The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly “Y’all come back now, ya here!” inevitably draws a distinct picture of someone straight out of the country backwoods. This type of writing has been around since the Old Testament, and will continue to appeal to readers and authors for eons to come. We most often feel like the character has the deck stacked against them if they do not speak proper English. The down home lingo of Simon Wheeler in Mark Twain’s The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is completely opposite of the language used by the gentleman who makes the inquiry of a Mr. Smiley. In all of the stories we read, there were blatant differences in the language used by the characters. This shows the prejudices that people have. A person's class, intelligence, and innocence are often judged by the way they speak. However, the words uttered out of the mouths of our characters never told the true story of the kind of person they truly were. This goes back to the old saying: never judge a book by its cover.Mark Twain’s style is quite apparent in all of his work. His tendency towards humor is unmistakable. In The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Twain has the main narrator tell of a ridiculous story told to him by Simon Wheeler with “impressive earnestness and sincerity” (184). As Simon Wheeler’s tale commences you meet the main character, Jim Smiley, who has a gambling problem, but who appears to be the luckiest feller around. The way that Twain describes Jim's betting behavior is hilarious:Why, it never made no difference to him--he'd bet on any thing--the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her...and Smiley, before he thought says, 'Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half she don't (184)Twain presented these two characters, each having their own way of speaking. The main narrator was obviou...
