Literature review and analysis

¶ … Bad Experience With a Priest:

comparison of the Catholicism aspects in Scott's Ivanhoe and Twain's a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

In reading Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, one cannot deny that the blame for the collapse of Hank's new civilization falls on the Church. Throughout the novel, Twain paints a negative image of the Church and its priests. This negative image can also be found in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. Scott gives us characters such as the confused Templar and the misaligned Prior. Both writers have poor views of religion and this is evident in their unflattering portraits of the corrupt medieval church.

Scott's portrait of the Prior is not a very pleasant one. Nothing about him seems to be spiritual. When we first meet him, his costume is basically appropriate for a priest, but it is said to be "composed of materials much finer than those which the rule of that order admitted" (Scott, 38) and as having "his countenance fully displayed, and its expression was calculated to impress a degree of awe, if not of fear, upon strangers" (Scott, 39). Scott has already begun to use the Prior to paint a picture of what is wrong with religion in the Middle Ages. This commentary on religion continues in the Prior's interaction with the Normans he aligns himself with, and this finally brings us to another character with a less than pure spiritual pursuit: Brian de Bois-Guilbert.

Bois-Guilbert is an arrogant Knight Templar, who is "specifically stated to be false in his oath, faithless to women, hypocritical in his religion. He is unwilling to fulfill his feudal responsibilities to the weak and oppressed and thinks only of his own freedom and ambition" (Chandler, 35). He proves himself a good Knight in battle, yet lacks the morals one would attribute to a Knight Templar. It is in his lust for Rebecca that he goes against his oath and against the Church. Brian becomes the representation of evil and his evil is attached to the Church.

Likewise, this theme of the Church being the 'bad guy' is found throughout Connecticut Yankee. All throughout the novel the Church is the greatest enemy of Hank and all of his ill-fated projects. Twain makes the Church the downfall of Hank's new civilization in the end as the priests plot against him while he is away and scare their parishioners back into their original mindset, back to being good God-fearing people. It is because of the Church that so many die in the final battle.

This theme can also be seen in the letters and criticisms that follow the novel as well as in the illustrations throughout. He asked Hall in a letter to "be careful not to get any of the religious matter in" the sales promotions, and told another to avoid mentioning any of the novels' "slurs at the Church." Why he did this was unclear, since he never made any secret of how he felt about religion. It is true, however, that his most scathing anti-religion material was published some years after his death. A hostile critic in Boston was one of the few critics to state how much Twain's view of the church as "an established slave-pen" upsets him, being a religious man himself.

This paper will compare these two works and examine what was the source of these two writers' anti-religion feelings, if a specific source can truly be found. The paper will speculate that even though these writers are from different periods, they have the same view of religion in both their time period and that of the Arthurian legend. It will be interesting to note whether or not the works by the same two authors share this religious theme, or whether this is limited to books that are written in a setting very near the Arthurian time period.

Also interesting to consider is whether or not mark Twain was speaking entirely for himself when he wrote Connecticut Yankee, or whether he had been influenced somewhat by Sir Walter Scott's works, and Scott's opinion of religion. Why these two men hated the church so violently remains to be seen, and will hopefully be discovered in an examination of their works and biographies. Whether or not mark Twain was considering revising his attitude toward the Church before he died is also a matter for speculation, although it is largely suspect did that evidence will indicate he had no such plans.

This paper will also attempt to get into the heads of these authors, and will examine where their anti-Church attitudes came from and why it was put into their novels. Whether they were trying to make a specific point about the human condition, or whether they were just revealing their own upset about the Church and their personal beliefs about it will hopefully be deduced from examination of their work.

In the writing of this paper, it will be necessary to review other sources including but not limited to Scott's Rob Roy and Twain's Life on the Mississippi, although there is no guarantee that these two works will give readers any further indication of the author's intent toward religion or whether they will even be relevant to this paper. Criticisms relating to these authors, both recent criticisms and criticisms from the authors contemporaries, will also be tracked down and evaluated, as they are important indicators in examining what others thought of the views that the authors expressed. Biographical sources on the authors will also be examined in order to determine whether specific events that happened in their lives led them to their opinions on religion.

