Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and American Society

Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” shows the stereotypes of the West and East to criticize the American society which, in general, believes that Westerners are fools and naive. However, in the story, Mark Twain, who is an educated Easterner is kept waiting for two hours to listen to a tall tale. That is to say, he is fooled by an uneducated man who wastes his time by telling a story about a non-existent man. The narrator is also deceived by his friend who mentions Leonidas Smiley. Although Twain thinks that he is pranked, he goes to the mining camp to find Leonidas whose name represents the highbrow. However, he finds Jim Smiley, a common name that symbolizes every man. In this way, the narrator criticizes the cultural difference.

There is also a religious satire as Leonidas, the priest, is opposed to the other Smiley who is a gambler. The other Smiley is a fictitious character gambling on almost everything. He bets even for his wife when she is on her deathbed. As an obsessive gambler, he gives such names as Daniel Webster and Andrew Jackson to his animals. These names have satiric value specifically for the readers of that time as Daniel Webster, the frog in the story, was an ambitious politician pushing his limits to win the election in reality. Nevertheless, he made attempts three times but could not become president. The dog, on the other hand, symbolically takes its name after the twice president Andrew Jackson as it makes its move when the competitor feels exhausted and wins the fight.

The narrator stresses the absurdity of the story by use of satire and hyperbole. For example, there is the use of exaggeration when Jim taught the frog how to jump for three months. Unlike Twain speaking like a highbrow with standard English, Simon Wheeler uses a vernacular language that is ungrammatical. For instance, Simon says "Dan’l" instead of Daniel. The narrator, by doing this, points out the difference between educated Easterners and uneducated Westerners. In this way, he emphasizes the cultural clash between them. In the story, Wheeler tells a boring tall tale about Jim Smiley taking over control for the most part. Thus, the narrator invites the reader to think that whether he tells the story or Simon.

Thought to not know how to tell a story as a Frontier man, Wheeler adopts a serious attitude to be more realistic and fool the narrator. Simon does not change his tone to emphasize emotions and tells the story in a monotonous way. From this perspective, the narrator feeling annoyed criticizes the conventional storytelling tradition. By using satire and exaggerations, however, the story reveals Simon Wheeler not as a fool barbarian man but as an experienced storyteller who is sincere and honest. In this way, Twain both criticizes and destroys the stereotypes created for Westerners.