1. Life on the Mississippi The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain
Life on the Mississippi
The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

2. Mark Twain Literary Focus: Humor and Regionalism
Humor: literature purposely meant to entertain
All types of humor include exaggeration (hyperbole) and irony
3 types of Humor
Humor of situation: comes from situational irony in plot
Humor of character: based on exaggerated personalities
Humor of language: includes sarcasm, exaggeration, irony, and puns

3. From Life on the Mississippi
Excerpt from Twain’s autobiography
Twain portrayed America in a way that still defines our national character through
Images
Expressions
Characters
Ways of thinking
Table work: create a chart in your notes of the above categories. Find examples (minimum 3 per category)from “The Boy’s Ambition” which fit the categories and in your opinion are distinctly American.

4. Analyzing “The Boy’s Ambition”
Images
“The day was glorious with expectancy…the day was a dead, empty thing”
“The white town drowsing in the sunshine”
“A sow and a litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk”
“The Great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi”
Expressions
“Steamboat a-coming”
“…shook the bottom out of all my Sunday School teachings”
“St. Looey like an old citizen”
Characters
The steamboat— “She is long and sharp and trim and pretty…”
Cabin boy, deckhand
Cub engineer
Pilot…the grandest position of all
The town drunkard
Ways of Thinking
“There was one permanent ambition…to be a steamboat man”
“I first thought to be a cabin boy…later I thought I would rather be a deckhand”
All the boys are jealous of the cub engineer—his dirty clothes, his steamboat talk, his money, his prowess with the girls”

5. “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”
Tall Tale
Humorous story
Exaggerated characters
Impossible events
Style
Frame Story
Twain introduces a 2nd narrator, Simon Wheeler, who tells the story

6. “The Notorious Jumping Frog…”
Regionalism
Dialect
Distinct form of language as it is spoken in one geographical area or by one social or ethnic group
Uses unconventional spelling
Suggests the way the words actually sound
Establishes setting
Adds local color (regionalism)
Develops characters

7. “The Notorious Jumping Frog…”
Contrast the two narrators—unnamed narrator and Simon Wheeler
Language—how does each narrator use language
Tone—attitude toward the subject (the story of the jumping frog)

8. “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”
Analyzing Dialect and Hyperbole
Find three examples of exaggeration/hyperbole combined with dialect
Write out the example
Explain why combining dialect and hyperbole creates humor.
Write the first paragraph of Simon Wheeler’s next story….
“Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn’t have no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and—”
Maintain Wheeler’s voice as narrator by copying his…
Dialect
Use of exaggeration/hyperbole