Sir Walter Scott: His Hatred of the Church

It is clear from the works of both Sir Walter Scott and Mark Twain that they barely managed to conceal a deep-seated hatred for the Church. The purpose of this paper will be to examine the reasons behind this hatred, and whether or not it spreads into other works that they have created. By examining the available literature on both Scott and Twain, it will not likely be difficult to determine what situations in the pasts of these two writers caused their intense dislike for the medieval church.

Sir Walter Scott was regarded at one time as the greatest English novelist (Wright, 1996). This was largely due to the success of the Waverly novels that he wrote, but some of his other work in joy to success as well. Ivanhoe came along later on, and by then Sir Walter Scott was already quite famous. His book did well, but critics of his day complained that it seem to be more of a children's novel, and was quite poorly and somewhat hastily written in spots (Works, 1963).

His heroes and heroines were often uninteresting and dull, and he abandoned much of his Scottish heritage in his later books. This was somewhat odd, since he considered loyalty to one's country to be of the utmost importance. His country had a deeply religious background, and since he did not share this feeling, this could be part of the reason why some of his later work does not have asked much Scottish influence (Works, 1963).

Eventually, Scott's popularity began to fade, as other authors came on the scene and produced books that were more philosophical and serious in nature. Now Sir Walter Scott's novels are almost entirely unread, but people still make vain attempts to save his reputation. Some critics believe that Sir Walter Scott's drop in popularity came from the fact that he was an extremely conservative individual, and that conservatism showed in his novels, much to the dislike of the reading public (Works, 1963).

Sir Walter Scott also reportedly had some issues with the British government, and it is possible that this was related to his dislike of anything authoritarian (Sir Walter, 1999). It could have contributed to his opinion of the Church, although there is no clear evidence of this, and it could have just as easily been unrelated. What is clear, however, is that he saw the Church as aristocratic, and getting richer off of the trials and tribulations of the poor man. Undoubtedly, this angered him, since he was a man of conservative values and loyalty to one's country and heritage.

In Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott introduces the reader to Brian de Bois-Guilbert and to the Prior; both of these people are allegedly holy. Immediately, the reader can see that Scott has no use for the Prior, who claims to be a religious man but actually partakes in many things that are inappropriate for a priest. For example, the Prior's clothes are very extravagant, and even though they look like the proper clothes for a priest they are somewhat gaudy in the fact that they are made of fine materials and workmanship; much finer than a man of God would be expected to be wearing.

The bags under the Prior's eyes show evidence of too much drinking, and he is a heavyset man, showing evidence of gluttony and excessive eating habits that are above what should be his humble station. Apparently, the rules that the common people have to follow regarding sins such as gluttony, do not apply to priests. Nothing about the Prior appears to be spiritual, and his zest and zeal for life apparently revolves around the things that a spiritual man should not concern himself with. The Knight Templar is not any better of a person, but Scott does not complain about him as bitterly, possibly because he is not as strongly associated with the church as the Prior is.

Being a Knight Templar, he does have some duties to the Church, as this sacred order of nights chooses to remain celibate as part of their duty. This is one of these restrictions placed upon them by the Church. It seems that, upon initial examination of these two characters, Scott is trying to convey a strong message about how controlling and domineering the Church was during that time. While it is true that the Church was more controlling of society in Scott's time that it is in the present day, it was not as excessively controlling as he made it out to be in Ivanhoe.

Ivanhoe is not the only one of Sir Walter Scott's works where he makes sure that the reader understands the dislike he has for the Church. Anytime characters feel that strongly about a particular entity, it is thought to be a reasonably safe bet that the author feels that way as well. While Sir Walter Scott never really comes out and says that he, personally, has a problem with the Church, he conveys it better in the thoughts, words, and actions of his characters that he ever could by saying it himself.

