For the Love of Linguistics
- Laura Adrienne
- Jan 4
- 22 min read
LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY AND THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain, was published in an New York periodical, “The Saturday Press”, in 1865 (Kuiper). Edgar Allen Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado was first published in 1847 in America’s most popular periodical of the time, “Godey’s Lady’s Book” (Kuiper).
Both authors share similarities in their backgrounds. Both spent their childhood in southern states and eventually spent time in New York. Poe moved to Philadelphia for a brief period and Twain went to Boston. Eventually both returned to the South. Their fathers died while the boys were young, however Twain’s mother kept the family together, whereas Poe’s mother also died and he was sent to live with a tobacco merchant in Virginia. Both young men did a short stint with the military. Poe attended West Point and Twain joined the Confederate Army. Most similarly, both struggled with poverty much of their lives. Twain married well and landed a lucrative position as a steamboat captain before pursuing his dream as a career and working with his brother in the publishing industry. Conversely, Poe struggled to make a living in the publishing industry. He is noted for fighting for higher wages for writers. Both writers are celebrated for their contributions to American literature. Ernest Hemingway wrote in 1935, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Twain called Huckleberry Finn". Poe is credited with inventing the modern detective story with The Murders in the Rue Morgue (The Poe Museum). His concept of deductive reasoning, which he called "ratiocination," inspired countless authors, most famous among them Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes (Museum Biography).
I chose these two stories for linguistic analysis because of the rich language each author uses.
Morphology:
Morphology, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “a study and description of word formation (such as inflection, derivation, and compounding) in language” and “the system of word-forming elements and processes in a language.”
Morphemes are the smallest unit of meaning of a word. From there, many rules can apply. They can be bound, meaning that they must attach to another morpheme to have meaning, such as the suffix “ize” or the prefix “un.” They can also be free morphemes meaning that they can stand alone as in “cat” or “butter.” The root morpheme is the central word with an attached affix, such as “hope” in “hopeless”. A bound root morpheme has no meaning on its own therefore must be attached to a free morpheme to be a recognizable word. An example of this is “funct.” Without adding “de” before the “funct” it fails to have meaning. However once combined, “defunct” means “no longer existing or functioning” (Merriam-Webster). Morphemes are either monomorphic, consisting of a single free morpheme as in “pizza”, or polymorphic, as in “pancake” or “comfortably”.
Finally, clitics are morphemes that are grammatically independent but phonologically dependent on another word (Denham). Contractions fall into the category of clitics as in “can” becoming “can’t” by combining two free morphemes “can” and “not”. Clitics also include the ‘lazy speech’ instances of combining “should” and “have” into “shoulda.”
Analysis of the morphology used in the first page of Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, is as follows:
In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; and that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it succeeded. [Twain].
In this passage, free morphemes abound. Content words are free morphemes with definitions you can look up in the dictionary (Denham). These are standalone words such as “friend”, “death”, “East”, “myth”, and “work”. These content words may have changing meanings by adding affixes. For example, “Friend” is someone you are close to. By adding “less” as a suffix, “friend” becomes “friendless” which is the absence of having a friend. Similarly, “work” is a task as a verb and a noun when referring to a place someone goes to earn a paycheck. By adding another free morpheme “home” before “work” creates the compound word “homework”. Again, this changes the meaning from something you do, to a location where you do the work.
The other form of free morphemes is function words which fall into several categories: articles/determiners (the), demonstratives (this), prepositions (by), conjunctions (and), degree words (very), auxiliary verbs (does), quantifiers (some), pronouns (she), modals (could) and numerals (twenty). These words are not usually combinable with affixes which will change their meaning. While there are many examples of these in the chosen texts, they are common words used in everyday speech and texts.
There are several examples of both monomorphic and polymorphic morphemes in the text. Monomorphic words stand alone, a single free morpheme. The words “friend”, “myth”, “work”, “death”, and “design” and “personage.” While personage is seemingly the word “person” with the suffix “age”, after looking into the etymology of the word, it seems that “personage” is actually a monomorphic free morpheme. The noun is from the mid-15c., "body of a person" (with regard to appearance), also "notable person, a man or woman of high rank or distinction," from Old French personage "size, stature," also "a dignitary" (13c.), from Medieval Latin personaticum (11c.), from Latin persona. As a longer way to say person, the word was in use from 1550s (but often slyly ironical, with suggestion that the subject is overly self-important) (Online Etymology Dictionary).
