What is
humour and what are its functions? What strategies has Stephen
Leacock used in the short stories 'The Errors of Santa Claus' and
'Lost in New York: The Visitor's Soliloquy'?
Humour and its Function
Humour or humor
is the tendency of certain experiences to provoke laughter and
provide amusement. The term derives from the humoural medicine of the
ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human
body, known as humours control human health and emotion. It was
believed that the excess or deficiency of four distinct body fluids
in a person influences their temperament. Irony, pun, hyperbole,
farce, metaphor, being imitative of reality, surprise, shock,
paradox, ambiguity etc are all considered to be the methods of
creating humour.
Stephen
Leacock (1869-1944)
was the English-speaking world's best known humorist. The unique
alchemy of compassion and caustic wit remain the elements which
accord his humour a timelessness few Canadian writers have achieved.
His two masterpieces are Sunshine
Sketches of a Little Town (1912)
and Arcadian
Adventures with the Idle Rich
(1914). According to Leacock, in his Further
Foolishness:
“The
world's humour, in its best and greatest sense, is perhaps the
highest product of our civilization.”
Leacock
had written much about humour, especially in his books Humour:
Its Theory and Technique (1935)
, and Humour
and Humanity
(1937) .
In
the latter, he talks about the functions that humour serves and what
it entails. Humour can be of service in the moral melioration of
mankind, it can offer a reprive from disillusioning reality. Leacock
held that humorous literature serves a more private purpose: it
provides temporary, illusory respite from a life that is
fundamentally disillusioning. By providing temporary escape from
disillusionment, humour functions as a kind of enchanting spell to
charm hard reality. In Leacock's view, disillusionment is the truth
about 'human life' which is perceived by the humorous vision and
which humour makes bearable. In Chapter 17 of Further
Foolishness
Leacock says:
“But
the deep background that lies behind and beyond what we call humour
is revealed only to the few who, by instinct or by effort, have given
thought to it. It is no longer dependent upon the mere trick and
quibble of words, or the odd and meaningless incongruities in things
that strike us as "funny." Its basis lies in the deeper
contrasts offered by life itself: the strange incongruity between our
aspiration and our achievement, the eager and fretful anxieties of
to-day that fade into nothingness to-morrow, the burning pain and the
sharp sorrow that are softened in the gentle retrospect of time, till
as we look back upon the course that has been traversed we pass in
view the panorama of our lives, as people in old age may recall, with
mingled tears and smiles, the angry quarrels of their childhood. And
here, in its larger aspect, humour is blended with pathos till the
two are one, and represent, as they have in every age, the mingled
heritage of tears and laughter that is our lot on earth.”
Humour is for Leacock the literary
manifestation of humanism. It is the literary vehicle of the middle
way. Humour exists midway between caustic satire and sentimentality,
softening satire with pathos. The final stage of the development of
humour is reached when amusement no longer arises from a single
'funny' idea, meaningless contrast, or odd play upon words, but rests
upon a prolonged and sustained conception of the incongruities of
human life itself. The shortcomings of our existence, the sad
contrast of our aims and our achievements, the little fretting
aspiration of the day that fades into nothingness of tomorrow, kindle
in the mellowed mind a sense of gentle amusement from which all
selfish exultation has been chastened by the realization of our
common lot of sorrow. On this higher plane humour and pathos mingle
and become one.
Thus, it can be said that humour
and pathos go hand in hand, and that humour gives a deeper and better
understanding of life and stimulates the reader to look at the
harsher realities of life in a light and amusing way. The main
function of humour is to relieve the reader of the heaviness and
anxieties of daily life and thus feed the soul with positive energy.
Pain and sorrow are mitigated through humour.
Humour in the Short Stories
by Leacock
The
two short stories “The
Errors of Santa Claus” and “Lost in New York: A Visitor's
Soliloquy” were published in 1918 in a book entitled Frenzied
Fiction.
Leacock's style in these stories involved a simplicity in language.
Besides
the careful selection of language, said Leacock, humor demanded a
"great naturalness" of language, the use of phrases and
forms so simple that writers straining after effect would never get
them. [Critics] felt that one of the main reasons for Leacock's
success was that his style was that of "a talker rather than a
writer". Another said..."He talked to the world. And the
talk was good." (Curry. p.242-243)
As
for the technique of humour that Leacock uses, reference to Further
Foolishness
can be of some help. Leacock says:
“But
I am willing to admit, since the truth is out, that it has long been
my custom in preparing an article of a humorous nature to go down to
the cellar and mix up half a gallon of myosis with a pint of
hyperbole. If I want to give the article a decidedly literary
character, I find it well to put in about half a pint of paresis.”
Myosis can be taken to mean an
understatement, while hyperbole is the technique of exaggeration or
deliberate overtstatement. Although these two techniques are a
crucial part of humour and must be taken under consideration, humour
does not merely end here.
In “The Errors of Santa Claus”,
the title itself points out where the gist of the whole story lies.
The adults, in the story, the Browns and the Jones, enjoy Christmas
gifts which are unfit for them and should have gone to their
children. The children, on the other hand, the daughters and sons of
the Browns and Jones, relish the items that are clearly restricted
for adult use only, and should have been gifted to their parents, as
the story initially suggests. Grandfather Jones is a part of this
bizzare switch of gifts; the Jew's harp and the whiskey meant for his
grandson and son respectively, are being enjoyed by the grandfather
himself by the time the story reaches its close.
The humour in the story, indeed,
is that Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Brown are indulged in child's play as if
that is the sole task worthy of their full attention, and their
husbands play with toy trains completely oblivious to their
surroundings. Leacock writes the story with such ease that the
readers feel completely relaxed and amused with the way the story
progresses. It is absurd that adults should indulge in childish
activities, and this absurdity is what brings out the humour.
