A Rhetoric Approach To The Effects Of Humor In Harry Potter Series

Generally based on the theory of literary incongruity, this paper is aimed to make a rhetoric study on the humorous effects in J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter series, which may account for Harry Potter series'significant implication for contemporary children's literature.The whole paper is composed of four parts. The first chapter gives a general introduction to the phenomenon of"Pottermania"aroused by Harry Potter Series, and then comes the purpose of this paper: to analyze the humorous effects in J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter series in the light of literary incongruity theory so as to reveal the causes for their success in writing. The paper tries to explore them from two aspects: the verbal humor and the black humor.The second chapter elaborates respectively the source of the incongruity theory, the definition of humor, the cause of humor and the innate relationship between the theory and humor. It also introduces the general concepts of diverse rhetoric devices: irony, pun, metaphor, hyperbole and black humor. The third chapter provides detailed examples from Harry Potter novels as a breakthrough point to classify the humor into six categories: the incongruity in the plot, irony humor, metaphor humor, hyperbole humor, pun humor and black humor. Through analyzing the given details from Harry Potter novels we can come to see that J.K.Rowling's great sense of ingenious humor builds on her unique creativity and powerful imagination. The forth chapter will conclude the whole paper.The popularity of Harry Potter Series is owing to many elements, including the unique humorous writing style of the author, and it is worthwhile for us to study it in different perspectives and dimensions.