Twain Analysis

Luis Aldana

Professor Snowberger

AML2020

February 6, 2013

Cultural Division Between The East and West Coasts in the United States

Mark Twain uses a great deal of satire and humor in his literary writings.

In “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Twain pokes fun and brings to light the grand cultural divide in which the United States was experiencing at this time. “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” highlights several differences of late 19th century American culture and society.

The culture clash introduces the theme of the overall story in which Twain makes fun of and challenges the stereotypes that the Western United States had for Eastern people and to this day, some of those stereotypes still exist.

In the story “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Twain depicts many aspects of the East and West, the settlements in which the main characters were set in, and the language that each one uses. The story was published in 1865, during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. Most of the economic development had begun in the East Coast, but despite the increasing amount of growth westward, Americans still had a psychological divide between the eastern and western parts of the country. During this time period the West was thought to be rough and populated by survivalists. The East on the other hand was assumed to be more advanced, educated, and polite.

Twain uses language and punctuation to highlight the differences between the characters. The narrator is portrayed to the reader as a well educated, knowledgeable man who speaks using proper English and complex sentence structures. “In compliance with the request of a good friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend’s friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result.” The opposite main character, Simon Wheeler is depicted as more...