Saying it himself could have likely caused him many problems, as well, and one could speculate for some time as to whether or not this affected his opinion of the Church further. For example, if Scott already had a strong dislike for the Church, and knew that if he said so he would be persecuted by that same Church, this might have served only to make him dislike the Church that much more, since it was controlling what he was able to say and do about it. Quite possibly, this frustrated him a great deal.

If his characters had only made one or two references to the Church, it would be the assumption that the dislike of the Church was only from the specific characters point-of-view, and was meant to be a specific part of the story. However, because more than one character in Ivanhoe shows the extreme dislike of the Church, and because that theme permeates Scott's book so strongly, it seems unlikely that Sir Walter Scott made up the dislike of the Church simply for the characters in his book.

Ivanhoe is not the only one of Sir Walter Scott's writings that expresses distaste for the Church, but for the moment let us delve a little deeper into it. As has been mentioned, the Prior is allegedly a man of the cloth, but yet he dresses in extravagant clothes and his face and body portray him as someone who would likely eat and drink excessively. Priests of that day apparently did not see excessive eating and drinking as a sin, unless it was being done by the common people.

He is also traveling in the company of the Knight Templar, who is thought to have extremely loose morals despite his alleged vow of celibacy. Rumors are that these Knights only claim to be excessively religious, but they often engage in behavior that would be extremely inappropriate for a man who has taken vows to the Church. While many readers may not pick up on the significance of these two men spending time together, closer examination of the reading shows that Sir Walter Scott was trying to make a specific point by pairing these two people together.

Namely, he was trying to show that regardless of what the Church says, and how holy it insists that it is, there is greed and corruption in it as well, just as there is agreed and corruption in everything else. It has often been said that the line between good and evil is not a line that divides some people from other people, but rather is a line that runs down the middle of each one of us. With this philosophy is extended to entities and institutions, as well as people, it becomes clearer and how this corruption and evil could easily be involved with the Church, even though the Church is expected to be a holy and moral institution.

This is often true today, as well, but Sir Walter Scott strives to point it out in a time when many people put their entire faith and trust into the Church. That is different from putting their faith and trust in God. Sir Walter Scott is not in any way attacking God, rather he is attacking the institution that is the Church. His chief point is that people put their trust, and their whole lives, into the Church and then blindly do whatever the Church tells them to do. The people who are told by the Church to do specific things do them, sometimes because they fear the Church, and sometimes because they revere it. Either way, for whatever misguided reasons the people may carry out Church orders, they are not really doing anything for the glory of God, and neither is the Church.

Because Sir Walter Scott chose to criticize the Church so strongly, he is often attacked by critics (Halsall, 1998). They complain that he should have had more respect towards the Church, and basically make him out to be somewhat discourteous and anti-Christian. Scott, however, was not anti-Christian, he was simply anti-Church. The distinction is one that many people have trouble making, but once it has been seen it cannot be unseen. Sir Walter Scott had no real complaints with God Himself, only with what many misguided people on earth were doing in His name.

Scott was trying to show to the people of his day that the Church itself is only a group of men living and working in a building. Priests may be men of the church, but they are still ultimately just men, and because of that they are not necessarily any better at making wise and moral decisions as the average man would be. What God wants for people's lives, and what the Church wants for people's lives, was often very different. Back in the time of Sir Walter Scott many of the people were still somewhat uneducated, and since some of his works, such as Ivanhoe, were set even farther back in history, many of the people in the book were assumed to be illiterate and ignorant.

These people had grown up listening to what the Church said their entire lives, and could not pick up a Bible or other document and read it for themselves to see if the Church was right. Because they had been raised to behave as certain way towards the Church, that behavior was ingrained and no amount of saying that a priest was dressed inappropriately, or a Knight did not have the morals he should, would cause these people to turn away from their Church. For the common people in the time of books such as Ivanhoe, the Church itself basically was God. It seems that that is the message Sir Walter Scott is trying to convey in his work, that people worshiped the Church as if it were God, instead of trying to figure out what God himself would have wanted them to do.