Examples of polymorphic words used are, “inquired”, “requested”, “hereunto”, and “conjectured” to list just a few. Inquire, request, and conjecture are changed by adding “ed” to the root word to change tenses. This addition signifies that the action happened in the past, as in something that has already been done.
The word “hereunto” is a little more interesting to decipher. “Hereunto” is an archaic adverb from the 1500’s made up of the words “here” and “unto.” Combining the adverb “Here”, as in Old English her "in this place, where one puts himself; at this time, toward this place," from Proto-Germanic pronominal stem hi- (from PIE ki- "this;" see he) + adverbial suffix –r (Online Etymology Dictionary) with the preposition “unto”, from the mid-13c., perhaps a modification of until, with southern to in place of northern equivalent till (Online Etymology Dictionary) creates the word “hereunto” meaning “to this” (Merriam-Webster).
While there are few clitics in the beginning of Twain’s story, when the character Simon Wheeler begins to speak, his vocabulary is full of them. Some clitics are simple contractions as in “do” and “not” becoming “don’t.” Others are more dialect driven, as in “feller’d”, meaning a fellow would. Other examples of these dialect driven clitics are “reg’lar” (regular), “solit’ry” (solitary), and “so’s” (so as).
Although the two stories were written less than twenty years apart, the language Poe uses in The Cask of Amontillado is very different than Twain’s language in his stories. Edgar Allen Poe was fluent in several languages and was fond of obscure words. This is reflected in his choice of words and phrases that create the dark tone that he is famous for.
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.
It must be understood, that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation. [Poe].
One of the most interesting words in the passage is the polymorphic word “unredressed”. The word “unredressed” consists of the root morpheme “dress” and three bound affixes, “un”, “re”, and “ed.” “Dress” according to Merriam-Webster has several meanings. As an intransitive verb, meaning it does not have a direct object receiving the action, there are several definitions. The most appropriate for the meaning in this passage is “to make or set straight.” As a noun, “dress” can refer to “a particular form of presentation”, as in “guise”, which can also apply to Poe’s intended usage of the term “unredressed.” Taking the word affix by affix creates an interesting discussion about the meaning behind the word as a whole. Adding the suffix “ed” puts the word “dress” in the past tense “dressed.” Adding “re” as a prefix indicates that the action had happened again. Finally, adding “un” before “redressed” shows the undoing of something that had be previously done at least twice. Poe’s implication in choosing this word is that a wrong was done and the object of this wrong wants to retaliate, but if not done with impunity it defeats the purpose of the retribution. There is a lot of meaning in the word “unredressed” and that is why Poe was such a master at language.
Some examples of each type of morphemes in Poe’s passages above are as follows: Free morphemes, which can stand alone, include “borne”, “soul”, “word”, “deed”, smile”, and “face.” Bound morphemes are affixes which must attach to another morpheme to have meaning, such as “ive” in “perceive”, or “ance” in “utterance.” In these two examples, “perceive” and “utter” would be the root morphemes with the suffixes (bound) attached.
Interestingly, Poe does not use clitics in his writing. The use of full phrasing lends a flow to his writing which deepens the reader’s experience. For instance in the first sentence, Poe uses “I had” rather than “I’d” and further on, “it is” rather than “it’s.” This is one of many literary devices that separate Poe’s writing style from Twain’s.
