犯罪小說是一個以恐懼情緒為核心的大眾文學子文類。在當代犯罪小說氾濫 且公式化地使用懸疑、驚悚，甚至看似毫不相關的戀愛元素時，一個犯罪小說的文學傳統逐漸成形。當這個文類的公式化情節、角色逐漸使觀者感到無趣，希求進行批判和重構的作者開始了諧 擬的風潮。這些作者於 模仿、諷刺犯罪文學之時，將令人害怕 的氣氛轉為嘻笑，也凸顯出恐懼和笑之間的微妙關係。恐懼和笑之間的關係已經眾多科學家及哲學家探討。這些探索者包括米哈伊爾．巴赫金 (Mikhail Bakhtin)以及約翰．莫瑞爾 (John Morreall)。然而，在這些探索中，多半的研究都專注於探討恐懼情緒是如何 被化解並轉變成笑，而忽略了恐懼亦可作為笑料。本論文透過分析 派卻克 巴 羅 的喜劇《步步驚笑》，主張它以陳腔濫調情節、刻板印象角色以及後設劇場手法，諧擬犯罪文學的傳統，將 步肯的小說《第三十九階》及希區考克的電影《國防大機密》中的 恐懼轉化為笑聲，並樹立 喜劇美學「嘉年華劇」。

The popular modern literary subgenre, crime fiction, is a genre of fear as its core. When contemporary crime fictions have overly and formulaically used suspense, shock, and even love elements, a convention of crime fiction comes into being. As viewers become dissatisfied with formulaic plots and character designs of crime fiction, the writers, hoping to criticize and reform this genre, begin a trend of parody. These writers, imitating and mocking crime literature, transform the frightening atmosphere to a joyful one, and highlight the subtle connection between fear and laughter. The connection between fear and laughter has been investigated by many scientists and philosophers, including Mikhail Bakhtin and John Morreall. However, among these investigations, most of them concentrate on how fear is relieved into laughter and neglect the fact that an issue of laughing with fear exists. With the analysis of Patrick Barlow’s comedy The 39 Steps, this thesis argues that through the display of trite plot patterns, the exaggerated portrayal of stereotypical characters as well as the use of metatheatrics, this play parodies the conventions of crime fiction, channels the fear in Buchan’s novel The Thirty-Nine Steps and Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The 39 Steps toward laughter, and establishes a poetics of carnival thriller.

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