The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County 重要信息:?pseudonym (笔名) ?真名:Samuel Langhorne Clemens ?写作风格:humor and local colorism ?the Mississippi valley and the West became his major theme 作品:Life on the Mississippi; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain’s most representative work) 人物:"我";“Simon Wheeler”;“Smily” Mark Twain Mark Twain was called “Lincoln of American literature”, because it was he who made the colloquial speech, an accepted, respectable literary medium. He was declared “the first truly American writer” by William Faulkner. He fathered modern American literature, as Ernest Hemingway noted “all modern American literature comes” from his masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. His contributions and achievement : 1)Mark Twain is a very famous humorist, whose best work is characterized by broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire. His writing is also known for realism of place and language, memorable characters, and hatred of hypocrisy and oppression. 2)One of his significant contributions to American literature lies in the fact that he made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country. 3)In social criticism he loved life, people, freedom and justice, felt a pride on human dignity and advocated brotherhood of man. He hated tyranny and iniquity, despised meanness and cruelty, and took his role as a social critic in a serious and responsible manner. 4)He was not indifferent either to the Chinese immigrants persecuted in America or to a China suffering intense agonies of humiliation and dismemberment by imperialist powers. The major artistic features of Mark Twain’s writings: ?First, he possessed utter clarity of style. He evolved a style so clear and economical that other contemporary styles seemed slightly archaic, rusty, and redundant. ?Second, he had a supreme command of vernacular American English. Before him there had been only American dialect; after him there was an American language. American dialect had been used very well by some other writers, but in their hands it was surrounded and conditioned by a “literary” language that wittingly or unwittingly patronized it. Mark Twain removed the surrounding frame. ?Third, there was Mark Twain’s humor, which resists explanation. In Twain’s time, humor, though it was seen as greatly valuable, remained clearly subordinate in the value system of the 19th century. The function of humor was to entertain, but it was not expected to participate in the high seriousness that Matthew Arnold and his age asked of literature. But Twain liberated humor, raising it to high art—a liberation that parallels his creation of vernacular American English. Instead of subduing his humor to seriousness, twain invaded the citadels of seriousness and freed the humor held captive there. Local Colorism: 1. Twain preferred to have his own region and people at the forefront of his stories. This particular concern about the local character of a region came about as “local colorism,” a unique variation of American literary realism. 2. Local Colorism or Regionalism first appeared in the late 1860s and early seventies in America. Hamlin Garland defined local colorism as having “such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native.” The ultimate aim of the local colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. Theme:American Society The story provided relevant and incisive(深刻的)commentary about ninteenth-century American society. While portraying Easterners as educated and refined and Westerners as uneducated and gullible on the surface, Twain upset these stereotypes on a deeper level. He depicted the Easterner (Mark Twain) as a snob and someone who could easily be duped, while portraying the Westerner (Simon Wheeler) as somewhat of a schemer(谋划者) who, despite his lack of formal training, tells highly original tales. The names of Jim Smiley’s pets also had relevance for Twain’s American audience. Daniel Webster was the name of a famous American statesman known for his speaking abilities. Andrew Jackson, a former president of the United States and war hero known for his determination and strong will, was a strong believer in democracy and the rights of the “common” people. In these and other descriptions found in the story, Twain provided a more complicated and multifaceted view of Americans. “Jumping Frog” asserted that Americans could simultaneously be resourceful, innovative, practical, and determined, as well as shortsighted, narrow-minded, and gullible. Sense of Humor Probably the most important factor in the story is Twain's effective sense of humor. These include the securing of the frame narrator as a literally captive audience(受制走不开的观众) by Wheeler, who "backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair”. The catalog of Jim Smiley‘s gambling adventures. such as his betting on the effectiveness of Parson Walker’s sermons or his willingness to follow a straddle-bug(屎壳郎) "to Mexico" to settle a bet. The proposed bet with Parson Walker about his wife's health, The glorious career of the extraordinarily trained "fifteen-minute nag," The story of the resourceful but eventually tragic bull-pup Andrew Jackson, The jumping frog incident itself, And finally, the story of the "yaller one-eyed cow," which manages to be funny without even being told. Theme:Culture Clash The story reflects various aspects of late nineteenth-century American society and culture through the retelling of a tall tale. Central to the story is the idea of conflicting cultures, particularly the clash between the settled, eastern portion of the United States and the still-developing West. At the time Twain wrote the story, the East and its inhabitants had a reputation for being civilized, cultured, and advanced. The West, on the other hand, was still being settled and was considered to be populated by a less-educated and less-refined group of people. By extension, Westerners were thought by Easterners to be naive and easily duped(易骗). Theme eception Deception is an integral part of the story and occurs on many levels. In the opening paragraph Mark Twain, the narrator, voices his suspicion that he has been duped by a friend who arranged this “chance” encounter with Simon Wheeler. His friend asked him to inquire about a childhood friend named Leonidas Smiley, knowing full well that Twain would instead be subjected to fabulous stories about the famous betting man of Angel’s Camp — Jim Smiley. His friend additionally knew that Twain would be bored and frustrated by the entire experience. Wheeler likewise dupes Twain. He tells him the fantastic and improbable story of Jim — rather than Leonidas — Smiley with a grave demeanor that masks the genuine humor of his tale. By using this mask, Wheeler initially fools the snobby Easterner and convinces him that he will be told a serious story. Another instance of deception involves Jim Smiley’s bet with the Stranger, who wagers (打赌) that Dan’l Webster is not the best jumper in Calaveras County. Not only does the Stranger deceive Jim Smiley by pretending to be gullible, he cheats by stuffing Dan’l Webster with gunshot to weigh him down.