<P> For example, the book portrays the medieval people as being very gullible, as when Merlin makes a "veil of invisibility" which, according to him, will make the wearer imperceptible to his enemies, though friends can still see him . The knight Sir Sagramor wears it to fight Hank, who pretends that he cannot see Sagramor for effect to the audience . </P> <P> Hank Morgan's opinions are also strongly denunciatory towards the Catholic Church of the medieval period; the Church is seen by the Yankee as an oppressive institution that stifles science and teaches peasants meekness only as a means of preventing the overthrow of Church rule and taxation . The book also contains many depictions and condemnations of the dangers of superstition and the horrors of medieval slavery . </P> <P> It is possible to see the book as an important transitional work for Twain, in that earlier, sunnier passages recall the frontier humor of his tall tales such as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, while the corrosive view of human behavior in the apocalyptic latter chapters is more akin to darker, later Twain works such as The Mysterious Stranger and Letters from the Earth . </P> <P> George Hardy notes, "The final scenes of' Connecticut Yankee' depict a mass horse attempting to storm a position defended by wire and machine guns--and getting massacred, none reaching their objective . Deduct the fantasy anachronism of the assailants being Medieval knights, and you get a chillingly accurate prediction of a typical First World War battle...The modern soldiers of 1914 with their bayonets had no more chance to win such a fight than Twain's knights". </P>

A young connecticut yankee in king arthur's court