the craziest movie moment she had ever seen. Mark Twain and creativity go a long way. I understood that part of the book long before I ever actually cracked the cover. But it is effective for a reason, as it largely gets the action of the story moving very quickly. In three short sections, Twain is able to tell you about his approach to writing, the speaker and the curious stranger’s motives, and then the inciting incident that caused the curious stranger to be in King Arthur’s Court.
What is more, the opening of Twain’s book reminds me of The Time Machine by H. G. Welles, in which the time traveler regails a group with a story about his travels forward and backwards in time, and that tale comprises the whole of the book. However, A Connecticut Yankee was written almost a decade prior and features the time shift narrative trope, which conveys both the fantastical nature of the narrative itself (it is ostensibly encased in a fairy tale binding), and the morality play that is no no doubt carved into each chapter (knights taking ownership, and castles on hills separating social classes).
Lastly, through both the speaker and curious stranger, Twain is able to create a dichotomy–and I would assume his own dichotomy–as a practical man of the times, who is quite capable of many things–and a reflective, bookish character who simply acts as journalist or catalyst for the story’s execution. Through both voices we have one of rational madness and one of careful attentiveness. Each character serves their purpose to propel the initial action and the story moves onward.
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