Scott laments the human condition in this respect, when he talks about how the Church has convinced everybody to do things only a certain way. That type of law should be up to a king, or a government, but yet the Church seems to permeate everything. No matter what the common people wish to do, there is likely a Church rule about it, and those people know that the Church rules cannot be broken.

They are very afraid of Hellfire and Brimstone, because the priests make sure that the common people are taught about the dangers of sin, and the wrath of God, instead of the love and understanding that comes through Jesus. The God of the 12th century people is definitely an Old Testament God, full of wrath and anger. This is the type of God that the Church people want to play up to the common people of the town, because it will keep them lawful and doing what the Church wants them to do.

By attacking the Church, Scott was attempting to show how far his generation had come since the 12th century, but also trying to show that there were many things that still needed improvement (Halsall, 1998). While the Church in Sir Walter Scott's day was not as aggressively controlling as the Church in the time of Ivanhoe, it was still a force to be reckoned with. In Ivanhoe's time, the Church ruled the land, and it made the rules. Those who broke the rules faced damnation, and even though this was likely untrue the people of the time did not know any different.

Another thing that Sir Walter Scott tries to point out in his work is that, even though the Church was controlling and often terrible to the people in the land, the people did not have poor opinions about the Church. They worshiped not only God, but the Church, and they never questioned why they were told to do something. For example, those who lived in castles always gave food and lodging to a stranger who was passing by.

Most people in today's society would not open their door to a stranger, especially in the dead of night, but this was always occurring in the 12th century. People believed that they had to be respectful of others in order to gain the Church's favor. While it is still important to be respectful of others, there are ways in which this respect can be taken farther than it actually needs to be a decent person.

Sir Walter Scott strives to point out that no one complains about the controlling attitude of the Church. They accepted it as fate and destiny, and if someone questioned the Church, it was never mentioned. Even questioning what the Church said was considered a terrible sin, and many people would turn in their neighbors for small petty crimes committed against the Church. These people seemed to fail to realize that they were all in this problem together, and it could have easily become an 'us against them' mentality between the beliefs of the common people and the Church.

However, it did not because the people never questioned why the Church had authority, or whether or not they should or should not be allowed to make the rules. Scott seemed to find this fascinating, and although he degrades the Church every chance he gets, it seems as though he is trying to point out that the people have allowed the Church to turn into this. It is not necessarily that the Church was always corrupt, but that it has become corrupt because the common people have chosen not to question it.

Whether or not this is historically accurate is really not known, but the way Scott explains it, it does make sense. Here is a group of people who often could not read or write for themselves. They know about God, but they do not really understand all of His workings and abilities. Along comes the Church, and tells the people that it knows everything about God, and more importantly it knows what He wants them to do. The people believe this, and so they do with the Church asks of them. They may be afraid of the Church, or they may worship the Church; it may be a little of both. Whichever it is, it works for the Church, and because of the excessive amounts of money that the Church collects from the people, priests are able to dress in stately fashion much as the Prior did in Ivanhoe.

It seems as though Sir Walter Scott might have had some issue with authority in general, not only with the Church. While the Church is inarguably the largest entity that Scott complained about, he also wrote about the British government, as well as other controlling bodies. Scott was a conservative person his entire life, and seemed as though he was very reserved. It is possible that under that conservative exterior was a person who seethed with upset at the human condition. Even biographies of Scott do not really give much insight into why he had such concern about the Church. It is easy to find out about his life in general, and not terribly difficult to find what his critics thought of him during his life.

Many of his critics adored him, but after he wrote more novels they begin to see his literature as weak, and his popularity quickly diminished. Other novelists who were writing more serious works begin to come to the forefront. Despite all of the information available about his life and his critics, the Church is something that does not come up too often in information about Scott. It seems that he was willing to criticize many things out loud in his own voice, but the Church was not one of them. As much as he claims to dislike the Church, at least through the characters in his writings, perhaps he feared the Church to some extent, and chose to avoid its wrath by expressing himself in the characters and the use of his books, rather than in person (Halsall, 1998).

