My humor consists mainly of a mix of high and low comedy, and sarcasm. One element of humor that does not appeal to is caricatures. An example of this is a terrorist joke. The terrorist was holding a pencil and saying “Where is the trigger?” exaggerating the fact that, in the news we hear about terrorism, and when the terrorists come to America they would not be able to decipher the language or the meaning of objects. The joke did not appeal to me in anyway and didn’t make sense. A certain part of an element of humor that does not appeal to is disgusting anecdotes. In the passage, Brothers by Jon Scieszka, a family goes on a roadtrip and stopover to eat. A brother drops a piece of candy and the cat eats it and yacks it up. “Tom burped a bit of Stuckey lunch back on Gregg.” The bodily functions and them throwing up and spilling out of the puke wagon had made me lose my appetite for lunch. …show more content…
The yacking was too gross for me to handle and had left my stomach disgusted.
Entertaining anecdotes on the other hand, are very amusing to me especially, Jerry Seinfeld talking about his halloween. The ecstatic mood combined with the childhood memories of him talking about how he wanted more and more candy was joyous and entertained all of us. Additionally, the clever wordplay he put throughout the whole speech like up for kids and down for adults made it easier for us to connect with his story. An amusing comedian to listen to is Jim Gaffigan, who amazes his audience every single time. His appearance on Conan was especially exciting because of his satirical manner of making fun of health trends. The way he said to his wife that he wouldn’t waste perfectly good ice-cream, made me giggle a lot. The final example of what makes me laugh is Mr. Bean. Physical comedy may not be for everyone, but the way Mr. Bean used his body to exaggerate the fact that he did not want to walk up to the top to get his swimsuit so he finds another one laying on the ground while a person is looking at
him. He puts it over his pants, careful not to reveal anything. He comes to find out that the person that was looking at him was blind. The exaggeration of his movements makes me guffaw. Even though my sense of humor may vary from others, the combination of high comedy, low comedy, physical comedy, and sarcasm makes me giggle with delight.
In conclusion, Merrill Markoe portrayed high comedy using witty humor along with situational irony in the short story “A Conversation With My Dogs”. She does this while also reaching the moral of the story, which is that with some people or animals you have to be super specific or else they won’t understand what you are trying to say. I have experienced this with some people, including my mom who is often focused on her work. The combination of witty humor and situational irony makes the audience
The humor used throughout the novel breaks the tension of what would otherwise be a very depressing story. When confronted with fleas in the mattress of the bed, the father is instructed to by a man on the street to “confuse the little buggers” by turning the mattress upside down. Obviously, this is not going to rid the mattress of fleas, nor will it confuse them. The reader is aware of this, and the incident is humorous. Another example of humor that can be found in the novel occurs on the day of Frank’s first communion. He becomes sick and his communion wafer finds its way into his grandmother’s back yard. She then sends him to confession and instructs him to ask the priest what can be done to fix the problem. The big deal she makes about having “God in my back yard” is humorous to the reader, who knows that the communion wafer is not really God.
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.
Webster's online dictionary defines humor as "a quality that appeals to a sense of the ludicrous (laughable and/or ridiculous) or incongruous." Incongruity is the very essence of irony. More specifically, irony is "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the expected result." Flannery O'Connor's works are masterpieces in the art of literary irony, the laughable and ridiculous. The incongruous situations, ridiculous characters, and feelings of superiority that O'Connor creates make up her shocking and extremely effective, if not disturbing, humor. I say "disturbing" because O'Connor's humor, along with humor in general, most often contains the tragic. O'Connor has been quoted as saying, "The comic and the terrible [...] may be opposite sides of the same coin" (Farley 17). Throughout her works, specifically "Good Country People," O'Connor uses her humor to humble and expose the biases of the overly intellectual and spiritually bankrupt.
Psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists study humor because it is a fundamental culture value, but they still can’t determine why certain things make some people laugh and others not. There are “humor quotient” tests that are designed to measure an individual’s sense of humor, but these tests are questionable. These tests aren’t accurate because almost all humor depends on cultural background knowledge and language skills. Not every person in the whole world, or even in one country share the same background knowledge and skills, therefore they cannot have the same type of humor. “The fact remains that individuals vary in their appreciation of humor” (Rappoport 9). Since humor varies from individual to individual, humor lies in the individual. How successful or funny a joke is depends on how the person receives the joke, humor cannot be measured by a statistical
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
According to Everything’s an Argument by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz, “Humor has always played an important role in argument…” (38). Humor itself is something that activates amusement or laughter. Moreover, in popular culture satire is a tool that is used to point out things in our society. Satire opens the minds of people to philosophies they might completely deny, using humor. There are many elements of satire that identify flaws within our society. A couple of satire elements that will be discussed are irony and exaggeration. In addition, a parody is used in popular culture as a way to mock or mimic situation or person.
