China and the West

[Twain, Mark]. Zai ya se wang chao ting li de kang nie di ke zhou mei guo ren. Ye Weizhi yi. ID D29600].
Ye Weizhi writes : "Twain not only used sixth-century England as a reflection of European monarchies, but also employed it to allude to the capitalistic United States of America... During the first few years after the Civil War, Americans from certain classes believed that theirs was a free country where everybody had “equal chance.” As time passed, this turned out to be a baseless myth. Although slavery was abolished, the spirit of the slave-owners and their spiritual numbness proved deep-rooted. Having got what they wanted, the northern capitalists allied with reactionary southern plantation-owners"

Liu Haiming : Ye Weizhi made a penetrating analysis of the time and setting of the novel, pointing out the book's progressive points, its strong opposition to feudalism and its indictment of Roman Catholicism. He felt the novel was an extremely imaginative work ; Twain's use of the contradictions generated by the juxtaposition of characters from the Middle Ages with one from 19th-century America resulted in a wildly fantastic plot. A literary style full of change and variety also characterizes this work.