It is unlikely that his opinion of the Church changed after he wrote Ivanhoe and some of his other works, so it seems unlikely that Church information was kept out of his biographies for that reason. Perhaps he felt that he could say much through his writing that he would never dare to say in person. When one writes a novel and there are characters in it who say and do certain things, it is very easy for the author to protest and say that whatever the character did was something that only belonged to that character. Anyone who has written a book that has done well will often tell the public that one has to use part of who one really is, and put that into the book, in order for the book to come alive.

Whether or not opinions about the Church belonged to the characters, or belonged to Sir Walter Scott, is not easy to deduce. It is possible that the intense dislike of the Church was only from the characters point-of-view, but that seems unlikely. The dislike of the Church may be the one part of himself that Sir Walter Scott put into his work. In this way he could express his feelings about the Church while still avoiding the persecution that saying these things out loud in public might have brought to him.

Mark Twain: His Hatred of the Church, and More

In comparison with Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain also looks down upon the Church in his works. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Twain takes every opportunity he can find to put down on the Church. For example, when the main character, Hank, finds himself in the sixth century and the days of King Arthur, he eventually wants to branch out and teach people many of the things that he learned in the 19th century where he came from. He decides, however, to take things very slowly because if he moves too fast, "the people could not have stood at; and moreover I should have had the Established Roman Catholic Church on my back in a minute" (Clemens, 65).

It is easy to see early on in Twain's book that he dislikes the Church and everything that it stands for. In the book, Hank finds himself transported from the 19th century to the sixth century. He ends up as basically the right hand man to King Arthur, but all the while he seems to be going along with everything that is happening in the kingdom, he is actually establishing schools, factories, and other things that he knew about in the 19th century. He sees the people of the sixth century as ignorant and superstitious, and he also sees how strongly the Church is controlling them.

The control the Church has over these people is even worse than the control discussed by Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe. Twain even makes mention of Sir Walter Scott in his book, but it is not clear whether the character of Hank is simply thinking about Scott, or whether Twain is taking pains to make it known that he agrees with Sir Walter Scott's ideas about the Church. Either way, the character of Hank definitely has issues with the Church and the way it treats the common people, and it is extremely likely that Twain does as well, otherwise he would not have written about it so distinctly.

Unlike Ivanhoe, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court does not deal with a specific Church person such as the Prior or the Knight Templar that shows the displeasure Twain has with the Church. Rather it deals mostly with Hank, and some of the tragedies and travesties that he sees during his time in the sixth century. Among the most important ones to Hank are slavery, and the way that poor peasants who live from the day today, barely getting by, are treated.

Hank attempts to make King Arthur understand what the Church is doing to the people, but Arthur simply cannot comprehend what Hank is trying to say. King Arthur has lived with the Church rule for so long that there is no reason to question it now. He finds it strange that Hank would ever propose to question what the Church has said. The Church basically has the people brainwashed into believing that there is no other law except the law made by the Church. Even Arthur, who is allegedly the king, is subject to the laws of the Church, and he does not want to do anything that would cause the Church any displeasure. More importantly, he cannot fathom why anyone would need to do anything that would cost the Church displeasure. He sees the way things are as being perfectly acceptable.

Through the eyes of Hank, Mark Twain shows us that the Church has been controlling people for centuries, but that it used to be much worse during the time of King Arthur that it is in the present day. While things are improving on that front, Twain wants to make sure that people who read his works do not forget how the Church controlled people and got rich off of them for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Like Sir Walter Scott, Twain appears to have a deep-seated dislike for the Church. Like Scott, it is hard to determine where Twain's dislike for the Church came from. Nothing in his past that has been written about him gives a specific idea as to why he hated the Church so much. Perhaps he found it controlling, or stifling, or perhaps he simply believed that domineering Churches were part of the Arthurian legend.

Whether or not he believed a domineering Church to be part of Arthurian legend, he apparently believed it to be part of many other periods of time as well. Impolite comments and underhanded remarks about the Church appear in several of his works including A Tramp Abroad, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In both of these works he discusses how the Church should reform itself before it calls for reform from the people. He also makes reference to Church choir's has been ill-bred, and giggling and whispering throughout the service. He states that there may want to have been a church choir that was not ill-bred, but he has forgotten where it was (Church, 2003).

