Graduation Year
2020
Date of Submission
12-2019
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Literature
Reader 1
Robert von Hallberg
Rights Information
Gabriel M Velarde
Abstract
I compare Trailer Park Boys to works of frontier humor such as Thomas Bang Thorpe’s The Big Bear of Arkansas, George Washington Harris’ stories about his character Sut Lovingood, and Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road. The first chapter examines the frontier’s landscape and folkloric features in Trailer Park Boys and how these features relate to the frontier and folklore depicted in works of frontier humor, using insights of Walter Blair and James Bishop to explain how Trailer Park Boys can be considered a contemporary work of frontier humor. In the second chapter I use Dean DeFino’s idea of “temporary membership” to explain how Trailer Park Boys creates empathy as well as humor.
Recommended Citation
Velarde, Gabriel, "Trailer Park Boys: A Contemporary Work of Frontier Humor" (2020). CMC Senior Theses. 2311.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2311
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
