BLOG 11: Twain

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is a story by Mark Twain that uses his typical vernacular, exemplifying regionalism, to tell a story about a man telling a story. It is a tale of a man with a knack for gambling who gets tricked after what appears to be a lifetime of almost never losing. It seems very realistic the way the story is told. People usually exaggerate stories the way Simon Wheeler does, and it becomes mythic the way Jim Smiley is fictitiously illustrated that it is hard for the narrator to even believe it. There is not much of a serious message to take from this story except maybe to always try hard at everything or that everybody loses sometimes, but Twain really just appears to have written a comical story about another person telling an ironic story. Mark Twain’s philosophy in this story seems to be to take everything less seriously and more like a joke, which can be seen in the ending when he says: “Oh! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow! I muttered, good naturedly, and bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed” (Twain 502).

Mark Twain’s philosophy is, then, much different than Emerson or Thoreau. Mark Twain’s story is like an entire joke, all while a character is telling a story that is to be perceived as a joke. Everything Emerson and Thoreau write is supposed to be taken seriously and they write about important things of their time that are still important today to make people look at things differently. Even when Thoreau writes “Walking”, a story about the art of walking, it is meant to be taken earnestly. Thoreau says: “I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering” (Thoreau). After this, he goes on about the word ‘sauntering’ for an entire paragraph. He is so serious when it comes to walking, but it is something he is passionate about. It is similar to Emerson’s fixation with nature, and how, as Wayne explains, he sees the two versions of nature, the common and philosophical (Wayne). Mark Twain does not have this obsession with the universe and understanding it through self-education; he just seems to write a story for entertainment purposes.

Thoreau, Henry David. "Thoreau's Walking." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. .

Twain, Mark. “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 498-502. Print.

Wayne, Tiffany K. "Nature." Critical Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2010. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=&iPin=CCRWE0088&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 30, 2012)