The Notorious Jumping Frog

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Morgan Zipoy Miss Chegwidden English III-2nd period 7 November 2012 The Analysis of The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County Mark Twain’s The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is a short story regarding a man that inquires about a fellow from a southern, elderly, garrulous man, but ends up a victim of a highly trivial and impertinent story about an overconfident bloke. At the essence of the story there is a grand depiction of a heedless man that loses a gamble he never considered he would. Twain achieves the greater theme of The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County; one must not believe they are invincible, through his utilization of two literary tools: irony and foreshadowing. A brief and concise examination of these two literary tools will reveal how The Notorious Frog of Calaveras County accomplishes its advising effect. The first literary tool Twain employs in his work is irony. He does so when old, friendly Simon Wheeler informs the narrator that Jim Smiley, “…was lucky, uncommon lucky; he almost always come out a winner.” (Pg. 686/P.4/Ln. 36-37/Twain). This specific quote conveys the literary tool irony by expressing that Jim Smiley almost never loses on a gamble, but it is later unveiled to Twain’s audience that he does indeed lose this particular bet and he never considered the possibility of himself failing because he was overconfident. In addition, Simon Wheeler speaks to the narrator and conveys to him that, “Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn’t have no idea what the matter was, of course.” (Pg. 690/P. 17/ Ln. 149-151/ Twain). This quote is ironic as well as the first because Jim Smiley did not imagine he could lose this stake because he was so confident, but he did. Irony was a clever literary tool to employ, as it conveys that one cannot be too
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