Mark Twain -- Notes on "The Notorious Jumping Frog"

Twain's career really "took off" with "The Notorious Jumping Frog" in 1865.

A Tall Tale: A kind of humorous tale common on the frontier. It uses ...

• Realistic detail

• Literal manner

• Common speech

... to recount extravagantly impossible happenings. In addition, "local color writing" exaggerates the people, speech, actions, mannerisms, etc. of a particular locale. Thus, tall tales blend realism (verisimilitude) with romanticism (exaggerated elements) to become "local color."

Frontier Literature: Writing about the American frontier and frontier life. Up to 1890, when all the free lands had generally been claimed, one aspect of American history was the steady westward movement of the frontier. . . . The extent to which this westward-moving frontier colored and shaped American thought and life and the extent to which its passing marked a sharp turn in the character of the American experience are matters of debate. But, whatever one may think of Frederick Turner's thesis that the frontier has been the dominant influence in American history, there is little question that frontiers have consistently found literary expression in a robust, humorous, often crude body of songs, tales, and books that have been marked by a realistic view of life, sanguine contemplation of violence, and immense gusto. Much of the writing of this frontier was subliterary, confined to oral tradition and to newspapers, but it kept constantly alive in America a hearty humor and a healthy realism, even in the face of the Genteel Tradition. . . . . (Handbook to Literature).

It also shares features with the tradition of the Southern Humorists, the traditional urban, comic tale. This kind of writing features:

• The intrusion of a stranger.
• A country bumpkin who is tricked and ridiculed by worldly city folk.
• A contrast of Eastern, genteel values to Western, frontier values.
• Regional character types who are rustics, tricksters, and rascals.
• Descriptions of regional scenes, customs, and language.
• Ridicule of conventional ideas of decorum, gentility, and social status. (Social critique or commentary?)
• Humorous descriptions of social behavior and large gatherings, such as camp meetings, circuses, and amateur theatricals.
• Descriptions of violent fights, beatings, and shootings.

As mentioned above, the common conflict is "East vs. West," and in "The Notorious Jumping Frog," this is illustrated with two pairs of characters:

• Narrator vs. his friend from the East
• Jim Smiley vs. the stranger

Frontier literature and tall tales often employed a frame narrator -- different narrators; different points of view; the actual telling of the tale; different perceptions.

A Framework Story: A literary convention or device; a speech or rhetorical device; it is used to provide or gain distance in many kinds of writing; it is often used to increase the comedy in jokes and tall tales.

• I = Mark Twain (?)--or narrator #1--is on the outside of the "frame"

• Simon Wheeler--or narrator #2--is "in" the "frame"

• Jim Smiley is "in" the interior--or in the "framework story"