Psychology of Laughter, Chapter 23

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LAUGHTER

Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D.

The most general way in which the comic effect is brought about is what may better be termed as the process of deviation. A deviation from the original meaning with a suggestion to the inferior is invariably one of the great sources of the ludicrous. A deviation from the normal to the subnormal, from the moral to the immoral, from the intelligent to the unintelligent, from the wise to the stupid, from the superior or normal to the inferior is the great source of all comic and ludicrous. Any change or variation in the phrase, in the emphasis, accent, or in the order of the words tending to a different and disadvantageous meaning to the speaker excites laughter. Any variation or deviation in the relation, or in the order of events, or in the environment in which the set of events is given with a tendency toward a suggestion of the inferior is invariably regarded as comic.

Associations of contrast are frequently utilized for ludicrous effects. The great is contrasted with the small, the grave with the gay, the good with the bad, the wise with the foolish, the superior with the inferior. The ludicrous is formed by the blending of contrasting shades and colors in the physical, moral, and intellectual world―the one passing and melting into the other, always with the suggestion toward the lower side of life, always with the hidden grin and leer in the direction of what is mean, law, wicked, silly, and stupid.

The shock given by the contrast and the suggestive glimpse into the world of the great combine to awaken the sense of the ludicrous. The grandiose, the pompous, the sublime, ending in the low, in the mean, in the stupid, result in the jocose and the comic. Instance the verse:

This transition from the pompous to the despicable, from the grand to the vile and the mean, has the effect of the ludicrous.

His Majesty was confined to his house with a violent cold. The printer made an error, and the phrase was changed to: His Majesty was confined to his house with a "violent scold."

In one paper an announcement read that a surgeon caught in the river was sold at ten cents a pound.

A clergyman's work was complimented as immortal in which the printer omitted the "t" to the great consternation of both the editor and the divine.

An orator told an impatient audience: "Wait, gentlemen, I have a few more pearls."

Every one who has been in the Civil War is a colonel. Is it because they had shells?

This is not much of a joke, as it turns on pronunciation Colonel as kernel. Still people laughed when they heard it. The amusement lies in the indirect association of the dignified heroes with nuts.

The unintentional slip made by the Bible itself in the fable told by Jotham to the men of Shechem is quite amusing on account of the startling assertion as to the divine power of the juice of the vine:

Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man?

In the following examples we find the factors of dissociation, sudden unexpected turn, surprise of contrast―two or more contradictory thoughts or mutually exclusive trains of ideas run together with consequent incongruity and nonsense in the climax.

A lady one day heard a knock at the door, and afterwards asked the servant who had called.
"It was a gintleman, ma'am, looking for the wrong house," replied Mary.

       In stating his grievance to his employer, Dan D――, famed for his sagacity and his persuasive powers, said, "If you please, sir, I've been sent as a delegate by the workers to ask a favor of you regarding the payment of our wages."
        "Yes, and what do they desire?" queried the master.
        "Well, sir, it is the desire of myself, and it is also the desire of every man in the establishment, that we receive our fortnight's pay every week."

"Courting," said an Irishman, "is like dying; sure a man must do it for himself."

"It is a great pleasure entirely to be alone, especially whin your sweetheart is wid ye," observed one reflective swain.

A man obtained permission from his employer to attend a wedding. He turned up next day with his arm in a sling and a black eye.
"Hello, what is the matter?" asked his employer. "Well, you see," said the wedding guest, "we were very merry yesterday, and I saw a fellow strutting about with a swallow-tailed coat and a white waistcoat. ‘And who might you be? sez I. I'm the best man,' sez he, and begorra he was, too."

        A daughter of Erin was soliciting custom for milk from passengers on board a liner which had just arrived at Queenstown from Canada.
        "And what sort of milk might it be?' asked a passenger familiarly.
        "Skim milk, to be sure," said the girl.
        "Skim milk! Why, we give that to the pigs in my country."
        "Indade!" replied the milkmaid simply, "but we sell it to them here."

An Irishman was visiting the Falls of Niagara. "There," cried Jonathan to Paddy, as he waved his hand in the direction of the Horseshoe Fall, "there now, is not that wonderful?"

"Paix, then, to tell ye the honest truth," was the response, "I can't see anything very wonderful in that. Why, what the divil is to hinther it from coming over? If it stopped on the top that'd be something wonderful."

"Why were you late in barracks last night, Private Atkins?" demanded an officer.
"Train from London was very late, sir," was the reply. "Very good," said the officer. "Next toime the train's late take care you come on an earlier one."