These kinds of remarks give the reader an insight into the opinions that Twain actually held about the Church. As with Sir Walter Scott, one comment about the Church in one book would not necessarily mean that the author had any kind of problem with the Church. However, Twain's continued commentary about the uncouth actions of many church people indicate that it is not simply one character in one book who has difficulty with, or dislike for, the Church, but rather it is Twain himself expressing himself through his writing, which is often easier than expressing oneself out loud.

Unlike Sir Walter Scott, Twain made sure that he spoke out into other ways about his problem with the Church. Twain in fact had a problem not just with the Church but with all of Christianity as a whole. Several of his works attack Christianity, and he also attacks the Mormon Bible. He saw Christianity as corrupt and dangerous, in the fact that wars and terrible crimes were done in its name. He felt that God was always wanting people to slay other people in His name, and Twain was very disheartened by the fact that Christianity portrayed God as wanting this from everyone (Mark, 2003).

While Twain did not attack God directly, he continued to attack Christianity. He saw the Church as something degrading and brainwashing, rather than seeing it as a place for Christians to connect with other Christians. He was angered by the fact that people killed each other in the name of Christianity, and he was also angered by the fact that people blindly followed what the Church and the priests told them to do.

He was more outspoken about this than Sir Walter Scott, so it would be difficult to say whether or not Scott's writings actually affect did Twain's opinion of the Church. It would also be difficult to deduce whether or not Twain's feelings about the Church turned him into an atheist, or whether it was only the way that Christianity was carried out that he was actually against. He never said one way or the other whether he still believed in God, but it was very clear that he did not believe in the Church (Mark, 2003).

Not everyone agreed with Twain's views on the church, however. A critique of his work from the year 1890 talks about how Twain's novel is long and tiresome, and mentions how he attacks the Roman Catholic Church. According to the critique, Twain's book is not written in a realistic historic context, and therefore has little value to the reader. It is allegedly not even entertaining, as it is much too long for the tale that it tells and the main character, Hank, is often made out to look silly and ridiculous instead of brave. It seems the critic who wrote the discussion on Twain's book thought that bringing 19th century conveniences to the sixth century was just a bit too far-fetched for most readers to enjoy. It also seems that the critic was concerned about Twain's Protestant views and how they affected the feelings of the Roman Catholic Church (Boston, 1890).

Undoubtedly, Twain angered many churchgoers when he wrote this book. Undoubtedly, he did not care. He had already made it clear that he had no use for Christianity, and was not about to be dissuaded by what a particular critic thought. In A Connecticut Yankee, Twain expresses some of his harshest sentiments about the Catholic Church. It seems that, no matter what Hank tries to do, the Church is always getting in his way. That is not to say that the Church comes and deals with him directly, but rather that the people of the 6th century are so brainwashed by the Church that they are unable to comprehend doing things any way other than the Church's way.

When something is suggested to them that is not within the realms of what the Church would have them do, they look toward Hank as though they believe him to be crazy, and insist that they cannot do what he is asking, because it would be breaking the rules. They are extremely concerned about breaking any rules that belong to the Church. This seems to be more important to these people then breaking rules that belong to the monarchy, or seeing their friends condemned to death for some small alleged crime that had been committed against the Church, or against someone of a higher social class.

Since Hank comes from the 19th century, where the church is not as restrictive, he has trouble understanding how the people of Arthurian times can be so brainwashed and ignorant that they do not see what the Church is doing to them. Through Hank, Mark Twain attempts to convey all of the pain and misery that he believes the Church to have caused people throughout the centuries.

Hank does manage to gain some followers, but most of the people are so afraid of the Church that they will not to do anything that might displease the priests. In the end, Hank does establish many of the 19th century conveniences that he was working so hard to create. All of them seem to be running well until Hank and his wife and child go away briefly to France. When he returns, everything is in darkness and he finds that the Church has frightened everyone back into their God-fearing state of mind. Perhaps, their God-fearing state of mind would be better called their 'Church-fearing' state of mind, for what the people were truly frightened of was the Church.

