Hoaxes as a Defamiliarized Humour in “The Celebrated Jumping Frog”

Abstract

In “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, Mark Twain deploys narrative deception to produce his signature defamiliarized humour. He utilizes hoaxes at multiple levels: the extradiegetic narrator frames Simon Wheeler’s intradiegetic storytelling as serious and authoritative, yet Wheeler’s digressive, repetitive, and earnest narration gradually undermines both narrator and reader expectations. In addition, Twain structures the story around anticlimax, inflating trivial events through prolonged buildup and solemn pacing, only to deliver inconsequential outcomes. These strategies destabilize conventional reading habits, delaying recognition and subverting anticipation, climax, and narrative authority. The humour emerges not from overt jokes but from the reader’s eventual awareness of the narrative artifice, making the story an exercise in perceptual estrangement. Twain’s tale thus exemplifies a form of comic defamiliarization where storytelling itself becomes the source of amusement.

Keywords

• Defamiliarization
• Hoaxes
• Humour
• Mark Twain

References

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