My Head Hurts After This One

I finished reading “A Connecticut Yankee” today, but for the sake of the rest of the class, I will not write about the very end….yet. Instead, there is a quote that I found interesting that pertains to the discussion of disguise. When Hank is hiding from the slaves who are trying to get him killed, he is searching for a way out of his problem. He finds his solution when

At the first second-hand clothing shop I came to, up a backstreet, I got a rough rig suitable for a common seaman who might be going on cold voyage, and bound up my face with a liberal bandage, saying I had a toothache. This concealed the worst of my bruises. It was a transformation. I no longer resembled my former self (Twain 342).

Normally, I would not find this particularly strange, as many characters throughout time have found disguise as a way out of trouble. However, I thought about it a little more, and found something weird about all of this: When in his most dire times, why would Hank, a man who has shown a knack for finding center-stage and boosting himself up to a level above others, shrink down and make himself appear as a mere normal citizen? I’m thinking through this, so bear with me here as I try to make sense of all this.

As we discussed in class, disguises generally serve as a way for a character to have social mobility; in other words, a poor man can look noble, and a rich man can look like a “nobody”. This is evidenced throughout many of our most famous plays. The one that comes to mind is The Taming of the Shrew (which I coincidentally just reread for a Shakespeare class), where Lucentio, who is of rich descent, trades places with his servant, Tranio, in order to enable a love plot to happen. These characters require social mobility, so Lucentio can snag the girl of his dreams. Lucentio, as far as readers know, does not have any tendencies that would make us believe that he has a problem with making himself look like a lower class person. This line of thinking is where I start to have problems when thinking about Hank.

Though Lucentio moves down the social ladder, it is not surprising, as nothing is said to the contrary that he would have a problem with this. Hank, however, strikes me as the type who would not resort to such a thing during a life or death situation. Yes, he does wander disguised much of the novel. However, at other points in the book when he wants to make a statement or save himself, he reverts to his “diva” form and uses his position in the hierarchy to weasel his way out of certain spots (Merlin's Tower, with Arthur's sister, among others). It seems very out of character for Hank to rescue himself by doing something that does not put the spotlight on him. I thought that he would have told everyone that he was the Boss, or would have bought clothes to make him look like nobility, as he always seems to strive to look as powerful as possible. Perhaps I am thinking too hard about this, but this use of disguise within the novel really perplexed me.

While Taming of the Shrew and this novel are obviously very different, there is a similar theme within them: the characters use disguise (coincidentally, to achieve downward mobility) in order to attain the means they find necessary to their survival. Nevertheless, this seems very unlike Hank, as he seems like the type who would rise up and show everyone how noble he truly is, as he does this in all other situations that could potentially prove fatal to him. I understand the idea of disguise, and it makes perfect sense to me. Unfortunately, I cannot understand the use of Hank’s disguise here, as he is not the type to move down the structure when faced with a situation that could prove too much for him to handle. I would appreciate any feedback on this. Maybe I’m nuts, but this use of disguise does not seem to make sense with the consistent character that Mark Twain has created throughout the book.