The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County: Plot Analysis
Written by Raden Mohammad R. S.
I Want To Know
Written in 1865, this short story by Mark Twain was an overnight success and reprinted all over the country. In fact, this is the piece of writing that launched Mark Twain into fame . "The Celebrated Jumping Frog" focuses on a narrator from the East suffering through a Western man's tall tale about a jumping frog. The story was made into an opera and performed at Indiana University in 1950. Today, the city of Angel's Camp, California, the setting for this short story, calls itself the "Home of the Jumping Frog." [1]
Plot
Gustav Freytag was a Nineteenth Century German novelist who saw common patterns in the plots of stories and novels and developed a diagram to analyze them. He diagrammed a story's plot using a pyramid like the one shown here:
FYI
Exposition: setting the scene. The writer introduces the characters and setting, providing description and background.
Inciting Incident: something happens to begin the action. A single event usually signals the beginning of the main conflict. The inciting incident is sometimes called 'the complication'.
Rising Action: the story builds and gets more exciting.
Climax: the moment of greatest tension in a story. This is often the most exciting event. It is the event that the rising action builds up to and that the falling action follows.
Falling Action: events happen as a result of the climax and we know that the story will soon end.
Resolution: the character solves the main problem/conflict or someone solves it for him or her.
Dénouement: (a French term, pronounced: day-noo-moh) the ending. At this point, any remaining secrets, questions or mysteries which remain after the resolution are solved by the characters or explained by the author. Sometimes the author leaves us to think about the THEME or future possibilities for the characters.[2]
Analysis
I am interested to analysis the Twain's story. I use Freytag's pyramid as my reference in analyzing the plot in this story.
Exposition:
Beginning of the story, the story leads us to the characters and setting. In the beginning of the story, the narrator (I or maybe we can say he/she is an author) said that the narrator had a job from his/her friend that he needed to find Simon Wheeler and asked him about Reverend Leonidas W. Smiley.
“In compliance with
the request of a 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 append1 the
result.”
We can
see the story begins to describe the setting in this part:
“I found Simon
Wheeler dozing comfortably by the barroom stove of the dilapidated tavern in
the decayed mining camp of Angel’s, and I noticed that he was fat and
baldheaded and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his
tranquil countenance.”
The story
begins to bring us to the conflict. When the narrator found Simon Wheeler, the
man didn’t talk about Reverend Leonidas W. Smiley, but started talking about
another man named Jim Smiley. In here, the story changes from narrator story to
the Wheeler’s story and turns Wheeler becomes the narrator.
Inciting incident:
Still in the Wheeler’s story (Wheeler as Narrator), the story tells us how is Smiley addictive to gambling.
“….he was the
curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if
he could get anybody to bet on the other side, and if he couldn’t he’d change
sides….”
Because of
that, the conflict appears. The first conflict is there was no longer something
to bet on.
“Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat
terriers, and chicken cocks, and tomcats and all them kind of things till you
couldn’t rest, and you couldn’t fetch nothing for him to bet on but he’d match
you.”
Rising action:
The story begins to evolve. There are several hooks. First, when Smiley caught a frog and named it Dan'l Webster, he taught the frog to jump higher than any other frog. He was doing this he wanted to win when he bet the frog.
“…He
ketched a frog one day and took him home, and said he cal’lated to educate him;
and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and
learn that frog to jump… Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you
understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long
as he had a red.”
“Anyways,
I’ve got my opinion, and I’ll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog
in Calaveras County.”
Third, when
the feller cheated.
“….So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to himself,
and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and
filled him full of quail shot…”
Climax:
The climax in the story is when Smiley came back with another frog, Smiley tried to prove if Webster could jump higher than the other could. But, unfortunately, Webster could not jump.
“‘Now, if you’re
ready, set him alongside of Dan’l, with his forepaws just even with Dan’l’s,
and I’ll give the word.’ Then he says, ‘One—two—three—git! ’ and him and the
feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively,
but Dan’l give a heave and hysted up his shoulders—so—like a Frenchman, but it
warn’t no use—he couldn’t budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he
couldn’t no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal
surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn’t have no idea what the matter
was, of course…”
Falling action:
Towards to the end of the story, after his defeat, Smiley had found the quail shot after he examined what was wrong with Webster. He tried to go after the stranger, but the stranger was already gone, taking his money with him.
“Smiley he stood
scratching his head and looking down at Dan’l a long time, and at last he says,
‘I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw’d off for—I wonder if there
ain’t something the matter with him—he ’pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.’
And he ketched Dan’l by the nap of the neck and hefted him, and says, ‘Why,
blame my cats if he don’t weigh five pound!’ and turned him upside down and he
belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was
the maddest man—he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he
never ketched him…”
Resolution:
The narrator came back to his/her own story when Simon Wheeler was interrupted by Narrator, it means that the story comes back to narrator story. The narrator thought that hearing Smiley's story wouldn't help him get information about Reverend Leonidas W. Smiley:
“But, by your
leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising
vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning
the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley and so I started away.”
Because of
that, the narrator decided to leave.
“At the door I met the sociable
Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me and recommenced: ‘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—' However, lacking both time and inclination, I did
not wait to hear about the afflicted cow but took my leave.”
Conclusion
From that
plot analysis, I find some interesting results. Maybe, Mark Twain is the
narrator of the story, and he is a participant in his story. He writes the outer
frame of the story from his perspective.
Then, Simon Wheeler (a character who becomes a narrator) tells the story
to the Twain about one of Jim Smiley’s story.
So, the structure of point of view of this story is very unique. The
events happened to a Jim Smiley, as was told by Simon Wheeler, as was heard and
re-written by Mark Twain. From its plot structure, there is no Dénouement because the story doesn't make another story.
Note
the story from: goodreads.com
[1] Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Retrieved March 26, 2017, from http://www.shmoop.com/celebrated-jumping-frog-calaveras/
[2] Ohio.edu. (nd). Analyzing a story's plot: Freytag's Pyramid. Retrieved March 26, 2017, from http://www.ohio.edu/people/hartleyg/ref/fiction/freytag.html
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