Mark Twain – "The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County"

"The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County" is a story about a man who teaches a frog how to jump very high and long. The man makes a bet that he can jump farther than the frog, and he winds up losing because apparently someone put "bee bees" in the frog's mouth (Twain). In other words, poor Smiley got cheated. This somewhat depicts Realism because it was a situation that could have been real. People get gipped out of their money all the time, and poor old Smiley fell for it. This funny little story also reflected regionalism in the dialect and vernacular that was used (Anderson). One of the men in the story, the man who is telling the story of the man with the jumping frog to the narrator, has a very uneducated and interesting way of talking (Anderson). For example:

"He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut see him turn one summerset, or may be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. (Twain)"

This quote is an example of how the mans dialect occasionally makes him a little hard to understand. By using this vernacular, Twain appealed to the people because he used a character who spoke much like they did (Twain).

Another characteristic of Regionalism is using a character that is not the typical kind of character one would find in a Romantic novel (Anderson). The hero of a Realism work of literature was supposed to be a commonplace person who was much like the readers of the stories- somewhat middle class and very average (Anderson). This concept is reflected in the way that the main character of the story is uneducated yet sincere and endearing (Twain). One gets the sense that though the character is rambling on about things that have nothing to do with the story the narrator requested, the narrator still finds him to be an interesting and sweet man (Twain).

"The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County" is a story that shows the love of story-telling in certain regions of the country (Twain). Somebody always seems to have some kind of words of wisdom that they wish to pass on to someone younger. In this story the person preaching the wisdom is an old man who is reminiscing about the days of old in which a crazy many went around betting everybody on just about anything (Twain). In a twisted sense, although it is unintended, the narrator ends up teaching a lesson about the general lack of merit involved in excessive gambling (Twain). The subject of the story told by the main character ends up getting beat at his own game in the end (Twain).

Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds."regionalism." Encyclopedia of American Literature: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, vol. 3, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EAmL1330&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 15, 2011).

Twain, Mark. "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 498-502. Print.