Twain, in a burst of what seems, upon initial investigation, a beginning writer's attempt to resolve a novel that has spiraled out of his control, kills off his antagonists and finally his protagonist as well. An alternate reading of the conclusion, however, allows the reader to take a vastly different critical angle on the book. Where Aldous Huxley augured man's enslavement to technology, its intellectual and critical emasculation in Brave New World, Twain's work can be construed to encapsulate the pending destruction of society's innocence and idealism by industrialization and the development of weapons of mass destruction. Just as Huxley created an anti-utopian world, run by a global, corporate entity, Twain accomplishes a similar task with his brutal ending. It is first helpful , however, to identify King Arthur's Court not as a misanthropic, bumbling aristocracy but instead as symbolic of American innocence and idealism.
Twain clearly paints the picture of Camelot as a collection of simple, believing characters.
Twain further describes the knights as simpleton storytellers who revel in concocting self-aggrandizing tales, which their listeners never bother to question the validity of. It is clear he sets up the society, the knights and ladies included , as a sort of group of trusting imbeciles who live by a different code than modern man. Furthermore, just as Merlin relegates Morgan to his own time because his mode of thinking is misplaced and dangerous in the Sixth Century, the knights could be expected to be no less misplaced in Twain's day. While Twain begins the book by ridiculing King Arthur's court for its contrived nature and innocence , because the book takes such a drastic turn, it can be argued that his initial intentions have changed. Camelot is no longer the butt of the joke but a symbol of naivet'.