In everyone’s life there are ups and downs, days were they are happy and others were they are sad or upset. Everyone has moments were they cherish it for the rest of their lives, and others that brings nightmares. However life treats you good and sometimes bad, everyone wants to live a happy life. In the “The Approximate Size Of My Favourite Tumor” fiction by Sherman Alexie, Jimmy a character in the story faces difficult situations in life. To cope and survive the tragedies and difficult situations in life, some people uses humor, and pretend to have the life that they never had.
Firstly, everyone faces hardship in life, some are greater than others. That hardship in life that one faces could be illness for example. Alexie uses humor
Humour was an antiseptic that cleaned the deepest of personal wounds.” Jimmy said (208). Throughout Alexie story many jokes were achieved as an effective humor since it brought laughter “Well, I told her the doctor showed me my X-rays and my favoruite tumour was just about the size of a baseball…” (204) Jimmy said joking about the tragedy of his illness and his imminent death. Dr. Gill Greengross an evolutionary psychologist and anthropologist from the University of New Mexico said “humor can help people deal with tragedies.” So humor is effective and a very good way to cope with
Alexie uses pretense as strategy to please one’s imagination and to hide the pain, for example “And look at the kids… And they have your eyes.” (203) Jimmy said pretending to have the perfect family. Also Jimmy pretends to have a healthy relationship with his wife, after he walks out from a fight between them he returns “Didn’t you miss me? I’ve been gone so long and it’s good to be back home. Where I belong.” (203). Also people pretend to be what they are not to feel comfortable around others, for example in Alexie’s fiction Jimmy and Norman pretended to share cigarette to feel comfortable around each other “and shared a cigarette. I should say we both pretended to share a cigarette since neither one of us smoked. But we both the other did and wanted to have all that much more in common.” (206). So people pretend to be something they are not to please one’s self, to hide the pain, and to feel comfortable around
This shows the aspect of humor because, he wants to show he can do the impossible and become a world renowned scientist for solving one of man- kinds many ailments. Such as skin ailment and /or paralysis among other aliments he thinks of. He also develops a life under the use and abuse of drugs, crystal meth. He identifies himself with drugs, falling to the drug addict status, which impacts his life on a different setting, further explaining that he felt down after his dealer in drugs fly’s out of the country.
Although modern science has allowed us to develop many complex medicines, laughter is still the strongest one available in the real world and in the book. Laughter proves to be a strong medicine in more ways than one and is completely free, allowing anyone to use it at anytime. It allows us to connect socially with people, it can be used as a way of overthrowing power, and it is good for your health. As Randle McMurphy showed in the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, laughter can lighten the mood in the darkest situations.
Laughter also proves a vital role in helping the patients deal with their problems. Not only does it help them deal with problems but it also gave them the push toward progress on getting out of the institution.
As the story continues and McMurphy’s influence over the patients strengthens, the reader sees other occasions where the laughter is healing. With McMurphy’s big, boisterous laugh dominating the ward, the patients begin to laugh themselves. Their laughs sound awkward at first- forced, simulated- but nevertheless they are laughing and whether the patients, or Bromden realize it, this phony laugh does begin to heal them.
The. In this short story, the narrator, Jimmy Many Horses, who suffers from terminal cancer, keeps joking about his tumor, telling his wife, Norma, that “[his] favorite tumor was just about the size of a baseball, shaped like one, too. Evan had stitch marks” (157). Norma, who cannot tolerate Jimmy’s jokes about his cancer, leaves Jimmy and goes to Arlee, yet she later comes back to Jimmy because the person she lives with in Arlee is too serious. Humor plays an important role throughout this story; at the end of the story, it is again humor which improves the relationship between Jimmy and Norma.
The world is full of people who portray themselves as someone or something else. People
In “Turkeys in the Kitchen,” an essay written by Dave Barry, humor is used as an aid to make a point about the usefulness of men after Women’s Liberation. “A Plague of Tics,” a personal narrative written by David Sedaris, uses a different kind of humor to explain the reasoning behind his behavior. Through these two essays and their author’s personal experiences, humor is presented as a device to captivate reader’s attention and declare the author’s intended meaning.
