Con Man By Ken Mitchell Essay, Research Paper

The novel, The Con Man, by Ken Mitchell is a very humorous novel. In the novel, Ken

uses humour to get a point across at many different times. In the Concise Oxford Dictionary

humour is defined as: the condition of being amusing or comic. Well some parts of the novel are

very amusing and comic. One funny part in the book is when the kids at the beginning ask Gilly

if he is native or black. At that part Ken was getting across what Gilly was. That is just one

example in the novel, there are others also. Humour can be used to get points across in the real

world, and it is also used to get points across in the novel.

One humorous part in the novel that gets a point across is in chapter two when they are

all travelling. They have to stop and when they do some local town kids bug Gilly. They throw

stuff at him and tie him to a tree. They ask him if he is a native, and he denies. They ask if he

is a black, and he denies. They just make fun of him, until he gets rescued. Eventually we learn

that Gilly is neither native, or black, or white, he is a halfbreed. This funny part in the novel gets

the point across of what Gilly really is. Without this one part in the novel we would not know

what Gilly is. We would probably just assume that he is white. Ken probably puts this in the

novel because he had a troubled childhood and he just had to let off some steem. When he was

a kid all the other kids probably bugged him. Maybe he was a halfbreed and the other kids

bugged him about being native or black. Ken is just showing how mean kids can be, and he

feels that kids should be nicer to each other. Then the world would be a much happier place.

A second funny part in the story is when Gilly is getting tail and the cops come and

knock on the door. Ken Mitchell does this because he is a pervert. You can tell that Ken is a big

pervert because all throughout the story he has a bunch of sick parts like this. Ken probably did

not have a wife or a girlfriend,. and probably never got tail of any sort. This is what drove him to

write sick parts like this. Ken also probably had some very very sick fantasies and dreams that

he could never do in real life because he could not find a woman. He fulfilled these fantasies in

a less adult way in his novels like in The Con Man. even though this part, and many other parts

in the novel, are sick and perverted, it is still humorous. It is humorous and gets a point across.

The point getting across here is that you should never get the cops of your tail for stuff that you

did not really do. It is a very crappy feeling. Maybe Ken had the cops after him for something

that he really did not do and he sort of let out his anger in this novel. That would explain this part

of the story. Maybe, just maybe this exact thing had happened to Ken before and he wanted to

tell everyone, but he knew he would look like a very big loser if he just came out and said it. So

instead, he put it in the novel.

There were only two really funny parts in this novel, and those are discussed above.

Thus, this paragraph will be dedicated to the greatest of all time, Ken Mitchell. Ken Mitchell was

born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1940. He is a novelist, obviously, and also he is a

playwright. Currently, Ken lives with his wife and family in Regina, Saskatchewan. Some

research was done on Ken Mitchell to try and find some personal information on him, such as

phone number and address. It came narrowed down to the following three addresses and phone

numbers. First, Ken Mitchell at10 Lochhead Bay, Regina, S4X 1P5 with the phone number

545-0890. Secondly, Ken Mitchell at 209 Angus Cres, Regina, S4T 6N3 with the phone number

757-3820. Lastly, Ken Mitchell at 1427 Oxford ST., Regina, S4N 5S9 with the phone number

761-0505. Now any three of those could be the real Ken Mitchell. The best bet would be to call

all three numbers and ask to see who wrote the wonderful book The Con Man. Then you will

have your notorious Ken Mitchell.

In closing, The Con Man has some very humorous parts. These humorous parts are

used to get points across in the story. Ken Mitchell uses this form of getting points across very

well, as shown above. Humour is a very good way to get points across. This way people stay

interested and still find out things needed to know to understand the story. Ken put many parts

of the book in because he has experienced similar events throughout his life. He needed to let

off some steem, and what better way to do it then in a book? Ken is a very smart and perverted

man, and that is a good thing. The world needs smart people, and the world needs perverts.

Without them the world would not be complete.