Hank makes vain attempts to show these ignorant sixth century people that they can build a life and a law which does not involve the Church. It is impossible for these people to found them how they can have any kind of life without the Church, and therefore they turn against Hank. Hank and a few loyal followers retreat to a cave, and when all of the Knights in the kingdom come to get them, they have created electric fences which kill the Knights where they stand. As each Knight grabs the fence, he is electrocuted, and seemingly the Knights do not realize this but just keep coming.

Eventually, all of the Knights have been killed, but now Hank and his followers have a problem. They are trapped in their cave by all of the dead. Merlin, the sorcerer, puts a curse on Hank, who will now sleep until the 19th-century again. The others in the cave will surely die because there is no escape through the masses of dead Knights. The last entry in the book is written by the man who stuck by Hank through all of this. He knows that he and the others are going to die, and he leaves Hank's journal with him, in the hopes that Hank, who is asleep for the next 13 centuries, will eventually awake and be able to share his story with someone else in the future.

According to Twain, the Church is responsible for all of the death. If it were not for the Church's opinion that Hank and his band of followers were committing terrible sins, they would not have sent all of the Knights to their deaths, and consequently Hank's small band of followers would have survived as well. It could be argued, however, that Hank is actually responsible for all of the death. He is the one who came in and wanted to change the kingdom, and while he was aware that the Church did not agree with this, he went on ahead with his plans and did it anyway. When he saw that all of the people had returned to the Church instead of following him, he could have saved many lives by abandoning his plans right there and leaving the kingdom; fleeing to safety with his wife and small child. Because of his willingness to stand up to the Church, he never again saw either wife or child.

In this work, and in many other works, as in his life, Mark Twain made it clear how he felt about the Church. His intense dislike for the church came not from a largely unidentifiable source as did Sir Walter Scott's, but rather came from the anger he felt at all of the bloodshed caused over hundreds of years in the name of God. He found it ironic, that people would kill each other in the name of God, and that was acceptable, but it was a sin in the eyes of God for someone to kill another man for another reason. The Churches, of course, was right in the middle of this, and that was likely one of the main reason is that Twain felt such a strong dislike for them.

According to one writer on Mark Twain, he became bitter over his lot in life when his children died and his own health began to fail. It was at this time in his life that he began to really rail against God. Up until that time, Twain had largely contented himself with complaining about the Church and the way that those who claimed to be Christians often had less morals than those who did not claim to be anything. Eventually, Twain's displeasure with the Church extended out word to displeasure with God himself. Apparently, Twain was not only angered by the human condition and the problems in his own life, but was angered by his belief that God could fix all pain and suffering if he chose to. Twain was angry that a God who was supposed to be so caring and loving toward his children would not stop and take care of all of the difficulties and problems in the world (Sloan, 2001).

Even though Mark Twain complains strongly about God and the tragedies that were committed on this earth in His name, he displayed much reverence towards Jesus Christ until near his death. Although he did not believe in Jesus as the son of God, as Christians do, he did believe that Jesus was a person of great reverence and deserved to be spoken of in a respectful way. As he got closer to death, however, he began to write against even Jesus himself. Mark Twain discarded all thoughts of an afterlife or an immortal soul, and even though he never officially declared himself an atheist, his actions indicate that he may easily have been one (Sloan, 2001).

Once a reader understands how Mark Twain felt about God, and how he felt about the Church in his own life, it is easier to see all of the derogatory statements that he makes about the Church in his works. In delving somewhat deeper into Connecticut Yankee, the theme that the church is controlling everything in society can be seen throughout the book. For a while, Hank feels as though he is changing the world, but in reality he has not done anything except showed sixth century people some 19th century novelties. The fundamental nature of the people of the sixth century has not been changed by anything that Hank has done, and when the Church threatens them, they turn around and run right back to it, as though everything that Hank had shown them never existed.