Exaggeration reaches its height from the sentence “Nor did the
children miss their mothers.” Here, the readers are taken to the
children to see what they are up to. Their activities come as a shock
to the readers. Edwin Jones and Willy Brown, sons of the respective
families, are indulging in smoking expensive cigars. Willie says, “I
only started smoking last month-- on my twelfth birthday. I think a
feller's a fool to begin smoking cigarettes too soon, don't you? It
stunts him. I waited till I was twelve.” The reader is not only
appalled by the statement, but the heightened irony is obvious too.
The story can be said to switch between irony and exaggeration.
While the mothers play with dolls
meant for their daughters, the daughters play cards and gamble with
money. Clarisse Jones thinks that it is “too utterly slow playing
without money.” Ulvina Brown believes that her mother is far too
slow for playing money. The girls seem to have a lot of knowledge of
gambling, for someone their age.
The reader realizes the irony of
the fact that each member of the family believes other to have a firm
belief in the existence of Santa Claus. In reality, none of them
believe in Santa Claus. “Later on, far in the night, the person, or
the influence, or whatever it is called Santa Claus, took all the
presents and placed them in the people's stockings. And, being blind
as he always has been, he gave the wrong things to the wrong people--
in fact, he gave them just as indicated above. But the next day, in
the course of Christmas morning, the situation had straightened
itself out, just as it always does.”
Leacock's strategy for humour here
is the ultimate switch of presents. This switch, although, is not
really a switch, since the recipients of the gifts are perfectly
happy with what they got. But the image of twelve-year-olds smoking
cigars and of adult parents playing with toy trains and clothes for
dolls, is so absurd that Leacock's story relies on this to mask the
seriousness of the topic. The technique works its charm with such a
smooth flow that by the end of the story when the predicament of the
situation fully reveals itself, the readers find themselves
contemplating not with an alarm or horror, but with a light mood. It
is through humour that Leacock succeeds in getting his readers to
think, by painting not a bleak or shameful picture of the family, but
a light-hearted and mild one.
“A
Visitor's Soliloquy”, as the title says, is the first person
perspective of a visitor in New York who hasn't been there since the
“fall of '86”. The story reminds the readers of another by
Leacock, “My Financial Career”, which is the personal narrative
of a man 'rattled' by his visit to the bank. The confused, baffled
narrator who has no notion of what he is doing or what he is supposed
to do, is common in both stories. The actions of the narrator are
what center the humour in “A Visitor's Soliloquy”.
The story begins with what could
be called the topic sentence of the whole narrative. “Whatever has
been happening to this place, to New York? Changed? Changed since I
was here in '86? Well, I should say so.” The visitor remains
unnamed throughout, and the kind of New York that is painted through
his words could be considered a gross understatement of the New York
of today.
The rudeness of the “cut-throat”
taxi-driver, the hotel manager and the other people that the visitor
comes across drives the humour of the story. Through the discourse of
the visitor it is also hinted that either the visitor has difficulty
with his hearing or he is just ignorant. Like a fish out of water,
the visitor fails to adjust to the drastic changes that the city has
undergone. He is a chatty person and loves to talk with anyone who is
listening, but the irony is that no one listens. The readers find the
old-fashioned personality of the visitor as amusing. He has no
knowledge of taxis, elevators, breakfast schedules and in general,
the way things work in the city.
As an example of the humour in the
story, one particular scene is that in which the visitor becomes
overly excited when he finds out there is a call for him. “Here I
am! Here it's Me! Here I am-- wanted at the desk? All right, I'm
coming. I'm hurrying. I guess something's wrong at home, eh! Here I
am. That's my name. I'm ready.” the anti-climax of his enthusiasm
is that it turns out the hotel has a room available for him. This
discrepancy between what the visitor expects and what actually
happens, irony, makes the visitor seem foolish. His foolishness is
apparent when he thinks should not go near the window lest he should
fall out, and so he sits further back from the window.
There is, of course, an element of
pathos attached to the humble simpleton visiting the city of New
York. The readers not only laugh at his foolishness, they sympathize
with him as it is not his fault that the city's immensely fast-paced,
being a major metropolitan city. The visitor's constant lack of
knowledge provides enough material to generate humour in the story.
As the reader laughs his way to the end, the story comes to a close
with a gentleness but on a rather serious note. “Say, I just feel
as if I'd like to take my satchel and jump clean out of that window,
It would be a good rebuke to them. But, pshaw! What would they care?”
the implication here is that the
hotel staff and management would not bother the least bit even if the
visitor committed suicide. The story at its conclusion seems to be
bordering on dark humour. It could be considered an exaggeration, of
course, that the hotel management of the New York city do not care
for their guests. But that is not the point that Leacock wishes to
make. It is the lack of humanity in general, which the city has
suffered as it climbed its way to the pinnacle of advancement,
success and greatness. The point being made, then, behind the mask of
mild humour, is that the metropolitan city has lost its morality,
humanity and the general spirit of caring for each other and helping
each other. But this is not something that is explicitly stated,
since the story is humorous, the reader comes to understand the
underlying gist on his own.
Conclusion
In conclusion, humour not only
makes the appalling realities of life bearable in an appeasing
manner, but sketches out an amusing contrast between different
things. Humour is an important genre of literature and Stephen
Leacock's works can be taken as the epitome of humourist fiction
writing.
References
- Leacock, S. (1917) Further Foolishness: Sketches and Satires on the Follies of the Day. John Lane Company.
- Lynch, G. (1988) Stephen Leacock: Humour and Humanity McGill-Queen's University Press. Canada.
- Credit: Muneeza Rafiq.
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