The use of the word “wont” could be at quick glance a misspelled clitic, but upon further evaluation it is actually from the root “wen-” a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to desire, strive for." The original meaning of the Germanic verbs was "be content, rejoice." (Online Etymology Dictionary)
Semantics:
One of the greatest shirts I ever saw simply had written across the front, “You say potato, I say vodka.” According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of semantics is “The study of meaning.” But semantics goes deeper than meaning. It also includes the mental images a word conjures in a person’s mind, the reference the word has to the real world, and the way in which a word is used. In short, words gather their meaning from the other words surrounding it and the context in which they are used. For example, if you did not know that some vodka is made from potatoes, the example of the shirt slogan mentioned above would have no meaning to you. However, if you were a vodka connoisseur, you would know that vodka can be made from grain, potato or corn. Some may leave you with a hangover after just one drink and some may allow you to imbibe as wished. Thus semantics play an important role in communicating both direct and implied meanings of words both spoken and written. Furthermore, the area in which you reside plays a role in how meaning of words is defined. In sticking with my vodka reference, if you were raised in Ireland, one might assume that vodka is made from potato, but if you grew up in the mid-western United States, vodka may be synonymous with corn. Therefore, your location has an impact on the meaning of words, as does your experience in the world. Think about the word “academics.” To a high-school student, academics may mean reading, writing, and arithmetic. To a graduate student it may mean more along the lines of securing tenure. To a blue-collar worker, academics may mean something reserved for the gifted or wealthy.
In lexical semantics, potato would be “an erect South American herb (Solanum tuberosum) of the nightshade family widely cultivated for its edible starchy tuber” according to Merriam-Webster. But what images does “potato” conjure in the brain? This mental image is the “sense” of the word. Thus “potato” may be different for the reader or listener than the writer or the speaker. The “reference” or “referent” is the real world meaning. As in a potato of any sort is still a potato. However, if you envision a Russet potato at the mention of “We are having potatoes with our meal”, you are thinking of the “intentional reference of the word. If you see many types of potatoes and can’t decide which one may be meant by the speaker, you are probably thinking of the “extensional reference” or the “prototype theory” of potatoes.
In my example, potato is a means to get to vodka. But potato could mean other things to other people and the use of the word in conjunction with other words is equally as important. Think of all the varieties of potatoes there are and the many things that can be done with them. In the South, potato pie probably will evoke images of sweet potatoes steaming through a flaky crust. In Ireland, potato pie would be synonymous with bland white mashed potatoes perhaps with crumbled meat and vegetables: Shepherd’s Pie. In New York we would have no such thing as potato pie unless it was in fact sweet potato pie, mashed potatoes, or pirogues.
In Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County there are a number of interesting words and phrases that can be studied for semantic analysis. For instance, Twain describes the Angel’s Camp tavern as “dilapidated” and “decayed.” His uses of these words in the description are meant for the reader to visualize “old and unkempt.” However, the use of the word “decayed” can conjure a much more sinister vision for some readers. For instance, I see a fallen tree trunk being eaten by bugs until the fleshy splinters are exposed. In Twain’s description I see a building in such disrepair that I would not venture to enter lest the floor gives out and the roof collapses around me. I do not believe that was his intention, but that is semantics.
Another interesting choice of words in the story is “blockaded.” “Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair.” Pairing the use of “blockaded” with “backed me into a corner” depicts the feeling of being trapped. The narrator is in the literal sense “blockaded” by the character Simon, and in the lexical definition of the word “blockade” meaning “an act or means of sealing off a place to prevent goods or people from entering or leaving” (Merriam-Webster), he is correct. However, “blockade” is often heard of in medieval times as means to stop a castle from falling siege to intruders. The image this captures in my mind is quite excessive for the means in which the narrator describes. But perhaps that is the intention of Twain. The word choices he uses to convey images in the readers mind are carefully chosen to imply utter helplessness and captivity of the narrator by Simon Wheeler.
Edgar Allen Poe uses words to convey images of a slightly different nature. The Cask of Amontillado is dark and sinister in nature and the characters are arrogant and spiteful. Poe uses the word possessed, “influenced or controlled by something (such as an evil spirit, a passion, or an idea)” or “urgently desirous to do or have something” (Merriam-Webster), in the sentence “Fortunato possessed himself of my arm.” The extensional semantic usage of the word “possessed” allows us to apply the cooperative principle to know that Poe does not mean that Fortunato actually took control and possessed Montresor’s arm, as in the severed hands in horror movies which keep moving to obliterate the oblivious youths which called evil spirits back from the grave. Rather, Poe is implying that Fortunato was steadfast in his goal and took hold of Montresor’s arm to urgently move him forward with their task. Poe further plays with sense and reference in the story as he goes on to write: “but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls” and “He turned towards me, and looked into my eves with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.” Intentionally, perhaps, Poe is conjuring images of webs and spiders, “white web work” and “two filmy orbs”, which add to the eeriness of the stories theme. Using semantic sense in this way, Poe is indicating that Fortunato is now caught in his plan of evil intentions.
