Epoch-Eclipse and Apocalypse: Special “Effects” in A Connecticut Yankee
1973; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 88; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/461643
ISSN1938-1530
Autores Tópico(s)Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis
ResumoHANK MORGAN'S USE of a solar eclipse to impress upon King Arthur and his court that a magician superior to Merlin stands before them is, undoubtedly, the most impressive episode in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court , Twain's time-travel version of the international novel. Arthur is at least as affected as the reader and, as a consequence, Hank istransformed from being a prisoner into being the Boss. But perhaps the reader does not appreciate that on a symbolic level, this blotting out and temporary displacement of one heavenly body by another parallels the “transposition of epochs—and bodies [human and stellar]” (p. 18) which is the donnée of the novel—the displacement of nineteenth-century America by sixth-century Britain and, subsequently, the displacement, first tentative then total, of sixth-century Britain by nineteenth-century America. 1 By equating this “epoch-eclipse” with the apparent extinction of the sun, Twain is implying that the posited world transformation is an event of apocalyptic proportions. In the Revelation of John the Divine, as in traditional symbology, fire is the instrument of apocalypse and, thus, Twain's use of the sun in this context is most appropriate. 2
Referência(s)