From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. When she emerges as an unlikely winner, Smiley is able to win money from his opponents. not as a regional outgrowth, but as a fabulous history even for the region,” Baender asserted. The story suggests that, as an outsider to the community, the stranger holds a different code of morality. Right away, Wheeler and Angel Camp seem distinctively (and perhaps stereotypically) Western. As Smith noted, Twain was known to be skeptical of organized religion, so it is significant that his narrator is looking for information about a minister; the clergy becomes associated with the narrator’s smug attitudes. It takes some knowledge of history to appreciate Twain’s humor here, but this knowledge allows the reader to understand and enjoy the story on yet another level. Wheeler’s dialect reveals his lack of an Eastern education and emphasizes that he’s a bit rough around the edges. As an outsider leading a roaming lifestyle, the stranger doesn’t find himself beholden to the same code of integrity that Smiley honors. However, Smiley makes sure his animals win their competitions by training them effectively—not by cheating. In “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” an unnamed narrator tracks down a man named Simon Wheeler in a tavern in a small mining town in California called Angel’s Camp. However, even though the Eastern narrator was largely uninterested in the content of Wheeler’s tale, he writes it down, thereby preserving and celebrating the tradition of Western storytelling. His acknowledgement of his status points back to the unnamed narrator, who is also an outsider to Angel’s Camp. He reports that he went to see Simon Wheeler “in compliance with the request of a friend of mine”; he “hereunto append[s] the result.” He assures Wheeler that he “would feel under many obligations to him” for any information Wheeler could provide about Rev. Smiley’s apparent lack of respect for religion is a way of deflating the pomposity of some religious people. While the Western Wheeler and Eastern narrator take vastly different views on the value of the content of the story—with the narrator finding it absurd, and Wheeler considering it “a really important matter”—the narrator appreciates and records Wheeler’s unpolished, Western style of storytelling. Like the land around the mining settlement of Angel’s Camp, it has riches under the surface, and the patient and careful reader can tap into this vein. This illustrates that Smiley is a clever but honest businessman; he relies on other people’s biases (and his animals’ extensive training) to make his money. However, the narrator is fascinated by Wheeler’s method of conveying the story. (including. Leonidas W. Smiley. Even though Dan’l Webster looks like an ordinary frog, Jim Smiley has put three entire months into training him how to be an excellent jumper. Smiley is honest when he tells the stranger that his frog can jump higher than any other frog in the county, even though the stranger doesn’t know if that is true or not. To Smith, Smiley is a more positive character, to be praised for his optimism and energy, who grows as a person when his frog is defeated; he learns not to be so naive and gullible. Once again, Smiley uses this to his advantage. The contrast between the narrator and Wheeler serves primarily to “direct us to the humor that follows,” he argued. The dog’s namesake, President Andrew Jackson, had a public image as the champion of the common people and symbolized the belief that anyone, no matter how humble his origins, could, by talent and hard work, rise to the top of society. In “Jumping Frog,” as several scholars have pointed out, Twain has used the conventions of these stories but also has gone beyond them, creating something fresh and unusual. He betrays Jim Smiley’s trust by harming his frog, and the stranger presumably knows that he will have to leave town after this interaction, thereby escaping any punishment. Both through the story of Jim Smiley and the framing story of Wheeler and the narrator, Twain satirizes certain American ideas of the nature of success and how to achieve it, while he also satirizes authors who have condescended to their “rustic” characters.”. • Online text at the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library the tale follows .. . Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.
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