Genre
Fiction
Setting and Context
Written in the context of digression
Narrator and Point of View
Narrated by Mark Twain
Tone and Mood
The tone is awestruck, and the mood is calm.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The central character is the narrator.
Major Conflict
The conflict is between the narrator and Jim Smiley, who gambles on anything.
Climax
The climax comes when the narrator realizes that he might never find Jim Smiley and walks out of Wheeler.
Foreshadowing
Failure to locate Smiley by the narrator is foreshadowed by his choice of seeking advice from unreliable storytellers.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The book alludes to storytelling and recitation.
Imagery
The imagery of the sophisticated language between the narrator and the storyteller depicts both hearing and sight imagery to readers.
Paradox
The main paradox is that despite the narrator listening anxiously to Wheeler’s stories, he never finds Smiley.
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Buckshot is used as a metonymy for a ball.
Personification
Smiley’s bulldog and the jumping frog are personified and given human abilities.
