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.”
Throughout the story, Jim Smiley, a curious gambler, who has uncommon luck would just about bet on anything to win. If he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he could not, he would change sides. Anyway that suited the other man would suit him just fine, long as he came out a winner. Smiley was known for winning, he was not a sore loser, but the way he won was his bets was not
However, Smiley did not cheat the people but he deceived them and that wrong. Smiley did not have any sympathy for anyone or anything win it came down to gambling, his main concern was winning. Smiley once had a dog named Andrew Jackson who looked like he was not worth much of anything and he had him fight another dog with no back legs. There was also a time when Smiley gambled on a horse that had asthma. No matter what the bet or situation, he was willing to take a chance (Twain).
Mark Twain’s well known story, “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is one of the most popular short stories written of all times. It was an overnight success and read by many around the world. People may have a different argument from me, but I’m a strong believer in what goes around comes around. A person can only get away with deceiving others but for so long before it comes back on them. So do unto others as you would like for them to do unto
Jim Smiley is a dumbstruck guy. He thinks everything she be about how his frog is the best frog, just as John Oakhurst feel about himself. Jim has a big head, exactly like John does. In this line” "Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "He's good enough for one thing, I should judge he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."” (Twain) It shows Jim has a full of himself attitude and will not let anyone tell him anything different than that his frog is the best around. In this line “Mr. Oakhurst's calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications.” (Harte) it seems as if John Oakhurst knows for a fact he is a handsome man. Jim Smiley was a go get ‘em kind of guy and John Oakhurst seemed like a laid back kind of guy. The absolute
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel written by Mark Twain during the late 1800’s (Mintz). The book brought major controversy over the plot, as well as the fact that it was a spin-off to his previous story, Adventures of Tom Sawyer. This book has remained a success due to Twain’s interesting techniques of keeping the audience’s attention. Chapters eleven and twelve of “Huckleberry Finn,” uses a first person limited point of view to take advantage of the use of dialogue while using many hyperboles to add drama to entertain the reader by creating description within the story without needing to pause and explain.
Mark Twain’s novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has sparked much controversy since its publication in 1884 due to countless racial slurs and stereotypes; in fact it is the most commonly banned book in American history (source). While many argue that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be banned, the literary merit, namely the realistic setting and characterization, outweighs the vulgarity and crude language. Twain’s satirical social commentary
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
Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is said to be one of the greatest American novels to ever be written and is what all other pieces of American literature are based off of. The novel has been debated for over an entire century and will continue to be debated for much longer. Never the less, Huckleberry Finn teaches young students and adults the important life lessons. ”The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain should remain required reading in American Literature classes because it enlightens students about the horrors of racism and slavery, familiarizes students with the South during time period, and properly portrays the powers of conformity.
In “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Mark Twain utilizes humor and contrasting provincial perspectives to demonstrate regionalism throughout the text. One way Twain accomplishes this humor is through the colloquial speech and lousy grammar of the storyteller, Simon Wheeler, which Twain contrasts against the well-spoken and mannered East Coast narrator. Wheeler's vernacular is a valuable representation of the way most people in California mining camps talk, using words and phrases such as “dangdest feller,” “thish-yer,” “jest,” and “ketch[ed]” (Twain 122-123).Additionally, Twain’s deliberate use of misspellings helped to more effectively develop Wheeler’s stories and their regional qualities. A prime example of this is when Wheeler talks about the notorious frog, Dan’l Webster. He exclaims, “and quicker’n you could wink he’d spring straight up and snake a fly off’n
Mark Twain, one of the most distinguished American authors in the 19th century, made his living by writing “light, humorous verse, but evolved this literature into a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies and murderous acts of mankind.” The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, written by Mark Twain, focuses on a narrator from the east suffering through a Westerner’s tale about a jumping frog as the author attempts to entertain the reader through its oddities in the short story, its humorous First, Mark Twain uses educated diction and obscure descriptions of Simon Wheeler in an attempt to entertain the general public reading the newspaper “The Saturday,” the newspaper where Mark Twain published his original version of his short story. To begin, Mark Twain uses the character of Jim Smiley to interest the reader and keep them hooked on the obscure personality of Mr. Smiley and his frog. Jim Smiley, a man addicted to gambling and competition, fools others through deception and false manipulations and gains the reader’s attention through his dedication to winning and competing. Through clever manipulation of words, Jim downplays the skill of his investments (his animals) and in this case, his frog, while failing to mention the skill of the frog and the months of training he put into training this particular animal.... ...
...ct that they have got to sing with them in heaven or scorch with them in hell some day in the most familiar and sociable way and on a footing of most perfect equality (p. 4).
According to a criticism on the short story in the second volume of Short Stories for Students, writers of local color attempt to exaggerate cultural differences (Schmidt 27). The genre of writing generally focuses on unsophisticated characters in a specific part of America (Schmidt 27). In Twain’s short story, the narrator travels from eastern American to a western mining town in search of Leonidas W. Smiley. When he is trying to obtain information about the man he is searching for, he encounters Simon Wheeler, the stereotypical western frontiersman who rambles on about a man named Jim Smiley that had a pet frog who could jump higher than any of the other member of his
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.
Mark Twain is telling a folktale about Simon Wheeler and how the camp looked and how it was. He shows us how Simon Wheeler life was at the Angel camp. Twain presents imagery in “The celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by illustrating how life was back then in the west.
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
With Twain’s style of complexity in characterization and sophisticated narrative structure, Mark Twain’s “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was one of the best works that he had ever written. Mark Twain’s, “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is about a man by the name of Jim Smiley was a man who would bet on anything. Smiley made a frog his pet and bets a stranger that his frog, Dan’l Webster, could jump higher than any frog. When Smiley was distracted, the stranger filled Dan’l Webster with lead, resulting in Smiley losing the bet. Before Smiley could figure out what just happened, the stranger vanished along with the money he won by cheating. In “Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”,
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by the pseudonym Mark Twain, has been central to American literature for over a century. His seemingly effortless diction accurately exemplified America’s southern culture. From his early experiences in journalism to his most famous fictional works, Twain has remained relevant to American writing as well as pop culture. His iconic works are timeless and have given inspiration the youth of America for decades. He distanced himself from formal writing and became one of the most celebrated humorists. Mark Twain’s use of the common vernacular set him apart from authors of his era giving his readers a sense of familiarity and emotional connection to his characters and himself.
In Mark Twain’s American classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we are told the entertaining tale of Huck Finn, a somewhat harmless miscreant who escapes with his friend Jim, his family’s former slave. As