Comparing The Notorious Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County And Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain lived in completely different times, yet the stories they wrote both tell of the human condition in such a true way the characters in them are as familiar as pedestrians walking on the sidewalk. Two stories by them in particular accentuate a good cha racter. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown and Mark Twain's the Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Young Goodman Brown is a gothic story about a man, and the town with him, that allows curiosity to lead him astray, while the Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is about a compulsive gambler. Readers who haven't ever heard of these authors are familiar with these type of characte rs. They are real enough to cause nostalgia in the stomachs of the most

iron-hearted.

These two stories will prove how even classics can be as relatable as modern literature.The themes and backgrounds are not as important as the people living in the foregro und of these stories.

Comparing these two stor ies expresses how authors of different eras and cultures create characters as genuine and life-like as reality. Both characters are compu lsive,and they both deal with change. These are aspects of human nature that spa n through millennia, relatable and true to the American experience .

Mark Twain creates dialects in his writing similar to yokels of 191 century Missouri. The dialects make a mockery of proper English that would aggravate a grammar teacher to no end. Yet, people living in the country, with no education, really talk this way. For exam ple,in the Notorious Jumping Frog, the character Wheeler talks so unnaturally it is difficult to understand him. "Well,thish-yer Smiley had

a

yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only jest a short stump like a bannaner -" Wheeler is talking about the infamous Jim Smiley's latest gamble scheme. If Microsoft Word existed in Mark Twain's time, it sure ly would have exploded in a cloud of puzzlement over his prose. Still, this type of dialogue is more realistic than grammatically correct se ntences, unless of course the person talking stresses the importance of sentence structure with every word he or she spouts. Reading dia lect dialogue gives the reader the sense the characters are true.

Mark Twain uses the humor of country bumpkins to show human v ice.

His short stories were always more lighthearted than Hawthorne's, but his characters were just as real. Smiley, for instance, in the Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is a gambler. "He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it and take ary side you please, as I was just telling you." (1241). Smiley is a short-sighted thrill seeker. He is a type of individual one can see at Las Vegas, Nevada wasting all his savings at the craps table. The newspapers these days are filled with stories about dopes who lost their life earnings in Sin City. Smiley would fit right in today's soc

iety.

In Young Goodman Brown, human wickedness, which is prevalent these days, is represented in a witch's Sabbath. Nathaniel Hawthorne shows how regular people can humor evil even in their mind's eye. "'By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin, ye shall scent out all the places ... where crime has been committed and shall exalt to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt."' {617) . The sable figure
giving this speech tells best how the thir st for sin lives in people's thoughts even if they never say so out

loud.These are folks in Salem during the Seventeenth century. Thousands of years ago, thinking bad thoughts was common enough for Nathaniel to write about. This is a human condition that afflicts people today, as well, from the road-raged man wishing harm on another driver, to a high school

students tweeting anonymously about an ugly school mate. This is one thing Nathaniel Hawthorne did well: highlighting the stains of human behavior .

Wickedness to Hawthorne, in fact, was more evil in the heart than evil out in the streets. What people kept in their minds, thought s they believed veiled from society, where nobody co uld see them or hear them, was something far worse than actual crimes committed by criminals.

'"Far more than this! It shall be yours to penetrate,in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the

fountain of all wicked arts, in which, inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power- than

my power at utmost- ca n manifest in deeds."' (617)

The sa ble figure speaking believes that no act is as evil as what lives in hearts of man.Although

one of the story's character is spea king,Hawthorne's own beliefs are felt in the passage. A reader

ca nnot help but feel shamed by what they see in this passage because it speaks the truth of most the world. The people in this story are as rea l as the strangers in modern streets. Even though Hawthorne wrote about another era, it does not make them any less ge nuine.

So, Mark Twain uses dialect and humor to make his characters more rea listic,while Hawthorne uses human vice and wickedness in average people to make his characters more rea listic. They both lived in different litera ry periods,however their cha racters were real enough to be relatable even today.
Hawthorne places his characters, for instance, in controversial situations to tell of natural human

fa ilings. When a man cheats on a woman, this is a mistake that many people make even these days . Hawthorne wrote the Scarlet Letter that looks at this very issue. Mark Twain, on the other hand, imagines stories that tell of adrenaline junkies like Huckleberry Finn that reminds the readers of adolescent carelessness, like jumpin g off the town dam into the lake just to get the heart rac ing. Who cannot relate to situations like these.

Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne probably never met each other. In fact, Mark Twain's career did not take off until Hawthorne was long dead. These two people may have not even liked each other had they met. Who knew what they would have thought of one another's work . Maybe they would have thought their works utter garbage. Yet, it is undeniable that both authors had a firm grip on human behaviors .Their diver se characters are the type one recognizes in their own friends. The bartender at the local saloon could be Jim Smiley,or the girl receiving martinis from that bartender could be Faith, the protagonist's love interest in Young Goodman Brown. Her boyfriend could be Brown himself, contemplating sin in his heart as he drinks his third daiquiri. More than anything,the characters in these stories tell how,although technology and cultures change (yes, even that) people do not. There will be a Jim Smiley and a Brown all the way into the 3P1 century.