Register levels:
Twain’s diction in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is distinct to the characters, the narrator and the miner Simon Wheeler. The narrator speaks with an educated tongue: “In compliance with the request of a friend of mine…” The character of Simon Wheeler is depicted as a laborer of little exposure to the refined world: “there couldn’t be no solit’ry thing mentioned but that feller’d offer to bet on it.”
The narrator begins by telling the reader that Wheeler’s voice “never changed from the gentle-flowing key” and that “he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm”. Although the conversation was informal and casual in nature, Wheeler’s character never used enunciation to accentuate his story, which would be expected of a casual and informal conversation. Twain uses this paradox to accentuate the “earnestness and sincerity” of Wheeler’s story as one that Wheeler believes to be true and of great importance.
The diction if Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado is more formal and consultative in nature. Two men using each other to different means, embark on a business-like task of examining a sought after wine. Again, paradoxically, although the venture is of a formal nature, Poe uses enunciation to portray excitement, comradery, feigned concern and dismay. Through choice of words, Poe vividly creates a story in which the reader is in the caverns with the two men. The reader feels the emotions and intentions. The reader hears the conversation, and all the cleverly worded slights exchanged between them. Poe liberally uses exclamation marks for emphasis, but sans punctuation the reader is still able to feel the ups and downs through the character’s speech. Perhaps one of the best known excerpts of all Poe’s stories is the two lines; “For the love of God, Montresor!” “Yes,’ I said, ‘for the love of God!”
Through the use of diction and syntax, “the way in which linguistic elements (such as words) are put together to form constituents (such as phrases or clauses)” (Merriam-Webster), both author’s voice and tone are evident. Twain’s narrator is a reflection of the author having a conversation which he finds monotonous and irrelevant. “However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about the afflicted cow, but took my leave.” The character of Simon Wheeler’s voice is quite different. He views his recollections of Jim Smiley as both mater-of-fact and interesting. The tone of Poe’s story is that of dark revenge. Poe creates a setting of deceit and destruction amidst the backdrop of Carnival. The voice of the characters cleverly further Poe’s tone with language dripping with intention, arrogance and dark intent.
Dialects:
Twain spent time in the mining camps to study the people he wrote about. Although the men came from many different areas, they were mostly all from rural or agricultural areas and possessed little formal education. The broken, informal English reflected by the character of Simon Wheeler was true to the miners of the day. “Twain's colloquial dialogue includes phonetic spellings never used in American literature before, making "Jumping Frog" a truly unique example of Western storytelling” (enotes). “I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.” The reader is left to assume that Twain meant “p’ints” to mean points. However, even the use of the word “points” in the sentence still lacks a flow of proper English.
Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado displays a higher standard of Old English, though many of the words he used are now thought to be archaic. It is his use of stylistic techniques and excellent grasp of language that give Poe’s stories the flavor and intense emotion, rather than the use of dialects in his character’s speech.
Stylistic elements:
Poe uses and abundance of metaphors in his writing to create vivid images in the mind of the reader. Metaphors are phrases which use words denoting one object or idea as a description of another object or idea (Merriam-Webster). “The wine sparkled in his eyes…” We know wine can’t sparkle in eyes, but Poe’s image is crisp. The reader is given the impression of a person who has imbibed and the drink has created an excitement as evident in the character’s eyes. “His eyes flashed with a fierce light” We know eyes cannot “flash” and that light is not capable of being “fierce”. But the metaphor gives meaning to the sentence in a concise way that a lengthier description cannot. The description of Montresor’s coat of arms is a metaphor for the story itself. “A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.” The huge human foot depicts Montresor’s righteousness in his revenge. It symbolizes his desire to stomp out his enemy. The rampant serpent is Fortunato. Rampant, in that for many years he has slighted Montresor. And the fangs imbedded in the heel could be a description of Montresor’s feeling of Fortunato’s dismissiveness which continues to his end. And/or it could mean that once Montresor carried out his plan, Fortunato clung to Montresor to save him.
