A Competition of Wits
According to Mark Twain, “A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.” Throughout literary history, the reoccurring theme of a shady character performing immoral, habitual actions is no new topic. These vial characters entertain readers by their confident persona and their desire to win. The literary pieces that include this genre of character are especially prominent entering the 19th century, as humor and deception become key components of literature. 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 tall tale of satire, and its desire to inform the reader of East versus West stereotypes.
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 at 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 win and compete. Through clever manipulation of words, Jim downplays the skill of his...
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...cting characters that are both humorous and mischievous. Although this genre of “the shady character” and the character’s immoral, habitual actions are not new to literature, they begin to represent a new theme of American literature beginning around the late 18th century.
Works Cited
"Mark Twain Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014. .
"Mark Twain." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Jan. 2014. .
"The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County - Mark Twain - AlbaLearning Audiolibros Y Libros." The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County - Mark Twain - AlbaLearning Audiolibros Y Libros. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. .
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”,
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
Another account continues as Twain's narrator Simon persists with the use of his diction, as he describes the "monstrous pride" that Jim Smiley has for his newfound frog. Smiley states that he "ketched a frog"(185), and named him Dan'l Webster, who was a well-known mountain man of that time period. Mark Twain uses Dan'l Webster as the talented, but rough mountain man who would fit right in with Simon's (the narrator's) descriptive inference. He also uses the slang "ketched" to add color and infer Smiley's lower class and uneducated upbringing, typical of what Twain wants to portray of the Americans in early California mining camps.
Mark Twain once said, "Lie--an abomination before the Lord and an ever present help in time of trouble." Twain's description of deceit gives it a type of double meaning. This idea of lying being used for good as well as evil is not unheard of. Many time people find it necessary to lie to maintain a greater good or save a life. However, all too often, people lie for self-serving, immoral purposes. In this quote, Twain elegantly shows the delicate balance between good and evil in the performance of the same act. Furthermore, Twain also shows this complex thought in his portrayal of characters in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twains novel emulates his quote, juxtaposing the good and bad aspects of stretching the truth. Throughout the novel, Twain provides numerous commentaries on the morality of characters. His display of deception in the story continually serves to improve the reader?s understanding of a character?s moral integrity, based on the nature and intent of the lie. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses the lies of numerous characters to better define the moral ambiguity of those characters.
Ever since the day the book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was introduced to the readers, the critical world has been littered with numerous essays and theses on Mark Twain’s writing achievement, yet many of them are about the writing style of Bildungsroman, the symbolic meanings of the raft and Mississippi river, the morality and racism color. Whereas few of them ever talked about why Mark Twain wrote so many lies in this novel. Probably because people usually thought that the splendor of this masterpiece will be obscured by the immorality nature of lying. But actually this is no the thing, even Mark Twain himself does’t think lying is an immoral thing. As what he said in his lecture on a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, the essay later published as “On The Decay of the Art of Lying” , he called the art of lying “a Virtue, a Principle...a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal” (Twain, “On The Decay of the Art of Lying”). We can see that Mark Twain has a mature understanding about the value of lying and he wanted to share with us his philosophy of lying through Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Therefore, the major task of the paper is to investigate this philosophy of lying in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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
mere jester in the eyes of the King, because he was also a cripple and
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
Literary artists refuse to be categorized, defined, and completely fathomed by any standardized paradigm, but a writer's work exhibits his or her personality traits. Though authors are incapable of being defined by mere personality traits, literary accomplishments, and literary criticisms, an author's personality can be used to sketch a limited definition of his or her literature. Mark Twain's literature manifests his personality's candor, graphicness, humor, and criticalness that William Dean Howells describes in "My Mark Twain." These attributes are evident in "Old Times on the Mississippi," The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," "Fennimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," and "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg." Howells' portrayal of Twain facilitates some understanding of Twain's fiction, but by no means is Mark Twain's literature as simple as four personality traits. The traits of Twain's literature transcend simple entertainment, and he enlightens the reader about the need to reform literature, religion, society, and the individual.
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.
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.
Twain, Mark. “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The Norton Anthology: American Literature. Ed. Julia Reidhead. New York: Norton & Company Inc., 2012. 130-309. Print.
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 “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’s humorous tale, “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country,” clearly shows Twain’s admiring feelings towards the movement of realism. While naturalism tends to show a more depressing scene, realism is not necessarily as disheartening. At the end of the story, the narrator, feeling slightly agitated, walks away from his friend who is still in the process of telling a story, showing Twain’s use of humor in his short story. A basic view of life is shown in this short story with characters from a middle class who have difficulties that are not very extreme. For example, the problems the protagonist faces are not life or death but simply a matter of money that he bet. “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country” not only signifies what it was like to live in the 1800s but also acts as a faithful representation of reality. This story is both believable and understandable. Perhaps it is the author’s use of vernacular that makes the story even more plausible. Words such as “kep’,” “git,” “ketched,” and “feller” are used rather than their proper English worlds while characters are s...