Comments on: Hank, a Noble Savage

By: sean

sean — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:59:52 +0000

I think CYKAC is a necessary administration of cod liver oil to the Arthurian myth: it expels, in one great seizure of flux (the massacre of death at the end) all of the centuries of idealism and idealization (two different things) that had accrued to the stories of King Arthur. It’s not as though the medieval texts had no room for irony and critique – surely they did. But Twain was reacting to the dominant trends of reception of King Arthur in the 19th C. But more than a critique of the middle ages or “medievalism” (the conscious reappropriation of idealized images of the middle ages), it’s a vicious attack on the trends of the 19th C: industrialism, colonialism, death on ever greater scales in nationalist conflicts. Instead of writing a future dystopia like HG Wells, Twain wrote a backward looking dystopia where the 19th C. is transplanted to the past, and tragedy ensues.

By: ajc02005

ajc02005 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:50:04 +0000

Your first example touches on an interesting question, Caprica. Was the naming intentional – Lady MORGAN and Hank MORGAN? I have a hard time believing it’s just a coincedence, but that leads to another question – what does it mean? Is Hank supposed to be a 19th century Morgan le Fay?

By: Caprica Six

Caprica Six — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:18:33 +0000

Actually, I think you’re right. He is a boor. He’s also a first-class jerk. Here area few more examples of Hank Morgan’s fundamentally inhuman character:

1. In the court of Morgan Le Fay, in order to stop Lady Morgan from executing a distraught old woman, he gives her position to hang her entire band and justifies it thus: “A little concession, now and then, where it can do no harm, is the wiser policy.” Sarcasm, but still a blatant abuse of power on his part.

2. During Hank and the King’s enslavement, they pass by a man being boiled to death in hot oil, and the thing that breaks Hank’s heart most is the sight of…a newsboy?

3. When Hank and the King are about to be hanged Hank muses, “Nothing in the world could save the King of England; nor me, which was more important. More important, not merely to me, but to the nation – the only nation on earth standing ready to blossom into civilization.” Everyone’s got a self-preservation instinct, but Hank has an enormously self-righteous ego to boot.

Twain has a history of creating unadmirable, anti-hero protragonists, but this is the first time I’ve seen a him create a hero who does not redeem himself/develop into a good character by the end of the book. It would have been nice to see some crashing mental breakdown where Hank realizes how much he’s royally screwed up, but as far as I could see he just realized the Church was more powerful than he thought. He never thought that maybe, just maybe, his ideas were wrong and he really was just a power-hungry tyrant.