“The Celebrated Jumping Frog” is structured like a joke, with the setup of the Narrator literally “walking into a bar” (a common joke introduction) followed by several increasingly ridiculous anecdotes, then arriving at the final punchline as the Narrator narrowly escapes the bartender’s next tale. Chief among Mark Twain’s virtues as a writer is his humor. It can be frank and cynical but always cheerful and often absurd or downright silly. Much of his humor stems from his wry observations of human ambition and folly.

In “Jumping Frog,” Twain employs the power of the tall tale and its tropes of wild exaggeration to create hilarious situations, including the eponymous frog filled with shotgun lead. Twain also has fun with Wheeler’s dialogue. The bartender speaks in a rural vernacular that allows Twain to create surprising and amusing turns of phrase. Wheeler’s expressive language also pokes fun at the Narrator’s implied upper-class pretensions, nearly daring the polite visitor to protest their absurdity. In addition to being Twain’s chosen genre, humor and satire serve to make social commentary more accessible and enjoyable to many readers, especially readers who may have been resistant to stories about rural life during Twain’s time.