Authors use stylistic techniques to bring clarity to their text and create a vivid picture for their readers. “Cannibalism in the Cars,” a story by Mark Twain, is about politicians who get snowed in on a train together and resort to cannibalism in the end. In another story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” the narrator is listens to a man who explains Jim Smiley, who gambles and tells a tale about a jumping frog. In “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” and “Cannibalism in the Cars,” Mark Twain uses characterization, irony, and imagery in order to engage the reader while also making the story clear to his audience, in this sense teaching them a theme.
Twain utilizes the stylistic technique of characterization in order to convey his themes
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and develop characters in both of his short stories.
Jim Smiley is the topic of discussion in “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” and he is a very arrogant man. In the beginning of the story, Twain writes, “I've got my opinion, and I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county” (Twain, “Celebrated”). The fact that the Smiley is willing to spend $40, which in the mid 1800’s is a large amount of money, portrays that Smiley is highly confident that his frog will win. In a turn of events however, Smiley loses the bet, which shows readers his false sense of judgement. The way Twain chooses to portray his characters allows the story come to life. Strong characterization is shown in Twain's other piece, “Cannibalism in the Cars,” as well. The narrator states, “I was conversing with a man who was perfectly familiar with the ins and outs of political life at the Capital, even to the ways and manners, and customs of procedure of Senators and
Representatives in the Chambers of the national Legislature” (Twain, “Cannibalism”). Mark Twain stylistically characterizes a man of who is a part of the National Legislature. “Cannibalism in Cars” is a sarcastic story about the casualty of politicians to make impulsive decisions. The politicians on the train form a committee in the middle of a story to decide which member should be eaten first. If this were any group of men it would seem both extreme and unnecessary, but since it is known that they are politicians the reader can begin to understand Twain’s satire. Through characterization Twain is able to bring these politicians to life and showcase the flaws in the political system.
Authors use many different types of imagery in order to better portray their point of view to a reader. This imagery can depict many different things and often enhances the reader’s ability to picture what is occurring in a literary work, and therefore is more able to connect to the writing. An example of imagery used to enhance the quality of a story can be found in Leyvik Yehoash’s poem “Lynching.” In this poem, the imagery that repeatably appears is related to the body of the person who was lynched, and the various ways to describe different parts of his person. The repetition of these description serves as a textual echo, and the variation in description over the course of the poem helps to portray the events that occurred and their importance from the author to the reader. The repeated anatomic imagery and vivid description of various body parts is a textual echo used by Leyvik Yehoash and helps make his poem more powerful and effective for the reader and expand on its message about the hardship for African Americans living
“ The horizon was the color of milk. Cold and fresh. Poured out among the bodies” (Zusak 175). The device is used in the evidence of the quote by using descriptives words that create a mental image. The text gives the reader that opportunity to use their senses when reading the story. “Somehow, between the sadness and loss, Max Vandenburg, who was now a teenager with hard hands, blackened eyes, and a sore tooth, was also a little disappointed” (Zusak 188). This quote demonstrates how the author uses descriptive words to create a mental image which gives the text more of an appeal to the reader's sense such as vision. “She could see his face now, in the tired light. His mouth was open and his skin was the color of eggshells. Whisker coated his jaw and chin, and his ears were hard and flat. He had a small but misshapen nose” (Zusak 201). The quotes allows the reader to visualize what the characters facial features looked like through the use of descriptive words. Imagery helps bring the story to life and to make the text more exciting. The reader's senses can be used to determine the observations that the author is making about its characters. The literary device changes the text by letting the reader interact with the text by using their observation skills. The author is using imagery by creating images that engages the reader to know exactly what's going on in the story which allows them to
In the short story “Magpies” by Thomas King, a unique narrator is used to recount the story of the character Granny’s death and the subsequent conflict involving her burial between Ambrose and Wilma. In his story, King intertwines written and oral literature, and creates an oral voice through a narrator. There are many techniques that King uses to achieve this effect. King’s writing style which is used in “Magpies” is best described by King himself in his essay “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonialism”. He describes this style of narration as “interfusional” which is a “metamorphosis- (from) written to oral, reader to speaker” (Godzilla vs Post-Colonialism 14). Through using the role of a storyteller, King uses the “interfusional” style of writing. The
The writer has used a combination of narrative and descriptive styles of writing. He has used the descriptive style to give a step by step illustration on what a man should do, how he should behave and lastly what he should say from the beginning to the end of the story (Meyer 45). The narrative style comes into play as he adds in his characters, the conflicts they will face or words they will use and the settings and or challenges they will encounter throughout the short story. This
The first literary device is a simile and it paints a picture in the readers head.
