Mark Twain uses the style of the tall tale to accommodate his very unique and unusual characters. Tall tales feature exaggerated and fabulous events that you would more than likely not see in the real world. Characters in tall tales are often considered "larger than life,"" meaning they exhibit extraordinary qualities (Wilson 21).
In The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County Simon Wheeler's stories about Jim Smiley and his pets feature many exaggerations, and thus fall into the tall tale category. An example of the tall tale in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is when Wheeler describes Smiley as a man who will make a bet on anything, even something as dumb as which of two birds will fly off of a fence first (Wilson 22). In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer the tall tale is shown in some of the adventures that Tom and his gang go on by the Mississippi River (Napierkowski 11). In The Adventures of Huck Finn the style of the tall tale is shown when Huck is trying to free Jim and some of the things that happen during this time (Telgen 12). Those are just a few examples of the tall tale and how it is used in the stories that are going to be discussed.
The following paragraphs will discuss some characters in stories that Mark Twain wrote. They will explain how the tall tale accommodates his characters and how the characters behave. The following paragraphs will give you examples from four different stories, The Adventures of Huck Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.
The first story being considered is The Adventures of Huck Finn. It will compare and contrast three characters, which are Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Jim. It will first discuss Huck Finn followed by Tom Sawyer and then Jim.
Huck Finn is one of Mark Twain's most famous characters (Napierkowski 5). In The Adventures of Huck Finn the narrator and the hero of the story is Huck Finn himself.
