While preparing to
write this literary analysis, I put myself in a situation that connects to not
only the theories of humor we discussed in class, but also the ideas presented
by Thomas Hobbes. In class, we agreed that
comedy can be a combination of tragedy and time, because many of our memories
that we laugh at are ones that were painful when we experienced them. As I prepared to write my literary analysis,
I opened my folder to discover that the excerpts I had printed out and taken
notes on were nowhere to be found. I
spent twenty minutes, frantically running around my apartment, opening every
folder and notebook I had. I even pulled
my mattress off the bed frame to make sure I had not dropped the paper under my
bed. I finally found my papers lodged in
the back of a binder I use to organize papers for a club. My roommates immediately laughed as I
screamed in frustration. Their laughter
in that moment was in line with one of the sources of laughter explored by Thomas
Hobbes. He writes, “Also men laugh at
the infirmities of others, by comparison wherewith their own abilities are set
off and illustrated” (Hobbes 20). He
believes that laughter is caused when one person witnesses the tragedy or folly
of another, and the person laughing realizes that they are superior in some
way. My roommates laughed at me because
they recognized that they were more organized and not stressed about losing
their schoolwork. Their laughter in this
moment was not malicious, but it could be construed that way by an
outsider. This is closer to the kind of
laughter discussed by Hobbes and Plato.
Hobbes views laughter as something triggered by feelings of glory for
oneself, especially when faced with the failings of others. Plato echoes this sentiment in his dialogue
between Protarchus and Socrates, stating, “When we laugh at what is ridiculous
in our friends, our pleasure, in mixing with malice, mixes with pain, for we
have agreed that malice is pain of the soul, and that laughter is pleasant, and
on these occasions we both feel malice and laugh” (13). Plato and Hobbes provide explanations of
laughter that provide a darker view of humanity. Humor, in their minds, is rooted in the pain
and conceptions of inferiority in others.
This makes laughter an expression of malicious intent rather than an
expression of exuberance or joy.
Immanuel Kant and Soren Kierkegaard
present ideas on the sources of humor and laughter that are less rooted in
malice than the ideas of Plato and Hobbes.
Kant believes that laughter is a lower form of pleasure than the
appreciation of art, but he does not attribute it to malice. Instead he states that laughter is connected
to absurdity and the undermining of reason.
He states, “Laughter is an affection arising from the sudden
transformation of a strained expectation into nothing” (Kant 47). This theory of comedy also relates to the
idea in class that humor can come from the reversal of expectations. When something is expected to turn out in one
way and ends up with completely different results, people often laugh because
their expectations are met with absurdity.
This is employed quite often in Tales
of the Tikongs, where Hau’ofa constructs an entire fictional society based
in absurdity, often flipping the reader’s perceptions of people of faith
through the impious behavior of the people of Tiko. They live in sin, but believe they are still
morally safe because they repent every time they sin. This also connects to Kierkegaard’s ideas on
comedy. He writes, “The comical is
present in every stage of life…for wherever there is life, there is
contradiction, and wherever there is contradiction, the comical is present. The
tragic and the comic are the same, in so far as both are based in contradiction”
(Kierkegaard 83). He places less emphasis on the absurdity of the outcome, but
he still acknowledges that comedy comes from contradiction and what is
unexpected. Contradiction’s relation to
comedy makes sense in light of the idea that tragedy is also tied to
comedy. Being able to laugh in the face
of sadness is, in itself, a form of contradiction. Tragedy is thought to bring sadness and
despair in the people who experience.
Laughter, which is often an expression of joy, defies the expectation of
sadness. The combination of laughter and
tragedy connects back to the ideas of Plato and Hobbes, but Kierkegaard has a
different focus on tragedy. Unlike Plato
and Hobbes, he does not focus on the idea that tragedy must reveal a defect in
another person to produce laughter; he believes that tragedy and laughter are
essentially connected in their structure.
This is an intriguing way to expand upon the ideas of Plato and Hobbes
because Kierkegaard does not depict human beings as malicious when they experience
laughter.
Malicious intentions and feelings of
superiority are the basis of Plato and Hobbes’ theories on humor, but they also
serve as a basis for injustices. Martin
Luther King, Jr. wrote a letter from the Birmingham Jail when he was imprisoned
for participating in demonstrations against segregation. His words come from his frustration in the
world around him; he hated the cruelty that came with segregation and racism,
and wanted to speak out to bring about change in his society. One interesting view that Dr. King offers is
the perception of time. One of the
arguments that people opposed to his movement use is that more time is needed
for change to take place, because time is a force of change. Dr. King refutes this, saying, “It is the
strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time
that will inevitably cure all ills.
Actually, time is neutral. It can
be used either destructively or constructively” (4). This is observation is important not only in
matters of social justice, but also in matters of comedy. When discussing social justice, time,
especially time that has already past, can often be deeply connected to
injustices. For example, when looking to
the past, there are countless things like slavery and genocide that have
happened and cannot be reversed. Dr. King is right to say that time can be
constructive and destructive. As time
passes, action must be taken to change the social problems that already exist,
otherwise they will be perpetuated. Time
cannot stop injustice on its own. This
is why Fr. Kolvenbach emphasizes the need for Jesuit universities to shape
students to become agents of change in the future. He states, “The students need close
involvement with the poor and the marginal now, in order to learn about reality
and become adults of solidarity in the future” (Kolvenbach 15). Using time effectively requires taking
advantage of the present, learning from it, and using that knowledge to shape
the future. Dr. King is correct to say
that time itself cannot bring about necessary change to the injustices that exist. Ideas without concrete action cannot truly
take shape. The idea of having to
actively use time to create change in the world also relates back to one of the
formulas for comedy that we discussed in class: comedy is tragedy plus
time. To be able to look back at
something that was tragic in the moment and find comedy of it in the present
requires careful use of time. If a
person does not use the time after their tragedy in a constructive manner,
working towards healing, they will not be able to recover from the
tragedy. This can make the pain from the
experience fester and overtake the person.
Healing and finding comedy in the past can help a person grow as a
person, especially since they will be able to recognize past mistakes to
prevent them from reoccurring in the future.
This is similar to the ideas of Kolvenbach and King because it
emphasizes that time must be used constructively when looking at the past for change
to take place that improves the future.
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