An Irishman named Linahan, after short residence, made application to be naturalized. One of the questions which is asked of applicants for citizenship is, "Have you read the constitution of the United States?" When this question was asked of Linahan, he replied, "No, your Honor, I have riot, but me friend, Dennis McCarthy, read it to me, and it's mighty well pleased I was with it." He got his papers.

The play of the joke turns on "reading." It is not mere reading, it is understanding that is of importance. The allusion to foolishness lies far in the background.

        "So yez t'ink Friday is an unlucky day?" asked Doolan.
        "Oi know it," replied Hooligan. "Oi lost me purse wid tin shillins in it on a Friday.
        Don't yez call thot bad luck?"
        "Yis; bad luck fer you, but faine luck for the fellow that found it."

       A show proprietor said to Pat, who was looking at a cinematograph; "How do you like the fight?"
       "Oi've only one objection, sor," said Pat.
        "What is it," asked the proprietor.
        "Just that Oi can't get in it," was the answer.

"An' how did ye injoy St. Patrick's day?" queried Muldoon of his friend.
"Foine," was the answer. "We cracked Casey's skull in the marnin', an' attinded his wake in the avenin'.”

"I intend to pray that you may forgive Casey for having thrown that brick at you," said a parson when he called to see a man who had been, worsted in a melee.
"Mabbe yer riv'rence 'ud be savin' toime if ye'd just wait till 0i git well, an' pray for Casey," replied the patient.

Incongruity and absurdity disclosing silliness, stupidity, and general mental inferiority are important factors in the comic, bringing out the comic, the ludicrous. A few examples will illustrate this point:

        Papa to Johnny: You had a fight again. Your forehead is bleeding.
Johnny: I bit myself in the forehead.
                Papa: How could you do that? You could not reach your forehead.
                Johnny: I climbed up on a chair.

We laugh here at the absurdity which lies in the association of incongruity of cause and effect. We laugh at the false analogy of reaching a high object such as the forehead by climbing on a chair or on a ladder.

"The ten o'clock train'll go at eleven o'clock to-night, and there'll be no last train."

"I receive an immense number of anonymous letters which are quite insulting. I despise them too much to pay any attention to them. When I write anonymous letters, I always sign them."

The joke lies in the incongruity of signing anonymous letters as well as in the acknowledgment indirectly made that he writes insulting letters.

I want all the corporals to give the word of command together. "Shoulder arms!" he shouted. He then angrily exclaimed: "I hear several corporals saying nothing at all."

This may be matched by the Irishman who, at a meeting, called out:
"All ye who are present say: yea! All those who are absent say: nay!"

The ludicrous side of the joke lies in the incongruity and absurdity of hearing what is not said, or of expecting absent people to indicate their absence by answering "nay" to your question. At the same time the ridicule is directed against the person who naively makes such remarks-it suggests his stupidity.

A foolish young esquire, hearing his steward say he had killed a bullock for Christmas, exclaimed: "What do you mean by such extravagance and expense? Have but one half killed at a time!"

Thus a person's physiognomy has been jestingly described as: "a few pensive lines about the nose showed that snuff and sorrow had been busy there." Contrast of associations, incongruity of images, clash of inconsistent ideas, contradictory statements, interplay of discordant actions, and sentiments which reveal their inner incompatibility, as well as views that cannot be reconciled, because of their being illogical and absurd, all arouse laughter. In short, any association which expresses moral and mental turpitude compared with the normal and ideal standard of the given society and age gives rise to smiles, ridicule, and laughter. In all the cases of the comic and the ludicrous we find the combination of logical and illogical, moral and immoral, the brilliant and the commonplace, the ideal and the matter of fact, the superior and the inferior, the intelligent and the stupid, all conjoined and combined into an explosive that at the least concussion gives rise to an outburst of laughter.

A descendant of the noble Harmadius was taunting Iphicrates with his low birth.
"The difference between us is this," Iphicrates replied, "my family begins with me, and your's ends with you."

The contrasting relations of high and low, of good and evil, of great and small are here clearly brought out. The exalted are humbled and the humble are exalted. We laugh, we are amused, when we realize real merit clashing with deceit. The sham discerned under the garb of nobility and superiority is invariably an object of ridicule. The contrast of the two discordant and incongruous concepts, the noble and the ignoble, the superior and the inferior, their association, dissociation, and final resolution with the surprise element in which the ignoble is shown to be clothed in the garb of the noble, like the donkey in the lion's skin, arouses the sense of the ludicrous.