GRE Reading Comprehension

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Source: XDF

Hank Morgan, the hero of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, is a nineteenth-century master mechanic who mysteriously awakening in sixth-century Britain, launches what he hopes will be a peaceful revolution to transform Arthurian Britain into an industrialized modern democracy. The novel, written as a spoof (a light humorous parody) of Thomas Malory's Morted' Arthur, a popular collection of fifteenth-century legends about sixth-century Britain, has been made into three upbeat movies and two musical comedies. None of these translations to screen and stage, however, dramatize the anarchy at the conclusion of A Connecticut Yankee, which ends with the violent overthrow of Morgan's three-year-old progressive order and his return to the nineteenth century, where he apparently commits suicide after being labeled a lunatic for his incoherent babblings about drawbridges and battlements. The American public, although enjoying Twain's humor, evidently rejected his cynicism about technological advancement and change through peaceful revolution as antithetical to the United States doctrine of progress.

Question List: 1 2 3

The author uses the examples of "three upbeat movies and two musical comedies" primarily in order to demonstrate that

  • A well-written novels like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, regardless of their tone or theme, can be translated to the stage and screen
  • B the American public has traditionally been more interested in watching plays and movies than in reading novels like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
  • C Twain's overall message in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is one that had a profound impact on the American public
  • D Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court has been a more popular version of the Arthurian legends than has Malory's Morte d' Arthur
  • E A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court has been accepted as an enjoyable and humorous tale in versions that have omitted the anarchy at the novel's conclusion

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