One folk tale that we discover in "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" is
the notion of Satan. The rarely mentioned Stephenson changes from a nice
man to an evil one by the end of the story. This is clear when the patient
at the end of the story says that the checks "are destroyed. They came from
Satan. I saw the hell-brand on them, and I knew they were sent to betray
me to sin" (Twain Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg). The illustration with
this story is the fact that the townspeople were eager to blame anyone,
even Satan, for their own evil nature than accept responsibility for
In Twain's short story, "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County," we see how the story itself is a folk tale. It resembles the old
tradition of telling tales because Simon Wheeler tells the story to the
narrator. The narrator also tells us that part of the reason that he wants
to hear this story is because he has always believed that the story of
We also witness folklore in the tales of Simon Wheeler. For example, he
tells the narrator that Smiley had caught a frog and educated it. "Smiley
said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything--and I
believe him" (Notorious Frog of Calaveras County 248). Simon is not the
only person that believes in the frog because the narrator tells us that
Smiley says that "fellers that had traveled and been everywheres, all said
he [the frog] laid over any frog that ever they see" (249). The story end
with the narrator walking away before Simon could finish his tale,
indicating that he did not believe that tale and did not want to waste
Twain also employs many folk idioms in his stories. In "The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn", Huck revels superstitions about spiders. After he
I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and
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