The Gambler
Melody Houff
English 111
Mrs. Forcey
23 February 2013
“The Notorious Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County”. The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain takes place in a tavern located in a small mining camp called Angel’s, where a person asks the narrator about an old friend, who doesn’t recall a person by that name, but does remember someone else by a similar name. Local word color is a writing tool used to help the reader understand certain features of where the story is taking place at. An example of this would be, “I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp of Angel’s, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil contenance”(10-13). Mark Twain uses word color here by describing Simon Wheeler’s characteristics and he was sitting drunk at Angel’s tavern. “He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he turned his initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm”. Mark Twain is describing here Simon Wheeler’s facial as well as body language as he sat talking about the friend that the narrator was asking about in the story. Wheeler made everything about the person sound as if he was a real important person as he spoke with earnestness and sincerity, which showed very plainly in his expressions and tone of words. “ I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once”. In the fourth paragraph, Wheeler mentions the name of Jim Smiley that had come to town “in the winter of ’49- or maybe it was the spring of ’50, I don’t recollect exactly”. Wheeler goes on to say that Jim Smiley was a big gambler. He would bet on everything that he could and majority of the time, won the bets. Wheeler shared that Smiley has a small pup names Andrew Jackson, and the pup
English 111
Mrs. Forcey
23 February 2013
“The Notorious Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County”. The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain takes place in a tavern located in a small mining camp called Angel’s, where a person asks the narrator about an old friend, who doesn’t recall a person by that name, but does remember someone else by a similar name. Local word color is a writing tool used to help the reader understand certain features of where the story is taking place at. An example of this would be, “I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp of Angel’s, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil contenance”(10-13). Mark Twain uses word color here by describing Simon Wheeler’s characteristics and he was sitting drunk at Angel’s tavern. “He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he turned his initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm”. Mark Twain is describing here Simon Wheeler’s facial as well as body language as he sat talking about the friend that the narrator was asking about in the story. Wheeler made everything about the person sound as if he was a real important person as he spoke with earnestness and sincerity, which showed very plainly in his expressions and tone of words. “ I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once”. In the fourth paragraph, Wheeler mentions the name of Jim Smiley that had come to town “in the winter of ’49- or maybe it was the spring of ’50, I don’t recollect exactly”. Wheeler goes on to say that Jim Smiley was a big gambler. He would bet on everything that he could and majority of the time, won the bets. Wheeler shared that Smiley has a small pup names Andrew Jackson, and the pup
Cited: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Short Stories for Students. Wed. January 2010. Twain, Mark. “ The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”. http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/jumpingfrog.html