The Notorious Jumping Frog

For this assignment, I have chosen write on the contrast between The Storm, by Kate Chopin and Mark Twain’s The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. In the mid to late 1800’s, both authors were widely popular and drew many crowds but both had their own, unique, way of telling stories. Between both of The Storm and The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Chopin and Twain show how their own views, on life and the world around them, vastly differ from each other, and allows us to look into the minds of how both the male and female mindset, of that era.
In The Storm, Chopin start off by telling of a husband’s and son’s location as a storm is approaching, and then pans to where and what Calixta, the wife and mother, is doing and the guest she is about to entertain, somewhere (supposedly) in Louisiana. Chopin focuses on Calixta sewing on a sewing machine, being hot and not noticing the approaching storm. Chopin briefly describes the relationship between Calixta and Alec before they were married, Alec asked “’Do you remember Assumption, Calixta?’ ...for in Assumption he had kissed her …show more content…
Twain is somewhat vague on the location for this story, other than Calaveras County, leaving the readers to make their own conclusion as to where the county is located. Twain describes Smiley as being arrogant and cocky, with good reason; he won nearly all of his bets, and the ruthlessness of a stranger, filling Smiley’s frog “to the chin” with quail shot. Twain as he writes give insight into how he thinks and feels which, of course, is very different from that of a female. Through his local color, Twain’s description of Smiley is neither soft nor emotional, rather choosing to focus more on Smiley’s gambling habits rather than trying to evoke some deep emotional response from this