This book is about so many things, it is hard to stay on one topic for any length of time. In order to focus on the laugh and laughing as a healing agent, I would like to look towards other influential writers and thinkers to tie together laughing and healing. First, let’s see what laughter is according to Meriam Webster: laughter- n. a cause of merriment. Using this simple definition, we can assume that laughter can come from any form of merriment or emotion like triumph, contempt, relief, and almost any other emotion there is. It is easy to picture in your head different underlying emotions in laughter; the sinister laughs of witches and ghosts, the insincere, fake laughs you hear after pointless, humorless attempts at jokes on the six o’clock news, to the silent laughs of mimes and clowns that fill the people around them with a happy feeling. These are all examples of what laughter is and how it is used. But why do we do it? What in nature created the laugh and made it so successful?
Steve Almond’s “Funny is the New Deep” talks of the role that comedy has in our current society, and most certainly, it plays a huge role here. Namely, through what Almond [Aristotle?] calls the “comic impulse”, we as a people can speak of topics that would otherwise make many of uncomfortable. Almond deems the comic impulse as the most surefire way to keep heavy situations from becoming too foreboding. The comic impulse itself stems from our ability and unconscious need to defend and thus contend with the feeling of tragedy. As such, instead of rather forcing out humor, he implies that humor is something that is not consciously forced out from an author, but instead is more of a subconscious entity, coming out on its own. Almond emphasizes
Humor is more than just amusing entertainment to pass the time. Though jokes and witty banter can be shallow, humor can go deeper than surface level to convey messages to audiences who would otherwise be close-minded about certain ideas. Humor is a great tool to get audiences to change the way they think, feel, and act. In “Saying Goodbye to Yang,” Alexander Weinstein uses humor to criticize some of society’s faults such as the way it has become heavily reliant on technology, racially insensitive, and judgmental.
Comedy differs in the mood it approaches and addresses life. It presents situations which deal with common ground of man’s social experience rather than limits of his behaviour – it is not life in the tragic mode, lived at the difficult and perilous limits of the human condition.
Humor has shown to be powerful for increasing resilience in dealing with unhappiness and also negative outcome. Humor can help as a strong distancing mechanism in coping with distress. Humor has been shown to improve the aging process in three areas. They are improving physical health, improving social communications, and helping to achieve a sense of pride in life. Studies have shown that constant humor in the aging process gives health benefits to individuals.Humor has shown to be powerful for increasing resilience in dealing with unhappiness and also negative outcome. Humor can help as a strong distancing mechanism in coping with distress. Humor has been shown to improve the aging process in three areas. They are improving physical health,
Never forget to laugh. "If you can laugh at it, you can survive it" (Cosby). Life is difficult for everyone. It is how people deal with these strives and struggle is what matters. Sometimes, the best way to get a break from the hardships of life is to simply laugh with friends and family. It’s a Balance process. Some people can be caught up in life’s problems and forget to laugh. Laughter is the mental medicine for life. Laughter supports the health of the body. Laughter can break up the quietness in a room. Laughter can change the room from black and white to a rainbow of colors. Laughter is a result of looking at something in a positive light. Is the glass half empty or half full? Whatever the circumstance, never underestimate the power of a good giggle. Never forget to laugh.
If there is one way to bring a smile to someone’s face, it is laughter. Funny jokes, comical stunts, sarcasm- Every person is different when it comes to what makes them laugh. Some find dry humor comical. Others think sarcasm or joke-filled ranting are the best. ‘Comedy’ is such a broad term, broad enough to allow everyone to find something they find comical. In fact, ‘comedy’ includes a specific type of drama, one where the protagonist is joyful and happy endings are expected. Comedy is like a drug; it allows you to escape reality. When we say the word ‘comedy’ in the present, we are generally referring to a type of performance which provides humor. However, in its broadest sense, comedy has only one purpose: comedy makes people smile and
Some people use humor to hide from their real emotions. Using humor to help get through the difficult times is a lot different than using humor to hide from them.