The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

The “Jumping Frog” story revolves around a somewhat snobbish Narrator’s search for a long-lost friend of a friend, and the man’s disdain for the ridiculous stories he hears. He believes his informant is an old fool, but in fact the informant is playing a sophisticated joke on him. The Narrator, a well-educated American from the East Coast, comes to bartender Simon Wheeler seeking information about Leonidas W. Smiley. To his dismay, the Narrator is treated to an elaborate, endless story about a Jim Smiley, a gambler who will bet on anything. The Narrator makes it clear that he has little respect for Wheeler, whom he regards as a buffoon with “an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance” (Paragraph 2). As evidence of Wheeler’s lack of smarts, the Narrator reports the old man’s tale in its entirety, complete with slang and speech patterns that, to the Narrator, demonstrate Wheeler’s lack of education and sophistication. The Narrator believes his friend put him up to the chore simply to trick him into witnessing one of the bartender’s moronic, unhelpful monologues.

What the Narrator misses completely is that the bartender has neatly turned the tables on his self-important visitor, using the guise of a simple man to lead the Narrator around by the nose, so to speak, with his fake-earnest fable.