Reflection- Mark Twain “The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County"

 For this reflection, I read "The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain.  The story is told in first person, and the narrator begins to tell the reader that he is trying to find information on a certain Leonidas W. Smiley.  He does not believe this man is real, but seeks out a friend of a friend to help him out.  I just found out that "The Celebrated Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County" is just an excerpt from Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi.  I just wanted to point that out in case someone got confused as to why I was only talking about part of a story, but I really doubt whoever is reading this has read Life on the Mississippi.  He finds this friend of a friends in what seems similar to a tavern.  The man backs him into a corner, and proceeds to tell the narrator about the man that he is searching for.  Leonidas W. Smiley is a real person!  The man also tells him about a man named Jim Smiley, which really really confused me at first.  Although not very far into the excerpt of Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, I do not have any idea how the ideas and philosophies of the narrator have anything in common with those of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.



Wilhelm, Jeffrey D., Douglas Fisher, Beverly Ann. Chin, and Jacqueline Jones. Royster. Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.