Henri Bergson "Laughter" Review: Theory of Humor Series, part 28

This series of blog posts began as a set of observations about literary research on the novel A Confederacy of Dunces (Confederacy), by John Kennedy Toole, but I have extended it to include other topics, such as evolutionary literary criticism and the theory of humor. This being April Fools Day, I give you a post about humor. Enjoy.

In my investigation, I have read the following essay, and I will analyze it here.

Bergson, Henri. "Laughter" 1900. This essay can be found in many places.

(What self-respecting, or even self-denigrating, theorist of humor can go without commenting on the work of Henri Bergson? I mean, really!)

Bergson is usually included in the history of the theory of humor in part because he was in his day a well-respected philosopher, and not many philosophers have devoted some of their musings to humor. (One could say that humor is a-musing. Cue the rim-shot.) Bergson may also be popular in brief histories of the theory of humor because his theory is at times narrow. That narrowness makes it easy both to summarize and to criticize.

As a philosopher, Bergson heavily influenced Marcel Proust, so students of literature are more likely to read Bergson than to read other middling philosophers. (Bergson is no Plato.) Bergson's ideas are of especial interest to students of John Kennedy Toole because Proust influenced Evelyn Waugh, and Waugh in his turn influenced John Kennedy Toole.

Bergson begins his essay with a broad definition of humor which covers many cases and is similar to the theory that I have been using. (For my earlier blog entry summarizing my current theory of humor, click here.) However, Bergson, like any philosopher, then tries to fit all phenomena into his philosophical structure, and, in order to shoehorn humor into the framework, he has to narrow humor's scope. This narrower theory then obviously does not cover every possible case of humor, or even most cases. His theory starts out with promising validity across many instances of humor, but then it narrows and almost becomes a parody of itself. Despite its narrower form, for certain categories of humor, his theory hits the nail on the head (or on the thumb, as it were).

To put Bergson's ideas on humor into perspective, it helps to know something about the rest of his philosophy (though I am not an expert). He argues that human life is driven by a life-force, or a vitality. Mechanical devices lack vitality. Bergson wrote at a time when the industrial working conditions for the European proletariet were particularly brutal. It was at a time when Marx wrote that the worker was alienated from his own existence, and Bergson argued that the industrial existence of so many workers was being drained of vitality. Chaplin's movie Modern Times exemplifies this perspective.

In Bergson's system, humor is generated by envisioning a human being as a physical object without inner life or vitality. The man slipping on the banana peel ceases to be human and becomes merely a physical object, crashing to the ground. The person who goes through life acting robotically is ridiculous. (As Ionescu said, "If you want to turn tragedy into comedy, speed it up.") The ridicule and laughter are social cues to that person to correct his behavior; they signal to the person to stop operating like a robot on autopilot.

There are many aspects of this theory that work well. First, there is incongruity. The dichotomy between "human as a dignified personage" and "human as airborne object" often lead to competing linguistic scripts and incongruities. Second, there is disparagement. The physical human as object has less dignity than the person as a social actor in the abstract, and the sudden reminder of our physical nature has an aspect of belittlement. Third, there is a social function. The idea that laughter has a role to correct or modify behavior acknowledges humor's social functions.

However, it should be clear that many instances of humor do not fall into Bergson's narrow, mechanistic definition of what is funny (dry wit for example). Further, Bergson--convinced of the correctness of his entire philosophical system--insists that only this class of events are humorous. In a sense, his obsessive views themselves become comical. While his appeal to creativity and vitality are appealing--and his special class of events really are funny (just watch a Charlie Chaplin movie)--it is easy for even a two-bit critic like myself to refute his attempt at a comprehensive theory of humor.

Désolé Henri, pas de cigare!

Ignatius and Jay Gatsby: The Occasional series of Ideas for Papers on John Kennedy Toole, Part 32

In The Great Gatsby, the narrator, Nick, has a low opinion of Jay Gatsby until he discovers that Gatsby is not amassing wealth and status for its own sake; rather, he is doing it in the quixotic pursuit of a woman. Suddenly, Nick finds Gatsby intriguing: "He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor."

Judith Saunders foregrounds this aspect of the novel in her essay on the evolutionary aspects of The Great Gatsby (citation below). Gatsby's wealth is a courtship display, much like the feathers of a peacock. Its purpose is to attract Daisy. For my earlier blog entry on Saunders' investigation, click here.