Twain favors anaphora and repetition in his story. Anaphora is the use of “successive clauses or sentences [that] start with the same word(s) (English Grammar Online). Repetition is the use of “Words or phrases [which] are repeated throughout the text to emphasize certain facts or ideas (EGO). “Smiley had rat terrier, and chicken cocks, and tom cats, and…” “A dog might tackle him and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him…” “…a dog-fight, he’d bet on it, if there was a cat-fight, he’d bet on it, if there was a chicken-fight, he’d bet on it.”
Standard and non-standard alignment:
"The term Standard English refers to both an actual variety of language and an idealized norm of English acceptable in many social situations” (The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. Houghton Mifflin, 2005). Nonstandard English refers to common, yet improper use of the English language, as in “I should have went.”
Poe uses standard, although sometimes archaic, English in his writing. There is little to no evidence of any non-standard usage of the language. Twain’s story is full of nonstandard word usage. The dialect of his character Simon Wheeler, being an uneducated blue-collar miner, is rich with grammatical errors. For instance, his past and present tenses are often confused as in the phrase “…the big flume warn’t finished…” The character is also fond of double negatives as in “…it never made no difference” and “…didn’t have no hind legs…” There are several examples of dialect changing the spelling and pronunciation of words; “thish-yer” this year, “feller’d” fellow would, “inf’nit’” infinite, and “j’int” joint. The contrast of standard to nonstandard English of Twain’s two character’s voice is a startling shift from the narrator to Wheeler. By shifting this way, the characters are more defined and vividly reproduced in the reader’s mind.
Time Period Reflection:
It is difficult to compare one piece to the other as they were both written in the mid 1800’s and were both written by American authors. But I chose the two because of the difference in setting, style, voice and tone. If you look at the setting of the two pieces, one takes place during Carnival in Italy, and the two main characters are men of old names and wealth. The other is set at Angel’s camp, a dilapidated tavern in a mining town. Although the narrator seems to be an educated man with stature, the other character, Simon Wheeler is a minor with a limited education.
Therefore, to change one story to reflect the time of the other requires taking into account the setting and characters. For the discussion I changed Poe to Twain. Here I will attempt to change Twain to Poe.
The changes necessary to fit Twain’s story into Poe’s language style would require the character of Simon Wheeler to be educated and perhaps the owner of the mine or the banker who profits from its contents. This new Mr. Wheeler would have to talk in high Standard English rather than nonstandard English. For instance, the following sentence would be changed from:
“There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49--or maybe it was the spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn't finished when he first came to the camp; but any way, he was the curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides.”
To something like:
“There was a gentleman present by the moniker of James Smiley. It was the later part of 1849, or perhaps during the vernal equinox of 1850. I do not recall the exact date, but I do remember it must have been then because the erection of the flume had just commenced. Regardless, Mr. Smiley was a curious man. He would wager a bet on anything and everything. If no one were to bet against him, he would take the lesser side and wager that way.”
Poe’s use of language offers an aristocratic feel to his story of betrayal and revenge. Thus creating a question in the reader’s mind; what did Fortunato do to deserve such and end? His choice of wording not only requires a close reading of the story, but also possibly a dictionary. Conversely, Twain’s story requires a sharp eye to decipher the made-up contractions in Wheeler’s speech.
To recommend how one story could be changed to better align with the other’s standard use of language and linguistic principles, in this case, means to change the tone of the stories. Thus Poe’s story could be set in an old homestead. The characters may be rival farmers, one of which felt superior because of his robust crops. Instead of a cask of wine, perhaps the two men would be seeking a prized jar of raspberry preserves in a canning cellar. To change Twain to Poe, perhaps the narrator would be an investigator, and Wheeler could be a suspect in a murder. His long droning monolog could be a clever way to distract the investigator from knowing the truth.