Black Humor in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle The phrase Black Humor has the broad meaning of poking "fun at subjects considered deadly serious or even taboo by some"2. This definition is simple, and yet embodies an important idea that is often lost in more complex definitions: the idea that Black Humor can actually be "fun", and provoke laughter. This is not, of course, the only important aspect of the term, and I shall explore some of the other important defining features of Black Humor before moving on to discuss its use in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle3. Many critics have attempted definitions of Black Humor, none of them entirely successfully. The most significant recurring features of these definitions are that Black Humor works with: absurdity, ironic detachment4; opposing moral views held in equipoise, humanity's lack of a sense of purpose in the unpredictable nuclear age, the realization of the complexity of moral and aesthetic experience which affects the individual's ability to choose a course of action5; and a playing with the reader's ideas of reality6.
Bill utilizes his joke telling to ease the tensions surrounding his hearing loss, a common issue for the elderly. It allows him to remain a part of the conversation and maintain his position in social interactions, while deflecting from his physical deficiencies. Ann practices what Loe calls “painful self disclosure” by telling funny stories that happen in her personal life to talk about some of the experiences of discomfort and embarrassment in her personal life, and create a dialogue about them in a smoother, more digestible way. For example, she told a story where she was surprised that someone gave her his cell phone to make a call, and that someone the day before gave her bus fare so she could get home. She was most likely embarrassed from not having what she needed to get through her day two days in a row and certainly felt discomfort from receiving the help of strangers in the process. She dealt with the experience subconsciously by turning it into a funny story. She is using humor to expose her vulnerabilities as she ages and is increasingly unable to care for herself, but in a much smoother and easier to handle way. Both Bill and Ann utilize a sense of humor to address or deflect away from the various deficiencies they experience and as a result the vulnerabilities they
Derisive humor is basic to satiric comedy, in which human weakness or folly is ridiculed from a vantage point of supposedly enlightened superiority. Satiric comedy may be coolly malicious and gently biting, but it tends to be critical people, their manners, and their morals.
There are some reasons that people have enjoyed a sense of humor in this world. What does enjoyment cause the effect on people to have a sense of humor? The cause of enjoyment can bring out a sense of humor to others by bringing the voice of laughter and showing the happier side to people who have faced some difficult obstacles. From my experience in humor, I see and hear some jokes, facial expressions, and fondness with other family and friends. My experience in-jokes can entertain me in some certain ways in my life when I was feeling depressed. The pleasure humor can bring something relevant to people so that they can form better relations with people in this world. From some other theories, there are some different ideas from the sense of humor in the enjoyment that can be found especially funny through pleasure humor, physical humor, and affiliative humor.
Webster goes on to the formal definition of humor, as saying that it is a way someone can feel emotionally. (“Humor”). Humor is just making another person happier with themselves or the situation they are in. The same way as negativity can bring someone down, humor has the opposite effect, it is positive and makes people feel better about themselves. So many comedians do bits making light of any kind of situation they will or already have encountered or experienced. Doing a comedy skit, or going to a comedy club, or just being around someone who is humorous is all part of humor and what is all of its components. Humor’s components are happiness, laughter, kindness, love, and laughter all mixed up into one
Humor and laughter can benefit every person's mental health. According to Melinda Smith and Jeanne Segal, who are the authors in the Help Guide Organization, " Laughter makes us feel good. And the good feeling that we get when we laugh remains with us even after the laughter subsides. Humor helps us keep a positive, optimistic outlook through difficult situations, disappointments, and loss." They are right, laughter make us feel good even when the laughter subsides. The reason why it still feels good even when the laughter is gone is because our minds keep replaying the scenario over and over again so that our mind will be able to relax, reduce the stress and the tension that is in our mind and our body. They also said that humor helps us overlook
Humor has been the source of entertainment throughout history. Today humor is practiced in movies, plays, songs, television shows and radio. Humor has brought fame and fortune to those who have mastered its power.
Making really insipid and boring situations funny seems to occur naturally and easily to some individuals. They seem to have an in-born talent that automatically makes the people to laugh and perfectly lighten lackluster and dreary atmosphere and we are often left wondering why and how did they do to make their jokes seem so effortless and also go so well. When it comes to telling of jokes, are you talented? Do you crack jokes at a hat drop? Are you the guy who is sought-after