Literary analysis, the very mention of them words makes anyone shudder and shudder I did. I had no clue which author I would choose; the fact was I hated non-fiction. I had been forced to read non-fiction since the 5th grade. It was boring, unimaginative, and rather rigid. I searched through my bookshelf and chanced upon a book of short stories by Mark Twain, perfect! Someone from the list, Mark Twain would be better then any because I knew about and had regrettably read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I was not expecting too much from this project, which was now focused on Mark Twain, because I knew that he was a strong non-fiction writer. As I read through his stories, however, I was soon proven wrong as I learned his "shorts" had a more satirical note to them. I didn't know anything about Twain and that was another reason I chose his stories. As I opened the book I found on my shelves I started reading the titles, titles such as The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras County and the Diary of Adam and Eve, I soon became interested. The stories that most intrigued me were the ones that, I felt, had the most interesting titles. The tales I ended up commenting on for this project were the "Diary of Adam and Eve," "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras County," "The £1,000,000 Bank Note," and "The Man Who Put Up at Gadsby's." Knowing I was not a fast reader, I chose some of these stories based on their length but others simply attracted me with their titles.
             The first story I read was "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras County." This story is about a man in Calveras County who was known for betting, and losing. He even raised animals with which he could bet, one such animal was his jumping frog. The story is told from the man's friend's point of view, Simon Wheeler. Wheeler tells us all about Jim Smiley's past antics and other, possibl...