Dave Cooks the Turkey

Dave tries giving his family the greatest christmas while his wife Morley takes the kids off to work at the food bank. The short story "Dave Cooks the Turkey" by Stuart Mclean tells a story about a loving father who wants to have a turkey well cooked for his wife and kids by the time their home. Unfortunately, Dave fails to attempt that goal! Dave had been looking forward to this day, but the second he forgot about the turkey, he had to go to exceptional lengths to provide his family with a proper Christmas dinner. Dave uses three techniques to create humor. First off, he uses exaggeration, he tends to make the story much more humourous. An example that shows this would be when Dave finally bought the turkey he discovered that it "looked like it had made a break from the slaughter-house and dragged itself a block or two before it was captured and beaten to death." Another humorous technique Dave uses is consternation. This is a sudden alarming amazement that results in confusion. When Dave couldn't find where the turkey was he started to panic and overly exaggerate. "He couldn't find a turkey in the freezer, in either freezer, and he was about to call for help when the truth landed on him lik an anvil". Dave's mind had made him think he had misplaced the turkey somewhere and all this confusion caused him to panic. Lastly, another humourous technique was situational. This is a manner or being situated, a condition. An example of Dave using situational humor is when his wife, Morley invited Jim Scoffield and his mother over for dinner. Dave said "Oh. Great, I'll get the drinks". This was a situation when he didn't want to get drinks for them but he just told his wife he would even though he didnt want to at all. Dave uses many different techniques of humor throught his story, a few examples I listed were exaggeration, consternation and situational.