Jack Gantos Use Of Humor In Dead End In Norvelt

Comedy is used in many stories to make the more interesting and enjoyable. In the historical fiction novel, Dead End in Norvelt, by Jack Gantos, he includes examples of humor to improve his story. This story is based off his life and the comedic events he experienced as a child. Jack uses irony, schadenfreude, and the incongruity theory to bring his story to life.

One type of humor Jack uses is irony. “Irony is the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, usually for humorous or empathetic effect.” In the story, there is a police officer named Mr. Spizz who is in love with Miss Volker, the old lady Jack is helping out. Mr. Spizz goes out of his way to do all these romantic things for Miss Volker yet she still rejects him. She did however tell him that if all the other old people in the die and they are the last ones, that she would be with him. It’s ironic that he is the “policeman” of the town when he, in fact, was the one who killed all the old people. The use of irony is effective in this story because the duty of a police officer is to protect the people and Mr. Spizz does the opposite of that when he kills people just to be with Miss Volker.

Another type of comedy jack uses is schadenfreude.

Jack has this condition where his nose starts to bleed everytime he is frightened, and there were a few examples in the story. One example is when Jack first visits Miss Volker and the first thing he sees is her ‘melting her hands off” and his nose starts bleeding. “I staggered back a few steps and by then my nose was spewing like an elephant bathing himself.” (Gantos 26) This type of humor is effective in this story because not many people have this condition so its funny to read about the simple things that cause his nose bleeds. This condition obviously isn’t funny but the way it is used in this story makes it humorous since the readers reads about Jack’s

pain.
The last type of humor Jack uses is the incongruity theory. In the story, there was a part where Mr. Spizz was chasing the Hells Angels, “Plus, it must have been a little embarassing that they were on really fast motorcycles and he was pedaling an adult tricycle.” (Gantos 160). This is an example of the incongruity theory because he has a tricycle and is chasing Hells Angels on motorcycles. Since motorcycles are much better, faster versions of tricycles, it makes it funny. This type of comedy is effective because it takes two things that are not alike and puts them together. It also is effective because people can usually visualize in their mind what’s happening and see the silly picture.
In conclusion, Jack Gantos’s use of irony, schadenfreude, and the incongruity theory made his story much more enjoyable. Jack’s nose bleeds, Mr. Spizz’s love for Miss Volker, and the chase made the story much more interesting and comedic. The use of comedy really helped the reader better visualize his experience that summer while he was grounded and all the silly things he saw and went through.