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Analysis Of The Jumping Frog

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“The lowest intellect, like the highest, possesses a skill of some kind and takes a keen pleasure in testing it, proving it, perfecting it” (Mark Twain). “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was one of Mark Twain’s first works and it helped people start to notice who he was. This short story was about someone listening to a man telling a story about a gambler and a frog. Although the story itself sounds a bit weird, that was one of the ways of writing that Twain was best known for. The writing style that Twain uses in this work, and many others, helped create his success and makes him a better writer. In this specific short story, the speaker spoke very seriously and casually which countered the tone that was most based on the listener being annoyed that they had to hear his story. This aspect of the story helped contribute more towards Twain’s writing style, and his style yet to come. “In 1865 his story about the jumping frog of Calaveras County, which was published in New York and reprinted in papers around the United States, started to make him celebrated too.” (Stephan Railton) Although The Jumping Frog wasn’t Twain’s most popular piece by a long shot, it did very well for him at the time. At this point in Twain’s writing, it was the his first great success which helped make it as timeless as it is. He later went on to write famous books such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which both shared the humor that Twain is most

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