Effects Of Time Traveling

1219 Words5 Pages
Effects of Time Traveling: Intelligence versus Society People have always speculated about what could have been or what should have been. Authors have always written books about the potential outcome of history if someone were able to go back and change what happened. Mark Twain’s novel is about a Connecticut Yankee that goes back in time to the sixteenth century. The Yankee believes his society is far superior to the society of the sixteenth century so he tries to reform and organize their world. Throughout the whole book, the Yankee uses his intellect of another world to try and replicate nineteenth century American government. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court, Mark Twain uses time travel to show the Yankee’s intelligence proved more effective than society’s customs when his knowledge of science, government and technology. The Yankee’s impeccable recollection of the date of the eclipse saved his life when he first arrived in the strange century. He was sentenced to death because of his strange ways as an outsider. Although once a sentence is made it is kept, he threated to “spread night into the world” (Twain 34) until he was released. The Yankee used prior knowledge of this event to change the ruling of the King. One critic commented, “ … Even when the stage is set for exhibitions of modern technology, the effect falls short of expectation. Again and again – a minimum of science or technology is overlaid by elaborate and essential fraudulent display”(Smith 414). Even though there is a minimum amount of knowledge needed for the Yankee to get out of his own murder, Mark Twain believes that only a small amount is needed to surpass societal rules. The Yankee not only possessed this knowledge, but also the cleverness and wit that allowed him to finish his adventures in the sixteenth century. He had the power to change the King’s mind, one of the

More about Effects Of Time Traveling

Open Document