How Does Trevor Noah Use Humor In Born A Crime

When people tell the story of their life, which is filled with hardships, struggles, and racism, they usually don’t describe it in a carefree, comic way. In Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah, he chronicles virtually everything unfortunate, embarrassing, and hurtful that has ever happened to him, utilizing humor to engage and connect with his readers. A perfect example of this was in his story of relieving himself in his living room. Trevor grew up very poor in South Africa under the Apartheid, which meant that he did not have many necessities. His family along with the rest of his neighborhood, used a fly laden communal bathroom with very long lines. In an effort to avoid using it, he decided to discharge on a newspaper inside his house and throw

They all gathered in a prayer circle to banish the devil and when the words came to Trevor he thought, ¨...if I prayed to kill the thing that left the shit, and the thing that left the shit was me, them god was going to kill me¨(Noah 47). The way the Trevor wraps up the entire scene, along with the actual contents of the scene and his liberal use of profanity, was filled with humor, which causes the reader to laugh. Not only does this engage the reader because humor is a way to maintain attention, it also is a very personal story as many people have had experiences doing things they regret and having complete catastrophes follow, which is what happened to Trevor. Another excellent instance of leveraging humor was confusion at a jewish gathering, which Trevor was DJing, and was headlined by Trevor's friend named Hitler. In South Africa especially under the Apartheid, the education system was very weak which left many glaring gaps in the people's knowledge. The people knew about WWII and that Hitler was responsible for all the damage that was caused, but knew nothing more than