'The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras'

The narrator, a mannered Easterner, describes his visit to a mining camp where, on behalf of a friend, he is searching for one Leonidas W. Smiley. He stops in an old tavern, where he meets "goodnatured, garrulous" old Simon Wheeler, who cannot recall a Leonidas Smiley, but does remember a Jim Smiley who lived in the camp around 1849 or 1850. Without prompting, Wheeler launches into an extended narrative about the gambler Smiley and his exploits. Smiley, he says, was "uncommon lucky," and had a reputation for

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, ‘I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw'd off for—I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him—he ‘pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.' And he ketched Dan'l by his neck, and hefted him, and says, "Why blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound!"(1192)

Realism is the period in American literature from 1860 to 1890. This movement in writing focused on writing about how things really appeared and how they really were instead of writing in a dark manner. The stories, Life On The Mississippi and The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County written by Mark Twain best represent the realism movement in American literature at this time.

One of the examples of Twain’s exaggeration is when Wheeler describes Smiley. He says that he would bet on anything, if he bet on how far a bug would go, he would follow that bug to Mexico. This gives the story a very humorous tone. In this story a feeling of regionalism is seen too because Smiley finds pride in his frog being the best in his area. Whereas Harte does not use humor as his main element to present the West, instead he uses comic relief. In Harte's story, the citizens of Poker Flat mining camp have decided to rid the county of trouble makers, and exile a gambler Mr. John Oakhurst, prostitutes the Duchess and the Mother Shipton, and a drunken thief Uncle Billy. The exiles must find shelter and head for the next camp, Sandy Bar which is located further into the mountains. Sandy Bar is a day journey and the banished have very few Supplies, plus it is winter, and snow is expected. Harte chooses to use sarcastic narrative to emphasize the direness of the group's situation, plus, to emphasize the lack of the group's propriety and common sense. One example of Harte's humorous, sarcastic narrative is the line, Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less with propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not fortunate. Another example would be, but they were furnished with liquor, which in this emergency

The story named 'The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' was published in 1865. The edition that I studied had the story with a preface in which Twain has angrily addressed some Frenchman who have tried to translate his story in french and had ended up making fun of it. So Mr. Twain has given the original story to him, then his own translation in french and then the translation in English of the story that the Frenchman published in the article.

Because “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” has an additional story within it, distinguishing reality from anecdote could become difficult; but this isn’t the case because of the characters’ differences in dialogue. The narrator is the one who speaks the segments of Mark Twain’s underlying story, while Simon Wheeler tells the other account. The western mannerisms of Wheeler differ dramatically from the narrator’s more standard and proper English style. While Simon Wheeler tells of “a feller…by the name of Jim Smiley,” the narrating character describes Wheeler as a man with “an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance.” The tones these characters think and talk in don’t blur together in the smooth transition between their

In fact, As Simon says, Jim would bet on anything. If a dog was fighting, He would bet on it. If a cat was fighting, He would bet on it. If there was a race, he would bet on it. If two birds were on a fence, he would bet which one flew off first. If he saw a straddle bug moving, he would bet on it. He would bet on anything. He would bet on anyone.

Knute Rockne, a former football coach for the University of Notre Dame once said, “Win or lose, do it fairly.” However, in Mark Twain’s story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” the main character, otherwise known as Smiley, does not live by this saying. The story of Smiley and his “celebrated jumping frog” takes place in a gold-mining camp, which is located in Calaveras County, California, during the Gold Rush era. The dominant theme in “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” is that trying to deceive someone can result in unexpected consequences. Several literary devices, including characters, satire, and diction, are applied to the plot of the short story in order to emphasize the primary theme.

In the story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” Mark Twain incorporates the use of informal, slang, and uneducated diction. Twain uses this type of diction to describe the character, Jim Smiley; furthermore, it also give the reader a conclusion of when and where the story takes place. This also helps develop a persona of Jim Smiley and gives the reader an insight of the western setting.

He applies animal-like terms such as “flew”, “skip” to describe the elite during the disaster of the San Francisco earthquake. By doing so, Twain portrays to his audience how the wealthy act superior, but the wealthy act just like animals. For instance, a minister at the church was the first to leave when the earthquake occurred, he had “skipped” when his duty was to be in control of keeping members of the church in place to die in a crumbling structure. Mark Twain successfully illustrates how “prominent citizens” could be selfish. Twain shows irony when a minister who supposedly evokes the concept of helping others and being selfless, yet he himself abandoned everyone to save himself. Twain also uses sarcasm to mock people by mentioning a lady, who fell down the stairs along with a statue and almost got a “strike with its club”, the lady was upset to the extent where gave birth to a “club-footed” child. The author’s purpose was to demean a serious situation, by making a mockery out of it. It reflects his personality as a sarcastic person who often use jokes to mock people who put on airs. By doing so, Twain can change the public’s

Have you read the short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County? It is an outrageous story written by Mark Twain. I believe that this story is about an exceptional man named Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley or, also known as Jim Smiley. In my opinion, in this short story, Smiley is the main character because he is talked about the most. Moreover, the narrator of the story travels west and along the way, he does a friend a favor by going to Angel’s mining camp to ask about the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley. Instead of finding the information he is looking for, he is forced to endure Wheeler's long-winded tall tale about Jim Smiley, a man who loved gambling and who always won, at least until the day he was cheated

In the folktale, “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain is a mid 18th century story of a man traveling to the East for a friend, in search of another. The narrator ran into a man named Simon Wheeler at a bar and the man told him a story of a guy name Jim Smiley. Jim Smiley was a good guy, but he also liked to make bets. Smiley had never lost a bet before and got used to winning, until he stepped up to the wrong person. One thing is to lose fairly and worse is when you lose to cheating. The author included extraordinary amount of figurative language throughout the story, which creates a wild-western setting.

Mark Twain was a celebrated writer during his lifetime and is still today long past his death. One of Twain’s famous works titled, “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is a prime example of local color writing done during the 19th century. Twain’s novel shows the average person what life and the people in rural America are like. The story takes place in a gold mining camp in Calaveras County, California during the 1850s. Out west was still very rural and full of many different types of characters. Additionally, most people who lived out there had an accent and verbage similar to that of the modern day southern United States. The characters themselves show the type of place Calaveras county was, with the main character Smiley being

This piece from the short story shows how he again managed to slide passed the exam with complete and utter luck, not being asked any question outside of what the Reverend forced into his head. The last part of the quote also shows how the people praised him compliments on his excellent job. This is a clear example of Twain’s satire because the people praised him for his success when Scoresby really wasn’t the one behind it, the Reverend was. Twain is very commonly known for writing satire pieces of work, so it is not unusual that this theme showed up in “Luck.” Edward Wagenknecht agrees with my statements in his book, Mark Twain the Man and His Work, by saying, “There is a large, fortuitous element in success; full many a flower is born to blush unseen; and Mark Twain knew this well. He dramatized it in ‘Luck’” (95). Here Wagenknecht is saying that one of the main elements in success is chance, rather than by design, and twain uses this theme often. This backs up the point that Mark Twain uses the idea of luck in his stories, which is portrayed by the satire of Scoresby and how everyone praises him for it anyway, not knowing how he actually achieved this great feat, and who was actually behind the “genius.”

Feller, a challenger argues to prove that Smiley is wrong. Later on, once Feller beat Smiley and received his money from the bet, Smiley soon found out that Feller gave his frog a quail shot which gave the ability for the frog to get lighter than normal, smiley was able to get his money back and got away with it. Twain uses conflict