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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

by Mark Twain

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What is the moral of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"?

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The moral of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is that anyone, regardless of their intelligence or education, can be fooled. Jim Smiley, despite his cleverness, is outsmarted by locals. Similarly, the sophisticated narrator is tricked by Simon Wheeler's tall tales. Twain uses this story to subvert stereotypes, showing that appearances can be deceiving and intelligence comes in various forms.

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One could argue that the moral of the story is that just about anyone can be fooled, no matter how smart or educated they are. This is a perfectly plausible answer as it's in keeping with a similar moral one learns from reading some of Twain's other works, such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Despite being clever, Jim Smiley finds himself outsmarted by semi-literate locals who take the opportunity to fill his frog with buckshot to prevent him from jumping. By the same token, the narrator suffers a similar fate. As he listens to Simon Wheeler's shaggy dog story, he's also being taken in. This prim and proper young man, with his fancy diction, is no match for the unlettered old-timer with his extensive collection of tall stories.

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What message does Twain convey in "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"?

There is a sense in which this hilarious tale can be read as something of...

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a cutting commentary about American society in the time of writing. Note the way in which Easterners are presented as being sophisticated and knowledgeable and Westerners lack an education and are gullible, at least at surface level. Yet Twain does this to explore these national stereotypes more deeply by exchanging the roles. The Easterner (the narrator), is a snob who is gullible and easily tricked, whilst the Westerner (Simon Wheeler) is someone who, whilst he lacks the formal education of the narrator, nevertheless shows himself to be more intelligent and has the ability to narrate and recount hilarious tales.

The tale within the tale also would have had certain significance for Twain's readership. Daniel Webster was a famous American statesman known for his rhetoric. Andrew Jackson was a former president was a firm advocate of democracy and rights for everyone. The use of these allusions show that the kind of picture of Americans that Twain was presenting was one that had many different angles to it: Americans are depicted as having the ability to be practical, resourceful and determined (traits that arguably Americans are famous for), whilst at the same time naive, narrow-minded and easily tricked.

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What is the central idea of Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"?

Central to Twain's "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is the satiric focus on storytelling along with the clash of cultures of the sophisticated East and the rather brash and bold West with its regionalisms. While Easterners found people in the West rather crude and unrefined, Westerners perceived those from the East as rather ingenuous and gullible. These attitudes prevail throughout the story as the narrator disparages Simon Wheeler, who reels off a monotonous narrative in a solemn way with no indication of humor.  Yet, the snobbish narrator himself is satirized as he remarks that throughout the

"interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity."

Simon Wheeler has feigned his unsophistication in his effort to dupe his Eastern listener by using the stereotypical manner of Western storytelling. He tricks the narrator, too, by falsely leading him into believing that he will tell about Leonidas W. Smiley, but moves to a tall-tale about Jim Smiley. Likewise, Twain satirizes the endless and nearly pointless narratives of some of the western storytellers as Simon abruptly leaves and then picks up just where he has left off when he returns. 

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