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This mental depiction of Hank really sets a different tone from the previous ones. The humor in it appears pretty dark and black when Hank makes fun of a man who has been electrocuted. Readers may laugh at first, but most of them will shudder at the thought of it afterwards. Twain’s intention of poking fun at something we hold dear is rather clear— to arouse our own deep reflection, the reflection on modern technology we once took pride in. More specifically, Twain’s meticulous psychological description of Hank witnesses the transformation of his humor, i.e. from the light one to the dark one, and the change is somewhat inevitable, as Twain himself proclaims:
Humorists of the ‘mere’ sort cannot survive. Humor is only a fragrance, a decoration. . . There are those who say a novel should be a work of art solely and you must not preach in it, you must not teach in it. That may be true as regards novels but it is not true as regards humor. Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. (Twain, 1975: 98-297)
Secondly, Twain is adept at describing inner contradictions within the characters themselves, especially the conflicts between their words and actions, to express and strengthen the effect of satire and irony. The Yankee himself is a good example. Hank is a contradictory character for there are totally opposite traits in his identity. Leland once points out in the introduction of A Connecticut Yankee that “Hank is sometimes a figure of good-heartedness, a man committed to benevolent reform, a person moved by compassion. He is sometimes a figure of cold indifference, a man enthralled by his own theatrical performance, a person driven by the desire for power” and he “waxes sentimental one minute only to become aggressively callous the next” (Leland, 2004: xi).
Besides Hank, many other characters in A Connecticut Yankee, from peasants to knights, from Merlin to the King all show certain contradictory traits in them. For instance, when Sir Kay tells the King about his encounter with Hank, he describes it in such a dramatic and grand way that greatly contradicts the fact. He boasts that he has met the Yankee in a far land of barbarians, who all wear ridicule gabs with enchantment, but by prayer he has nullified the enchantment and killed the Yankee’s thirteen knights in a three hours’ battle, and in the end he has won and taken the Yankee as a prisoner. However, the truth is that he has encountered Hank, who is just sitting under an oak tree, by accident and an agreement is soon easily reached that Hank will be his property voluntarily in exchange for his safety. This conflict of word and action of Sir Kay is described by Twain in an intentional unconscious way in order to naturally manifest the flaws deeply-rooted in human nature, which are shaped by the society as a whole and cannot be erased easily by mere training. Twain criticizes both Hank and Sir Kay as they are unable to realize the defects ingrained in themselves and so do the rest of the spectators as “everybody swallow[s] these people’s lies whole, and never ask[s] a question of any sort or about anything”, which is the tragedy of a whole society.
2.2.2 The Design of the Plot: Full of Surprises
A plot to a story is what bones to a body. The design of the plot in A Connecticut Yankee serves the humor and satire it intends to effect. Twain carefully elaborates the plot of his novel for he emphasizes the immense gap between a character’s circumstance at the beginning and that in the end, which is most conspicuous in Hank and the King. At first, Camelot is in prosperity after Hank has introduced modern technologies to this backward age. He “imports” the advertisement, the newspaper, the machines, the telephone, the stock market, the train and all the other civilizations of the 19th century to Arthurian Britain, with his Man factory under construction and his new schools under way. Almost all the institutions a new nation needs have been built by him in the hope that he can finally liberalize the whole country and be the Boss forever. Everything goes on so smooth and Hank can almost touch his dream after having killed almost all the noble class in Britain. However, out of everybody’s expectation, Merlin appears at last in the disguise of an old woman and casts a spell on Hank secretly, sending him into a sound sleep for thirteen centuries. This surprising outcome of Hank’s failure will no doubt make readers startle and heave a long, pitiful sigh for his “abnormal” defeat, for nobody would have guessed that the powerful Boss would be conquered at last by an-already-forgotten enemy. This sense of shock will knock readers awake, impelling them to realize the satiric implications behind the surprising plot and to reflect on the possibility of a real Utopian nation.