Friday, February 26, 2016

How does the dialect affect the scene setting of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"?

One of the aspects of Mark Twain's fiction is the way that
he uses dialect to add a real sense of setting and place to his stories. The use of the
dialect creates a much stronger sense of place and really helps to conjure up the
setting of an ancient mining camp. Twain is very wise to make the decision he does of
reporting the story as it was relayed to him. Note the following
example:



Why,
it never made no difference to him--he would bet on anything--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...



Use of the vernacular
in slang expressions such as "dangdest feller" and grammatically incorrect phrases such
as "warn't" really help convey the setting that Simon Wheeler comes from and clearly not
only conveys the humour of the story through the printed word but also demands to be
read and heard.

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