GRE Reading Comprehension
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Source: CHP
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 of Thomas Malory's Morte d'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
It can be inferred from the passage that Mark Twainwould most probably have believed in which of thefollowing statements about societal change?
- A Technological advancements are limited in theirability to change society and will likely bringliabilities along with any potential benefits.
- B The belief in the unmitigated benefits of societalchange is antithetical to the Americandoctrine of progress.
- C Technological advances and peaceful revolutions,although sometimes accompanied by unintended violence and resistance to societalchange, eventually lead to a more progressive order.