Naturally, when someone uses the word womb in a literary context, I think of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. That novel has more than one symbolic womb: Gus Levy is trapped in a womb from which he escapes, and, at the beginning of the novel, Ignatius Reilly enjoys occupying the womb of his mother's house and fights to stay there as she tries to eject him. Confederacy also features a relationship between Ignatius Reilly and Myrna Mynkoff that can be read as a carnivalesque parody of a stereotypical romance. Despite its ridiculous quality, could Ignatius's behavior in the novel be a courtship display, much as Gatsby's display of wealth?

In Confederacy, both Ignatius's Crusade for Moorish Dignity and his efforts to lead a political revolution of gays are undertaken because of the provocation of Myrna's letters. He wants to impress her. In the end of the novel, Myrna comes to New Orleans and rescues Ignatius. He would never admit to courting her, but he was trying to get her attention. In a backwards sort of way, his courtship has succeeded.

Saunders, Judith P. "The Great Gatsby: An Unusual Case of Mate Poaching," American Classics: Evolutionary Perspectives (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2018): 138-174.

Thesis: Compare Ignatius Reilly to Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is undertaking a courtship, but is Ignatius doing so as well? Gatsby's efforts end tragically. Ignatius's efforts end comically.

Ignatius and Cosmo Kramer: The Occasional series of Ideas for Papers on John Kennedy Toole, Part 31

Many of the entries in this series focus on some character who is similar to Ignatius Reilly or to the plot of Confederacy of Dunces. This is not one of those entries. Well, not entirely.

Ignatius Reilly is a slapstick hero. He conforms to all nine of the "Personality Traits of the Hero in a Physical Comedy" as detailed in the documentary "Laughing Matters" (see my blog entry from July of 2015). However, Ignatius is psychologically repressed. He defends his virginity. Despite being a physical comedian, he is learned, with intellectual pomposity.

Cosmo Kramer, a character on the 1990s sitcom "Seinfeld," is also a physical comedian. He falls, he crashes. He is an innocent fool who acts on his desires without worrying what others might think. He is not overly intellectual, and he is not pompous. On the show, many women are attracted to his honest expression of emotion (at least for brief relationships), much to the frustration of the other male characters. In season five, episode eleven, this sexual charisma is called "the kavorka."

Ignatius and Kramer can function in similar ways in a farcical plot. Both of them generate chaos in the social group which can reorder relationships. As I have stated in detail before, comedies often feature a small group where some members are lower in the status hierarchy than they should be, held down by a blocking character. The comic chaos reorders the relationships with the blocking character losing status and the deserving oppressed rising in status.

To give an example from Seinfeld, in season three, episode seven, called "The Cafe," George is trying to impress the woman he is dating, who is an educational psychologist, even though he does badly on intelligence tests. He agrees to take an IQ test, but then he passes the test out the window to Elaine, who is good at taking such tests. Elaine goes to the cafe to take the test. Kramer comes into the cafe, interacts with Elaine, and spills food on the test. George cannot pretend that he took the test. His false presentation as a smart person is undone by the chaos generated by the slapstick hero. His status is comically lowered in the estimation of a potential mate, thanks to the slapstick hero.

Thesis: Compare Ignatius Reilly to Cosmo Kramer. They are very different but can function in similar ways within the plot of a comic narrative.

Commedia dell'arte and Confederacy of Dunces ... Not!: The Occasional series of Ideas for Papers on John Kennedy Toole, Part 30

A few years ago, a scholarly journal (which will remain nameless for confidentiality) asked me to review a submission related to the novel Confederacy of Dunces. I dutifully read the paper and critiqued it. The submitted paper explored the relationship between the Renaissance theatrical tradition of Commedia dell'arte and Confederacy of Dunces.

I am no expert on commedia dell'arte, but I have studied the subject a little, and I have contemplated writing a paper on Confederacy of Dunces and commedia dell'arte myself. The author(s) of the paper I reviewed described commedia dell'arte well. They then tried to argue that Confederacy of Dunces was an example of commedia dell'arte. What struck me was that, based on their own articulation of the genre, Confederacy of Dunces is not an example of commedia dell'arte. In my critique, I praised their attempt, but argued that they should reverse their conclusion, and I detailed why.

I realize that negative results are less likely to be reported, whether they are in the physical sciences, the social sciences, or elsewhere, but they are important to the scholarly endeavor. They are not glamorous, but they are important. The paper I reviewed has not, to my knowledge, been published, nor has any other paper on the topic. Still, such a study is worth doing.

Thesis: Describe commedia dell'arte and show why Confederacy of Dunces is not best described through the framework of that theatrical genre. This thesis cannot be handled in a run-of-the-mill term paper, but at least a master's thesis.