The theatrical genre of Black Comedy is a powerful one that combines satire and humor to talk about taboo topics or those that are uncomfortable, giving viewers a different way of looking at and discussing multi-faceted social and political issues to create a release of emotions. This example stands out in the play “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” by Martin McDonagh where even though it uses such conventions of Black Comedy as shock effects to keep the audience’s attention, it does not forget about thought-provoking humor. This kind of humor acts as a cathartic experience where we can face hard lessons on how humans behave both individually as well as within society. This method works best when scrutinising Ireland; a nation with the longest history …show more content…
McDonagh uses irony to highlight the absurdity of violence and political extremism. As the scene begins, the blood-soaked living room is covered with body parts. Donny and Davey worked on the bodies lying in front of them. Their hands, slick with blood, moved in a desperate rhythm as they cut and sliced, the sound of blades against flesh echoing in the silence. Padraic’s lifeless body lay nearby, a stark reminder of the violence that had torn through their lives. When playing either Donny or Davey in this scene, the actor must act unfazed by this. The day has been so horrifying that this is not nearly the worst part of their day. They are both glad to be alive, as it is their bodies that could be cut up. And then, like a macabre joke, Wee Thomas appears. He strolls through the shattered window, his fur unruffled, his eyes bright with curiosity. He seemed unaffected by the carnage around him, as though unaware of the chaos he had just walked into. At this point the two actors must get unhinged, so mad and shocked by the situation it seems like someone is playing some sick sort of joke on them. When playing Davey you must feel all the pain and trauma he felt that day, and summon every bit of pain and frustration into his dialogue. All because that fecker was after his hole? he exclaimed, gesturing to Padraic’s body. "Four dead fellas, two dead cats... me hairstyle ruined, me sister broken-hearted, and me shoe polish gone... So all this terror has been for absolutely nothing?" The absurdity of the situation hangs heavy in the air, the irony cutting deep. All the violence and pain led to nothing. So pointless and silly was it that it was both pathetic and darkly comic, a bitter pill to swallow after such lunacy. This concept is similar to “The Troubles” in Ireland and its absurdity. The play’s theme is grounded in the wastage brought by The
Rebecca Krefting (2014), “an Associate Professor of American Studies, affiliate faculty to Gender Studies, and Director of the Media and Film Studies Program” (Skidmore), wrote an article called “Making Connections.” Krefting (2014) explains the connections between comedy and people, listing the reasons the world can build “Cultural Citizenship” through “charged humor” (p. 17-18)
In the novel The Great Santini by Pat Conroy, the reader meets the main character, Bull Meechem. Bull Meechem had many outstanding traits good and awful. Bull Meechem can be mistakenly called a racist though he is truly an abusive father, and yet he is courageous and honorable at times of war and then at moment before his death. Bull’s male desire to have control over his family often gets the best of him, the reader witnesses him physically and mentally attacking his family in drunken rages control for self confidence and for just pure dominance. Throughout the novel Bull expresses how at times he acts like how he believed white southerners should act by making degrading comments to African Americans. The reader also is able to see the image of an American dream when they experience Bull serving in the Marine Corps.
A household is a precious and sensitive system of a group. Everyone has a role and responsibilities and even if someone took a sliver of more than the rest the balance could be broken. In the short-story “The Boat” written by Alistair MacLeod, the mother controls decisions in the house and abuses them even if they are not for the better of the house. She refuses to accept the daughter’s gifts, she discourages her family towards getting a better education and she married their father and pressured him to be a sailor. Though these decisions are what she feels is right, it does not work out for the rest of the family members. The mother’s stubbornness towards change and education caused the state of desperation in the house-hold.
• Comedy can evade the traditional restrictions on content and language, a characteristic of the genre which Larkin exploits to reveal the ugliness and obscenity of a flawed society.
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is the story of an African boy, Kek, who loses his father and a brother and flees, leaving his mother to secure his safety. Kek, now in Minnesota, is faced with difficulties of adapting to a new life and of finding his lost mother. He believes that his mother still lives and would soon join him in the new found family. Kek is taken from the airport by a caregiver who takes him to live with his aunt. It is here that Kek meets all that amazed him compared to his home in Sudan, Africa. Home of the brave shows conflicts that Kek faces. He is caught between two worlds, Africa and America. He feels guilty leaving behind his people to live in a distant land especially his mother, who he left in the midst of an attack.
Thoughtful laughter is a technique used frequently in satirical pieces in literature. It allows for the audience to enjoy the wittiness of a work, later ponder on the meaning, and then apply the message to reality. Thoughtful laughter is often an inner experience that can only be achieved by authors who write meticulously. Two examples of satirical works in literature that display this concept explicitly are Voltaire’s Candide and C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. Both authors explore the depths of satire and simultaneously deliver an important message to readers through skillful technique.
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.
As a socialistic society we live in we find ourselves in positions were conflicts arise between friends or family. 'The Sniper'; was written by Liam O ' Flaherty to express a subtle yet powerful opinion on such a conflict. With references this essay will analyse the short story bringing to light the structure used to contribute to the theme.
Bernie Mac’s second Def Comedy Jam special, “I Ain’t Scared of You Motherfuckers” is a comedic work that has always made me laugh uncontrollably. Even when I was too young to fully understand most of the jokes in that particular standup routine, his physical motions, use of curses and taboo sex phrases, as well as his urban Chicago colloquialisms were enough to have tears dripping from my eyes and a boisterous sound of laughter coming from my mouth, loud enough that it would cause my mother to come into my room and investigate what all the fuss was about. Despite the obvious comedic subject matter of works of comedy done by comedians such as Bernie Mac, there are numerous underlying reasons that attribute to the humor that is expressed through our laugher and enjoyment. Through his lively stage presences and sociological motifs, Bernie Mac was able to enlighten the world on the various cultural aspects of urban life by his use of social and psychological cues that capture our attention, giving us directions on how to react, providing us with an increased social awareness though satirical methods, and making light of taboo topics regarding the themes of sex and gender roles.
Dark humor plays an important role in O’Connor’s novels. Instead of simply stating the character’s cruelty in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” O’Connor chooses to reveal it through the use of dark humor. As the Misfit shoots the grandmother he thinks that she could be a decent person, “if it had been somebody to shoot her every minute of her life”
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
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.
Green, Daniel. "A World Worth Laughing At: Catch-22 and the Humor of Black Humor." Studies
Krasner, David. Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre: 1895-1910. Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1997. Print. Mackay, Constance D'Arcy.
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.