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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain's use of similes in the text heightens the humor found in the piece as well as adds to the Local Color aspects of the story. For instance, when describing Jim Smiley's dog, Andrew...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
American Realism of the late nineteenth century was often satirical, and Twain's subject in this story is the assumptions that people make about one another based on where they live or were born or...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
In his short story “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” the humorist Mark Twain satirizes the tall tale genre and those from the Eastern and the Western parts of America. An...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
1) Simon Wheeler maintains that Jim Smiley was "always betting on any thing that turned up...." Accordingly, Jim Smiley placed bets in dog fights, cat fights, chicken fights, and horse races. Here,...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Jim Smiley's frog, Dan'l Webster, was a well-trained amphibian that Smiley used to enhance his winnings at gambling. Smiley had invested heavily in Dan'l. Although he was just a common bullfrog...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The humor of this story lies in the answer to this question, so it’s a very important one. First, it’s important to understand the overall narrative structure of this short story. It’s a...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Jim Smiley was a gamblin’ man – as Simon Wheeler tells the narrator, “he was the curiosest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see.” He would make a bet, and if no...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
This humorous story by Mark Twain is considered a frame narrative because it consists of a story within a story. The outer story, the frame story, is the story of the narrator's interaction with...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain sets up "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" as a frame story or frame narrative: a story within a story where the outside story sets the stage for the inner, or main,...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The narrator seeks out Simon Wheeler because the narrator's friend back East requested that the narrator find Simon and ask him about another guy, named Leonidas W. Smiley. Presumably because the...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
This story is often anthologized in collections of American stories, for very good reason: it illustrates quite a lot about traditions and values in the US, especially the south. Overall, the story...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Jim enters his mare into races, fooling others into thinking she can't possibly win, and he places bets on her. Because the mare looks very slow and sickly, people don't believe she'll win. (When...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
I'd say the main climax in the narrative is in this paragraph: “Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word.” Then he...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain's use of exaggeration is great in this story, and it is one of the aspects that makes it so humorous. For instance, in paragraph 5, Twain is describing the bull pup, Andrew Jackson, a...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Part of the humor of Mark Twain's story is the juxtaposition of the two narrators: one of the outer (frame) story and one of the story-in-a-story. The outer frame's narrator, known only as "I," is...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The first three paragraphs of the story reveal the answer to this question. Simon Wheeler was sitting in a chair, dozing, when he was approached by a stranger (the narrator of this story) who asks...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The frame narrator was asking Simon Wheeler about Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he reiterates this name at least twice to Wheeler, but all Wheeler hears is the name Smiley, and that gets him to...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
One of the ways that Twain sets up the story to be humorous is by making Simon Wheeler into a sort of straight man. The narrator describes him as telling this rather ridiculous tale about Leonidas...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The major reason that Wheeler gives for Smiley being so "curious" is the penchant he has for betting on any thing that comes along. But it is coupled with the fact that, unlike most people with...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Jim is opportunistic, obsessive, sneaky, and ultimately naive. 1. Jim is opportunistic: the storyteller, Simon Wheeler, describes Jim as "lucky," but really Jim's supposed luck comes from his habit...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
According to the opening paragraph, the narrator's friend simply wanted to have some contact with his friend's friend Leonidas W. Smiley. The narrator's friend wrote him "from the East." In those...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The answer to this question can be found in the text of the story. Jim Smiley has trained his frog Dan'l Webster to be a good jumper. According to Simon Wheeler, Smiley did nothing for three months...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
In the opening paragraph, the narrator provides a frame for the entire story, reporting that a friend of his asked him to go and visit a man named Simon Wheeler. This Wheeler turns out to be an...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The first things the reader learns about Mr. Wheeler are that he is fat, bald and dozing in a tavern in the middle of the day. It is quite natural to assume that Mr. Wheeler is not gainfully...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Hello! You asked why Mark Twain gives the animals in 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog in Calaveras County' the names of prominent Americans. The story starts out with Mark Twain telling us why he meets...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
One discussion topic is how Twain uses narration to illustrate the cultural differences between the allegedly uncivilized West and the allegedly more civilized, urban East in the United States...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
First. the term grostesque humor is loosely defined as something comic and based on a character or event that is painful to see and funny at the same time, bizarre, abnormal, unnatural--it makes...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
A humorist who made extensive use of exaggeration that made incidents become comical, Mark Twain has followed in this story the pattern of the western style of exaggeration in his short story, "The...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
This story is a satire of Americans and of humans in particular through the way in which it shows how we can all have our credulity and gullibility stretched to breaking point when we hear a good...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
In the mid-nineteenth century there was a great divide between the civilization of the East with its factories and cities and the West, a part of the country where there were tremendous expanses of...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The stranger, Mark Twain, utters the following at the end before he departs: "Oh! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" He states that he muttered these words "good-naturedly," which is patently...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The frog is named Daniel Webster, and described as modest and gifted. The frog is described like a human in several aspects. Smiley says, “all a frog wanted was education.” The frog is...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The narrator in the story has a friend who is still in "the East," as opposed to the West, where the narrator is living. The narrator's friend writes and asks him to look up a man named Simon...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
In the introduction to the story written in the form of a letter to an acquaintance, a Mr. A. Ward, Mark Twain clearly expresses his suspicion that Mr. Ward has set him up for a prank. He...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain says in the first paragraph of the story that his friend asked him to look up a friend by the name of Rev. Leonidas Smiley, knowing that he would meet a storyteller who would tell him...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
There is both direct and indirect characterization of Smiley. Direct characterization is when the narrator tells the reader a character’s traits. Indirect characterization is when the reader...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain's friend, who happens to live in the East, asks him to find a good-natured person named Simon Wheeler at the Angel's mining camp and ask about a former school chum of his named...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
The continuing popularity of this short story shows the enduring appeal of Twain's comedy even though the modern-day reader is separated from his context by a number of years now. What is hilarious...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Twain uses the dialect of rural California to fully characterize Wheeler with local color. Wheeler uses descriptive language to describe things in a way that uses local color, or dialect...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
In "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," the framework, otherwise referred to as the narrative (how it is narrated), is how the story is told, the structure of the entire thing. This...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
In the exposition of his humorous story, Mark Twain as narrator observes that the fat, bald-headed and simple Simon Wheeler is sincere in his recounting of his tall tales, ...all through the...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
A master of comedy, Mark Twain employs several comic devices in his short story "The Celebrated Frog of Calaversas County." HYPERBOLE In his description of Jim Smiley, Simon Wheeler exaggerates the...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Humorists such as Mark Twain capitalize upon the "local color" and regional dialects in order to develop the characters of their narratives. Taking these elements and exaggerating them generates...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
There are several tricksters in Mark Twain's "The Celebrated (or Notorious) Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." The first is the talkative slacker, Simon Wheeler, who the narrator seeks out for...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
I believe the climax comes when the narrator tells the author how Smiley discovered that the stranger had put a double handful of quail shot down his frog's throat while he was out searching for...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
This question has already been answered. Here is a link for you: http://www.enotes.com/celebrated-jumping-frog-calaveras-county/q-and-a/what-climax-celebrated-jumping-frogs-calaveras-312593
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Jim Smiley about whom Simon Wheeler tells the narrator, is a man who would bet on anything: "...he was the curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Three examples of exaggeration in the short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain include: 1. The narrator revealing what will be in store for him if he inquires...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
At the beginning, Wheeler envied Smiley for Smiley could bet on everything and won many times. However, later Wheeler showed some sympathy towards Smeiley and even laughed at his foolishness when...
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded. Twain's...