Analyze

The story sets up a contrast between an Eastern gentleman, the narrator, and a Western prospector, Simon Wheeler. Twain finds humor in both personalities, and especially in their opposing natures.

The narrator speaks in stiltedly formal and wryly ironic tones, using large words, proper syntax, and excessive good manners. He is the product of the settled industrial East, which had a reputation at the time of being civilized and cultured. He comes off as bemused and at times condescending.

Simon Wheeler tells exaggerated stories in a casual, vernacular style. These tall tales contain colorful characters, rural animals, and dubious ironic twists. Both Wheeler and Smiley represent the qualities of frontiersmen in the West: optimistic, gregarious, unrefined. They get by on cunning and gumption. And they’re perceived by the two visitors as gullible.

In the end, the story entertains because both storytellers are good natured. The narrator is willing to relay how he was duped into listening to Wheeler’s fabrications.

Also, the two political figures alluded to in the story, Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster—though they were from different regions of the United States, and were often in conflict with each other—both worked to preserve the American union.