One of the biggest determinants for the success of a writer is engaging and maintaining the interest of a variety of readers. While there are endless approaches to telling a story, as well as many writing styles, the most effective writings are the ones that successfully impress a diverse audience. The essays Eating Chili Peppers and Conforming to Stand Out: A Look at American Beauty are two different styles of essays that unveil a similar search for self-gratification. While the essays cover different topics and the authors use different writing styles and approaches to engage the reader, they both unveil a similar underlying message of a search for self-gratification.
Mark Twain quickly rose to fame after the release of his story, “Jim Smiley and the Jumping Frog,” and he continued to make a name for himself through the release of stories such as The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Twain saw immense success and fame; he was easily recognizable and wildly popular, even to the point of being called “the greatest American humorist of his age” by the New York Times. In short, Twain was as close to being an international sensation as one could hope for in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, it wasn’t until the later days of his writing career that Twain became so well known. As photography was expensive and hard to come by, caricatures were the method of choice to portray celebrities. And, as
In the story, “The Killing Game”, Joy Williams, uses several diffenent types of writing skills to presuade the reader to see her views.
An author’s style of words, sentence structure, and use of figurative language gives an author their own unique style of writing. Although, how an author writes can cause confusion due to connotative use of words and sentence. The author’s style-words, sentence structure, and figurative language can give a reader a description that forms imagery. Also it affects the tone, mood, and theme of the story.
Mark Twain’s use of humor in the story mocks and shines light on the issues of our society’s political system from back then that continue
In traditional writing styles, the main element to give the story meaning is the narrative itself. However, with more modern and distinct styles such as the short stories written where the narrative is no longer the primary stylistic device, but the use of metaphors and distinctive different narrators applies meaning to the stories. Though it is easy to judge what is different from tradition as inferior, this change is no different than the rise of cubism in the art world. Even though initially many would comment on the art not being “real,” or in this case, the stories being poorly written, this style has even more of an effect. After
I frankly confess that I have, as a general thing, but little enjoyment of it, and that it has never seemed to me to be, as it were, a first-rate literary form. . . . But it is apt to spoil two good things – a story and a moral, a meaning and a form; and the taste for it is responsible for a large part of the forcible-feeding writing that has been inflicted upon the world. The only cases in whi...
Mark Twain’s “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is a short story with the lesson that what goes around comes around. In this short story, which first appeared in 1856 and his first successful story, Twain uses local customs of the time, dialect, and examples of social status in his story to create a realistic view of the region in which the story takes place. The way that the characters behave is very distinctive. Dialect is also used to give the reader a convincing impression of the setting in “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”. The social status of the main characters in this story also was something that Twain took into account in writing this story. Mark Twain is a realist who concentrates on the customs, dialect, and social status of specific regions of the country.
In the story, "Cannibalism in the Cars", by Mark twain, he is able to prosperously create a humorous effect and utilize various devices to do so. The way he manipulates pauses in his stories to create a surprising affect, the importance of using parenthesis to assist the comic, and being able to conceal that the story that is about to be told is humorous. The passage also written by Mark Twain, "How to Tell a Story", further supports the devices being practiced.
An Analysis of Mark Twain: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Everyone is familiar with the humorous works of Mark Twain. Some of Twain’s major works include, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”,” Pudd’nhead Wilson”, “Roughing It” “Innocents Abroad” and the short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (Bloom 53). The Jumping Frog Story, which was published under several titles, including “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” and “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (Rasmussen 618-619). Scholars refer to it as the “Jumping Frog Story.”