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 This image of "Sir Boss" from the original edition of Connecticut Yankee is used with the kind permission of the University of Virginia. |
If Mark Twain were alive today, he'd probably be publishing interactive novels on the Web and charging us a fee to read them. Like many people of his time, Twain embraced new technological developments and saw them as a measure of human potential. He wrote the first novel in America to be written on a typewriter (Tom Sawyer). One of the first telephones in Hartford, Connecticut, connected the Clemens household with the central switchboard. Twain also invested (and lost) thousands of dollars in the Paige Typesetting machine, which was supplanted by the Linotype just as videotape is being replaced by DVD. Given his interest, it is no surprise to find in his novels so many references to contemporary technology. Twain was also keenly aware, however, of the limitations of technology. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court shows technology improving communication, productivity, and personal hygiene. But it is unable to conquer what Twain considered the true problem: a society in which people do not think for themselves. Machines can be wonderful tools, Twain suggests, but they are only tools. The finest technology in all the realm does not excuse us from exercising our own judgment, a theme Twain would doubtless return to were he publishing today. As we enter a new millennium, we take for granted much of what was new and marvelous to the people of Twain's era. Understanding the technological developments of Twain's lifetime (1835 - 1910) may provide greater appreciation of this novel, one of the first science fiction novels written in America. | |||
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