Twain\'s Use of Irony in \"The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County\"

¶ … Notorious Jumping Frog

Mark Twain's iconic story "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is one of the most entertaining and interesting examples of a tall tale. Twain uses the tools of literature expertly, weaving human and irony into the narrative with his usual style and flair.

The narrator is obviously from the east, an educated person, and Simon Wheeler, the man being interviewed by the narrator, is from the wild west. Right away there are two cultures interacting, and in effect the two cultures are in conflict, which is traditional between eastern and western values at this point in the settling of the United States. The frontier is an unknown concept to genteel, civilized persons from the east so there is a juxtaposition and a conflict of cultures set up at the beginning, making irony and humor a likely outcome with Twain.

The potential for irony is there. Irony is described in several ways, one form of irony comes to the reader in literature through when the author uses a character, or the development of the plot, to show the opposite of that which is seemingly presented. The outcome of events in this story is ironic because the result is contrary to what might have been expected by the reader.

Actually irony is also the discrepancy between what is said and what is meant, or what is expected or intended and what actually happens. Another form of irony is satire, as well, when the silliness or follies of a person is exposed. In this story, Simon Wheeler has been satirized by Twain to extreme lengths. Twain in fact presents a storyteller who -- besides being very boring -- is himself unaware of the "ridiculous and funny" aspect of the story, and hence the irony of that result is humorous to the reader.

The "friend" that Simon Wheeler is asked to recall by the narrator, is not the same person that the narrator specifically is trying to reference. Wheeler actually has not the slightest clue who the "friend" is but Wheeler rambles on describing another person with a name that is somewhat similar to the one the narrator has asked about. Within the context of that situation, Twain has created a humorous encounter. The narrator is bored nearly to death because Wheeler: "…never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned his initial sentence… never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm" and yet there was "impressive earnestness and sincerity" that is ironic because the stories Wheeler was telling were, as mentioned, "ridiculous or funny." For a character to regard what he is saying as a truly "important matter," and yet in reality it is boring silliness, is ironic.

What the reader is understanding to be pure pap while the reader goes through these lines of what the speaker thinks is powerful stuff, is satire, and ironic. Wheeler is delivering his monologue "gravely" -- a word Twain used as a way to bring death into the scene. Not death of a human literally, but the death of conversation, the silence that is not really quiet but in the end this long twisted tale told by Wheeler is meaningless and hence there is silence of substance.

The boredom that the narrator experiences is so well presented by Twain that for the first time for many readers, a story that has a story within the story, that emphasizes boredom and nonsense but remains funny and very readable, is unique. This is Twain presenting nothingness through the brilliance of his use of humor and irony. And the reader is actually creating the story as the reader goes through it because the mind is active in trying to determine just what the story is leading to.