Republic of uzbekistan ministry of higher and secondary special

2.3 Analysis of ―The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country‖, ―The Man
That Corrupted Hadleyburg‖, ―The Invalid‘s Story‖
A common theme which was present in all of Mark Twain‘s short stories that were read was his satirical style of writing. He commonly used satire in stories to evoke a response in readers‘ his form was mainly used to compel the reader pause and reflect on his literature. In the three short stories that were read: ― The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County‖, ― The Man That Corrupted
Hadleyburg‖, and ―The Invalid‘s Story‖, Mark Twain wrote in a funny and sarcastic style that would entertain any reader. Sometimes, his choice of words and the way foretold certain events and even the layout of his short stories was even ironic.
In ―The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg‖ Twain used the natural integrity and virtue of the human soul to wreck havoc and turmoil on a town. This story was very ironic because it began by describing the honorable and noble history of Hadleyburg and the great amount of ethical morals held by all people in the town. At the end of the story, every man in town is vying for a bag of gold that has been left by some mysterious visitor, and their of vying for it are far from appropriate. The story in itself is a great example of how easily moral destruction can occur within an ingenuous town, all because of one person who wished to corrupt it not by force or by physical harm, but by possibly the greatest method of all destruction on the human mind.
Many critics agree that Twain‘s skilled use of the satirical literary style, defines himself as a writer. ― If the prevailing spirit of Mark Twain‘s humor is not a sort of good-natured self-satire, in which the reader may see his own absurdities reflected, I scarcely should be able to define‖ ( Howells). This similarity was present in all three short stories.
Not only was satire a common recurring premise in all three of Mark Twain‘s short stories, but also his style of narrating his stories in first person as also present. Throughout his short stories, this was another repetitive theme. He commonly narrated his stories in first person and for the most part, kept the tense consistent. In the short stories, Mark Twain was the narrator and it was through his eyes that the reader witnessed the story.
In ― The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County‖, Twain displayed an extraordinary amount of boasting.
― Maybe you understand frogs and maybe you don‘t understand ‗em; maybe you‘ve had experience, and maybe you ain‘t only a amateur, as it were. Anyway, I‘ve got my opinion, and I‘ll resk forty dollars that he can out jump any frog in
Calaveras County. I should judge he can‖ (― The Celebrated Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County‖)
This passage from the story indicates Twain‘s first person narrative. In many of his short stories, Twain took an autobiographical approach in his first person narratives. Many critics believe that this autobiographical approach is used mainly to reveal his own character through the travails and lessons that his characters learned. ― Mark Twain often creates characters who have a sense of superiority, and if not apparent at the beginning of a novel, undoubtedly emerge at the end; becoming the superior character that Twain supposes himself to be‖³ . This narration style along with his technique of humor was a theme consistently used in his short stories.
Another similarity found in Twain‘s three short stories was his utilization of his southwestern humor. Twain‘s autobiographical approach served ―as only one phase of the frankness of his humorous attitude‖ (Century Magazine).
―Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph so far from his imaging that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its tow heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse.‖ (―The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County‖)
In the ―Invalid‘s Story‖ Twain depicted a maniac‘s journey to Wisconsin while accompanying his friend‘s corpse. In the story, the maniac first confused his cadaver with a box of rifles, and then blamed the offensive stench which was present in the car on his cadaver, when really it was just an innocent chunk of cheese.
"The Invalid's Story," Mark Twain's raucous story about a case of mistaken identities that eventually kills a man, is considered by many critics to have no literary value. Still, even though some critics have panned the story, it is often reproduced in collections of Twain's stories and others have noted that it is a good example of the frontier-style humor for which Twain was known. The story details the unfortunate misadventures of two men on a train who mistake a gunbox and a piece of rotting cheese for a smelly corpse in a coffin. The two men try many tactics in an attempt to fight the smell of the "corpse," but in the end, all of their efforts are fruitless. The themes range from mortality and the proper behavior towards the dead, to the power of imagination to overcome reason.
The humor in "The Invalid's Story" manifests itself in two forms, contradictory language and actions, both of which are made ludicrous by the reader's knowledge of the gunbox and cheese. With this knowledge, the reader witnesses two men who fight valiantly against a dairy product—a funny, odd situation. Without this knowledge the reader would believe that the two men are really dealing with a corpse, and the story would not be funny; instead, it would be sad or morbid.
In ―The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg‖ Twain displayed a distinctive style of satire that shows how vulnerable and susceptible humans can be in the face of greed. Twain‘s writing doesn‘t depress the reader, but lightly pokes fun and describes the moral validity of the human mind.
In all three of his short stories, Twain lightheartedly talked about the advantages and disadvantages of many situations and continually used his inimitable style of humor. Throughout the stories, Mark Twain entertains readers while also causing them to reflect on what they previously read. His style of humor is intelligent and entertains the mind of the reader on numerous levels. Twain‘s use of relative humor to everyday life was very practical and was common in all three of his stories. ―Mr. Clemens‘s writings could be described as the ultimate example of a genre of Southwestern humor, both in their complexity and in their sophistication‖⁴ . Enjoyed by many, Mark Twain‘s style of Southwestern humor is a popular theme which can be found an all three his stories ―The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County‖, ―The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg‖, and
―The Invalid‘s Story‖.
While reading Mark Twain‘s short stories, we initially was a little bored by their long, drawn out descriptions and odd sense of humor and prose. Yet after continuing my quest to finish reading his forty-page short story, which actually not a very short, short story, ―The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg‖, we began to develop a new interest in his writings. After reading the first six pages of his short stories we found the pages after the beginning to be quite interesting and attention grabbing. The three similarities that we chose to do this analysis on were the characteristics of Mark Twain‘s literary style of writing of which we were most interested in. These three traits grabbed my attention the greatest. These similarities were consequently a few of the reasons why we enjoyed his writings. But, as we said earlier, the beginning of Twain‘s stories were not the zenith of his writings. We did not enjoy the beginnings of the short stories and was therefore prepared to be bored out of my mind for the remainder of the pages. We were pleasantly surprised while reading some of the stories, because they did not turn out to be too boring and we very much enjoyed reading. ― The Man That Corrupted
Hadleyburg‖.