“Brilliant… Full of history, mystery, and laughs.” is how coauthor of the Peter and the Starcatchers series, Dave Barry describes the book Dead End in Norvelt. In this historical fiction novel, the author, Jack Gantos uses many different forms of humor to enhance his writing. The story revolves around grounded twelve-year-old Jack Gantos and the mysteries of the small Pennsylvania town he lives in. Gantos uses a variety of humor to make his book more interesting, including schadenfreude, incongruity theory and farce. One way that Gantos makes his writing amusing is through the use of schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is when a person takes pleasure from another's pain or misfortune. In the book, the main character, Jack suffers from tremendous nosebleeds, usually caused by stress and anxiety. For instance, after Jack thinks he sees Mrs.Volker peeling off her melted skin his nose starts “spewing like an elephant bathing” (Gantos 26). The use of schadenfreude in this story makes Jack’s suffering seem funny. …show more content…
For example, when Mr. Spizz, the town police officer, chases after the Hells Angels on their motorcycles with a tricycle. This is laughable because it is completely ludicrous that an old man on a tricycle could catch up to tough guys on motorcycles. If police officers in real life used tricycles instead of cars and motorcycles to chase criminals they wouldn’t ever catch them and then there would be criminals on the loose all throughout the country. It would be extremely hilarious if a person saw a police officer chasing a car robber with a tricycle. The incongruity theory makes Mr.Spizz riding on a tricycle funny because it’s not a normal thing to