| Summary: | 碩士 === 臺東師範學院 === 兒童文學研究所 === 91 === Before winning Newbery Medal for Holes, Louis Sachar has entertained many school kids with his humorous stories, especially the wacky tales about Wayside School. This study aims at exploring humor in the Wayside School series. By analyzing the techniques and themes in the works, this study will find out the devices Sachar employs to produce the humorous effects and the significance hidden behind the funniness.
The result of this study indicates this series is filled with novel imagination, creative play of language, comic characters and unusual situations. Sachar uses puns, parody and invention of new words to show his play of words. He also makes cartoonlike characters and depicts them with sketches. In addition, the amusing happenings are usually narrated in some patterns of the structure like repetition, unexpected change, reversal, misunderstanding or contrast.
Through the manipulation of wordplay, the sketch of cartoonlike characters, and the creation of comic plots, Sachar reflects children’s anxieties and failings as well as adults’ imperfectness behind the zaniness. His optimistic attitude toward life is also revealed through the playful tone in the works. Combined with absurdity and deviant thought, Sachar’s humor serves to be the strong appeal of the Wayside School series.
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