Out Tricked: Humor in The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County Anonymous 11th Grade

A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope.”(Bolitho). In “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” the narrator introduces Simon Wheeler by asking for a man named Leonidas W. Smiley. Instead of indicating the narrator for the information that he asks for, Wheeler starts off with a tall tale about a man named Jim Smiley. Jim Smiley was a man who would bet on anything that eventually, he turned a frog into a pet for which he used to bet on until one day he realized his luck was not long lasting as he though.Twain's use of descriptive sentences when relating to Wheeler's story and as Twain clarifies it through his use of heavy dialect, and bad grammar. The comprehensive humor in the story is layered so that there is not just one, but two tales told, creating various humorous parts throughout the story. Twain illustrates the humorous personal characteristics of both characters, Simon Wheeler and Jim Smiley. The amusing story line that ends with one man out-tricking another. Jim Smiley had outwitted everyone throughout the story, but he was not as intelligent as he thought. In “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Mark Twain uses dialect, hyperbole and irony as key aspects of his writing...