卡拉维拉县著名的跳蛙 学习指导 The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.doc

本文档由南芊芊整理发布 HYPERLINK /xiaonanfb/xiaonanfb （使用时请双击并删除页眉） The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County Introduction Written in 1865, this short story by HYPERLINK /historic/twain/ 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 ( HYPERLINK /time/magazine/article/0,9171,1820166,00.html read more). The Celebrated Jumping Frog focuses on a narrator from the East suffering through a Western mans tall tale about a jumping frog. The story was made into an opera and performed at HYPERLINK / Indiana University in 1950. Today, the city of HYPERLINK / Angels Camp, California, the setting for this short story, calls itself the Home of the Jumping Frog. Brief summary A man from the East comes to a western mining town. At the request of a friend, the narrator speaks with Simon Wheeler in order to ask after a man named Leonidas W. Smiley. Instead of giving the narrator the information that he asks for, Wheeler launches into a tall tale about a man named Jim Smiley. The story goes something like this: Jim Smiley was a man who would bet on anything. He turned a frog into a pet and bet a stranger that his frog, Dan’l Webster, could jump higher than any other frog. While Smiley wasnt looking, the stranger filled Dan’l Webster with quail shot, and Smiley lost the bet. Before he could figure out what happened, the stranger disappeared with the $40 he won by cheating. Sick of the long-winded tale about Jim Smiley and his frog, the narrator tries to escape from Wheeler before he launches into another story. The narrator realizes that his friend probably intended for him to suffer through Wheelers tedious tale. Themes HYPERLINK /celebrated-jumping-frog-calaveras/cunning-cleverness-theme.html \o Cunning and Cleverness Cunning and Cleverness Though Jim Smiley appears to be extraordinarily lucky, it is partly through his cunning and cleverness that he is able