More so than time period, the difference between these two stories is the audience. Seemingly, Poe’s story attracts a more sophisticated reader of the macabre, while Twain’s audience is more of a rural blue collar type. However, The Celebrated Jumping Frog… actually appeared for the first time in a New York publication, “The Saturday Press”, and is noted as the story that catapulted Twain to fame. Poe’s story appeared first in “Goodey’s Lady’s Book”, a Philadelphia publication with about 150,000 subscribers. By these standards, both authors appeal to the average city dweller in the mid 1800’s. Twain is even better recognized for his abilities than Poe. With this similarity in audience, and popularity of the stories, both use language effectively to reach the intended readers. Poe relies on the historical back drop of Carnival in Italy during a time when old money and coats of arms had deep familial and historical relevance. Twain reflects the culture of the West, namely hard-working laborers, to add color to his story. Reflecting the setting and tones of the stories, each author uses language to deepen the feeling of being transported to a world where neither’s audience may have experienced. Therefore, drawing the reader into a world of make believe made real by the incredible talent of Poe and Twain.
Cultural influences:
To bring a section of Poe’s story into modern times would change the impact on the reader due to the loss of Poe’s rich use of the English language, which one might have to eradicate to appeal to a more modern audience.
Think of how the change in language would change the impact of the story if we were to view it through a modern-day mob story. Imagine Benny already has Vinny in the final room of the catacombs. To Vinny’s surprise, Benny has a gun pointed at him and is forcing him to get into the wall.
“Yo, Vinny. I hear you been talking smack about me.”
“No. No. Not me Benny. I never said nothin’ ‘bout you to nobody.”
“Yeah, that’s not what I hear.”
“Benny. I swear on my mother’s life.”
“Your mother Angela’s a saint. You break her heart.”
“Yeah, yeah. She a saint. And I swear on her life!”
“Get in the wall Vinny. I’m not tellin’ you again.”
“Benny. Don’t do this. For the love of God Benny.”
“Yeah. For the love of God, you mutt.”
As seen from the rewrites above, the cultural influences of other time period would drastically change the feel of the stories.
Ecocriticism:
“The success of all environmentalist efforts finally hinges not on ‘some highly developed technology, or some arcane new science’ but on ‘a state of mind’: on attitudes, feelings, images, narratives.” (Buell). While literature can play an influential role on the environment and how people relate to the world, specifically to nature, it would be amiss to take the words of authors as experts in environmental scientific fields. Rather, the use of environmental literature is to analyze how different groups both view and interact with the environment.
In the case of my two stories, neither directly addresses any involvement with the environment; however, in Twain’s story the setting is a mining camp. Although what was being mined was not revealed, much can be said about the impact of mining of the earth, Capitalism, socio-economics and politics. Poe’s story could also be a commentary on wealth, class and the effects of the environment on a person’s health as there were many references to coughing from the nitre on the walls.
Intended Meaning:
The intended meaning in Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado is clear. The message is simply “be kind to others.” This can also be thought of as “do unto others”, “revenge is a dish best served cold”, and “pride goeth before the fall.” The very first line “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” informs the reader exactly what the tale is about. It is clear from the first sentence that the story is all about insult and revenge. The language Poe uses supports the image of one character, Montresor, suffering at the hands of another character, Fortunato. What follows is a dark tome of manipulation and foolish pride resulting in Fortunato’s demise.
Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is harder to derive meaning from. Integrity and community (LitCharts) are at the core of the story. At a friend’s behest the narrator, a man from the East, visits a mining camp in the West to inquire about a mutual friend. It is probably because the mention of his friend's name triggers a recollection in Simon Wheeler’s mind that the old miner welcomes the narrator to sit and listen to his story. This is contrasted later on in the story with the arrival of the stranger from the East who bets against Jim Smiley’s frog and then rigs the bet so he will win. The miners are a tight-knit community who will welcome strangers but expect to be treated cordially. Both stories have the underlying message of be kind to others and treat others as you would like to be treated.
In Conclusion:
Both Poe and Twain are known for their skillful use of language to create characters and stories that transport the reader to different times and places. Poe’s use of archaic high Standard English and literary elements paint almost poetic tomes of the macabre. Twain’s use of colorful dialect creates characters that are remnants from bygone days. Both masters of their craft, we the reader are richer for having shared in their literary creations.
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