Mark Twain: Thematic Response
"To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, 'our country, right or wrong,' and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that phrase is an insult to the nation? Only when a republic's life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is in the wrong. There is no other time" (Geismar vi). Mark Twain was an idealist who used his writings to demonstrate his concern for the direction and condition of the United States. Twain had always hated the cruelty of slavery. He wanted to keep American democracy pure, and was distrustful of other systems such as the English monarchy. Twain was also distrustful of religion, and he wanted to make sure the Catholic Church did not develop dominion over the United States' churches and government. In Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," and "The L1,000,000 Bank-Note," his strong hatred of slavery, hatred of English Monarchy, and hatred of Catholicism are stressed; these satirical works present his American patriotism through his use of character images, humorous burlesques, satirical allusions, and symbolism between the nineteenth and sixth centuries.Growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twai
He despised the feudal system created by the kings and the inequality required to make it work. Although they were not living in the medieval times, Twain felt that the English monarchy had become just as naive and mindless as Arthur. He disliked the idea of knighthood and the class segregation caused by it. Twain also uses burlesque to poke fun at the English habit of betting. As an allusion, Twain uses Merlin and his magic to represent the Pope and his beliefs. Twain uses this same type of allusion with the Knights of the Round Table. The lower class of medieval England was just as oppressed as the slaves of the nineteenth century. Twain saw two sets of morals in every Anglo-Saxon household; the public, artificial morals and the private, real morals. Publicly people would continuously say, "In God we trust," but inside their hearts were saying, "When the Anglo-Saxon wants a thing he just takes it" (Geismar 4). Just as Mark Twain opposed the presence of monarchy in the United States' democracy, he did not want Catholic superstition to spread among protestant churches. Hank, the nineteenth century Yankee stuck in King Arthur's court, cannot stand the feudal class system of sixth century England. The slavery system of the United States was also by birth; a person is born into their place with no hope of ever being able to leave; or at least that was the case for blacks. Once Twain began writing, it was clear he wanted to be known as an individual who stood in opposition to slavery. He knew they were blind to the crimes they were committing and wanted them to be informed. Twain saw the United States as a strictly protestant society.
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