“The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain, is about an old man named Simon Wheeler telling a story to Mark Twain about a man named Jim Smiley. Jim Smiley was a curious man who sought out to bet on anything from dog-fighting to betting on who could get from point A to B the fastest. Jim was a man that tried to get people to bet him and that’s what leads him to finding and training a frog to be the best jumper in the county. When he finds a stranger who is willing to bet against him, Jim is cheated out of a win when the stranger fills his frog’s mouth with quail-shot. In Twain’s short story “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” he does an excellent job of using irony to show the humor within the story. A real
…show more content…
The entire story comes off as a situational irony. The example that best shows this is when the Indians are waiting for the right time to jump down onto the boat “he had got his calculations down to exactly the right shade as he judged, he let go and dropped. And missed the house” (Twain 194) the opposite happens. The situational irony is something that Twain is very good with in his stories. His use of irony really does make his stories a really enjoyable read for anyone. The way he uses it to make Cooper in the story look silly throughout the entire thing is what makes the story funny. Twain also uses some verbal irony when describing Cooper’s books “it would be very difficult to find a really clever “situation” in Cooper’s books…” he says clever, but in reality he means it’s actually really dumb. The way he uses irony to describe Cooper also helps you visualize just exactly how Cooper would look like. Twain is really good with his use of irony and it shows in this story. He makes his main character Cooper look silly with how he uses …show more content…
At every point in the story Twain is judging or criticizing Cooper’s character whether it’s his completely silly decisions or just Cooper doing something that just doesn’t make any sense. When the boat is passing into the canal Cooper made and the Indians missed “the fault was Cooper’s not his. The error lay in the construction of the house. Cooper was no architect” (Twain 194) shows Twain judging Cooper’s character and his abilities. Mark Twain’s story makes an excellent example of how the critic theme can be funny by taking the character and making him look like a fool. Comparing this story with the critic theme versus his tall tale type of writing it’s easy to tell that Mark Twain was quite the humorist writer when he was alive. His writing in “Fenimore Cooper’s Limitations” really shows that he has the skill to write different types of humor. The way he used humor he quickly became one of the more popular writers during his time and it’s easy to understand
The entire story comes off as a situational irony. The example that best shows this is when the Indians are waiting for the right time to jump down onto the boat “he had got his calculations down to exactly the right shade as he judged, he let go and dropped. And missed the house” (Twain 194) the opposite happens. The situational irony is something that Twain is very good with in his stories. His use of irony really does make his stories a really enjoyable read for anyone. The way he uses it to make Cooper in the story look silly throughout the entire thing is what makes the story funny. Twain also uses some verbal irony when describing Cooper’s books “it would be very difficult to find a really clever “situation” in Cooper’s books…” he says clever, but in reality he means it’s actually really dumb. The way he uses irony to describe Cooper also helps you visualize just exactly how Cooper would look like. Twain is really good with his use of irony and it shows in this story. He makes his main character Cooper look silly with how he uses …show more content…
At every point in the story Twain is judging or criticizing Cooper’s character whether it’s his completely silly decisions or just Cooper doing something that just doesn’t make any sense. When the boat is passing into the canal Cooper made and the Indians missed “the fault was Cooper’s not his. The error lay in the construction of the house. Cooper was no architect” (Twain 194) shows Twain judging Cooper’s character and his abilities. Mark Twain’s story makes an excellent example of how the critic theme can be funny by taking the character and making him look like a fool. Comparing this story with the critic theme versus his tall tale type of writing it’s easy to tell that Mark Twain was quite the humorist writer when he was alive. His writing in “Fenimore Cooper’s Limitations” really shows that he has the skill to write different types of humor. The way he used humor he quickly became one of the more popular writers during his time and it’s easy to understand