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The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County

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While reading Mark Twain's, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", it is impossible to miss the repetitive pattern of implausibility. Twain makes characters seem larger than life, he anthropomorphizes the animals, and he magnifies every detail of the story. This implausibility is attracting to some, while for others, the outlandishness makes it harder to fully enjoy the story. Even though this story was difficult to understand at times, an in-depth analysis of a few short passages allows the reader to get a better look at the entire work. In order to fully understand the implausibility and humor that Mark Twain put into "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", one must take a better look at one or more passages inside of the story. Twain uses implausibility as a …show more content…
Here Twain writes, "... he was the curiosest man about always betting on any thing that turned up you ever see, if he could get any body to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides". This description seems totally rational except for the very end of the sentence. The fact that Jim Smiley would do anything to gamble, even change sides is an example of Twain's implausible writing style. In another description in this passage, he writes, "If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road". By writing this intricately designed hyperbole of Smiley's will to gamble, Mark Twain gives the reader another thing to laugh at; Jim Smiley following a bug to Mexico. This makes Jim seem foolish, and even a little crazy, but this is another perfect example of how Twain's implausible writing contributes to the humor of his

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