The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County Essay

There are many comparisons and contrasts between the play and the short story of Jim Smiley and The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain. For instance, in both play and story the events in happened in the exact same order. First, Jim Smiley is introduced and his character is developed when the narrator explains about his penchant for betting on anything and everything he sees. Then, a stranger comes to town and starts a bet with Jim Smiley that his frog is, in fact, not the best jumper in Calaveras County. Finally, in the end, the stranger cheats and angers Jim when he finds out he had been tricked. In spite of this, the play was different from the story because it did not have the framework that the short story had. In the play there was no part where they show the narrator trying to find out more about Leo. It goes straight to the story and does not add any outer frame; on the other hand, the short story adds other events
that the play did not have, for example, when the narrator was looking for intel on Leo Smiley and him ending up leaving with nothing. The theme of both the story and play also have many similarities and differences. Both were to entertain the readers or spectators and tell about a story about a frog owned by Jim Smiley. That is to say, though, the styles of the themes between them are quite different. In the play, the theme had more humor than the story did with the exaggerated acting and added effects. In the play, the theme was more to entertain the reader by confusing them with the “story within the story.” Another comparison between the story and play was the setting in both had the same mining camp and the same 1950s timeline.
Nonetheless, there is an important detail to be noticed that sets the two settings apart. Unlike the story, where the setting starts in an old mining camp but in a more recent timeframe, the play jumps straight to the story of Jim Smiley in the mining camp in the 1950’s without the added outside story’s setting that the short story had. In addition, both stories had a well developed conflict of Jim Smiley being tricked by the stranger through character development and detailed scenes and descriptions. There were, although, some differences in the conflict that I noticed; for one thing, the play only had one conflict and the short story had two. In the play, Jim was tricked by the stranger and was angry about it for a long time. In the short story, it had two conflicts. One with Jim Smiley being tricked and the other one about the narrator trying to learn about Leo Smiley but coming up empty
handed. One final comparison between the story and play was that they both had good character development and had many of the important main characters, for example Jim Smiley, the Frog, and the Stranger, in them. Both the story and the play used narrations and descriptions to develop the characters for better understanding of the plot and storyline. Although this is true, there is one difference in characters between the two; the story mentions Andrew Jackson, the dog, and the play does not. For reasons unknown, the play does not include that character in the script.