Technology in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Essay

Technology in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Essay Example superior to the technologically and intellectually inferior people of the medieval society he wakes up in at the beginning of the story, but in the end the technology that Morgan brings does not have the lasting impact that he had desired: â€Å"Hank Morgan wants to dominate the past with sure-fire knowledge from the future, but all he achieves is a record of events that have no historical consequence† (Mitchell 231). While Twain is critical of the medieval society that doesn’t encourage thinking, he is equally as of critical of many of the modern conventions and technological advances that Morgan brings to the court. One of the first things that Hank considered to be of utmost importance was the newspaper. News used to only travel by messengers and through people talking to each other. Messengers could only reach a limited number of people, and news that traveled from person to person could be highly inaccurate. Newspapers could solve these problems by reaching a large number of people and by remaining the same story as told to everybody, and this was the reason that Hank started the newspaper as one of his first programs. This was the important aspect of information technology that Hank felt he was bringing to King Arthur’s court: â€Å"A newspaper has its faults, and plenty of them, but no matter, it’s hark from the tomb the tomb for a dead nation without it, and don’ you forget it† (78). When considered on its own merits, the newspaper is an effective tool to communicate information to a large number of people. Twain seems to take issue with other aspects of the wa y that the information is communicated. Beyond merely teaching the medieval society about using the printed word as a means of mass communication, he also taught them how to use a journalistic tone in their writing: â€Å"That is a good piece of war correspondence, Clarence; you are a first-rate newspaper man† (Twain 458). The journalistic tone is meant to be a succinct form of