Theme Of Irony In The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County

The Use of Regionalism Satire is the use of humor to promote a change. Satire is used in popular culture of present times, and has been in use for many previous operations. Mark Twain was a craftsman of various literary devices. In his short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, Mark Twain uses satire, dialect, and irony to expose regionalism in order to produce a change. Twain uses satire in a few different ways, the first being stereotypical. Twain alludes to the characters in the mining town as being western or country people, which most likely are the people that are uneducated and gullible. Jim Smiley would best be considered country because he fits both categories of being dumb or uneducated and people can …show more content…
A gambler wants to feel like he has it all going for him and nothing could stop him. He doesn’t want to back down from a fight, or in this case a bet, which he always is the one starting. A man like Smiley has to live this way because that is the only way he knows how inside of his region of the world. That is what people were taught in that area and what they knew. Nobody was going to change them. A gambler also has to live by his society. Smiley was an exception. He could get away with betting on old sick people and not make it sound immoral. Other gamblers in different parts of the country had to know their boundaries and limits. They had to think to themselves if something was illegal or immoral. If it were illegal, they would go to jail and not be able to gamble anymore. If something were immoral, the town or area would shun the person and wouldn’t gamble anymore with the person. Smiley was not afraid to live his life on the edge. It wouldn’t have paid off if he didn’t. He wasn’t afraid to lose a little bit on the short side, but in the long run, Smiley knew he would have a nice outcome based on all of his trials, even if there were a few errors. Smiley knew his boundaries, but tossed them to the side, he set his mind to what he wanted and he got it. It didn’t matter what he wanted, as long as he got an outcome to his gamble, good or bad, (Behe