CHAPTER XXIV

MIMICRY

        Why is mimicking a person or an animal ludicrous? Because the imitation is of something which is regarded as inferior. We do not laugh at the perfect imitation of a beautiful song, nor do we ridicule the perfect imitation of a human figure whether sculptured or painted, but we laugh at defects, at the representation of awkwardness, of clumsiness, and silliness. In mimicry it is not simply the imitation of any kind of gestures, or of action, or of mannerisms, or of speech, that is regarded as ludicrous, but it is only certain definite manifestations, only certain motor activities or postures that excite laughter. The imitation in mimicry excites our laughter because the gestures, postures, speech, and phrases imitated are considered as silly, senseless, stupid. The mimicry or imitation of what is regarded as good, true, and beautiful excites in us the highest admiration. When we mimic persons and their modes of behavior it is to bring out in the language of gestures the moral and mental inferiority, the inner senselessness of the person.

        In grotesque pastures and figures we find the presence of abnormalities, of conditions and states of inferiority, deformities, and defects of body and mind.

      An excellent description of the power of the ludicrous possessed by grimace-making and caricature may be found in "Notre Dame de Paris," by Victor Hugo:

        The field was clear for every sort of folly .  .  .  The pulling of faces began. The first to appear in the opening―eyelids turned inside out, the gaping mouth of a ravening beast, the brow creased and wrinkled―was greeted with such a roar of inextinguishable laughter―that Homer would have taken all these ragamuffins for gods.

        A second and third distortion followed, to be succeeded by another and another; and with each one the laughter redoubled, and the crowd stamped and roared with delight. Picture to yourself a series of faces representing successively every geometrical form, from the triangle to the trapezium, from the cone to the polyhedron; every human expression, from rage to lewdness; every stage of life, from the creases of the newly born to the wrinkles of hoary age; every phantasm of mythology and religion, from Faunus to Beelzebub; every, animal head, from the buffalo to the eagle, from the shark to the bulldog. . . . The great Hall was one vast furnace of effrontery and unbridled mirth, in which every mouth was a yell, every countenance a grimace, every individual a posture. The whole mass shrieked and bellowed. Every new visage that came grinning and gnashing to the window was fresh fuel to the furnace. And from this seething multitude, like steam from a cauldron, there rose a hum―shrill, piercing, sibilant, as from a vast swarm of gnats .   .    .    .

     Suddenly there came a thunder of applause mingled with shouts of acclamation. The Fools had elected their Pope.

     In truth, the grimace that beamed through the broken window at this moment was nothing short of the miraculous. After all the faces―pentagonal, hexagonal, and heteroclite―which had succeeded each other in the stone frame, without realizing the grotesque ideal set up by the inflamed popular imagination, nothing inferior to the supreme effort now dazzling the spectator would have sufficed to carry every vote. We can hardly convey to the reader a conception of that tetrahedral nose, that horse-shoe mouth, of that small left eye obscured by a red and bristling brow, while the right disappeared under a monstrous wart, of those uneven teeth, with breaches here and there, like, the crenated walls of a fortress, of that horny lip over which one of the teeth projected like an elephant's tusk, of that cloven chin, nor, above all, of that expression overlying the whole, an indefinable mixture of malice, bewilderment, and sadness.

        There was not a single dissentient voice. They rushed to the chapel and in triumph dragged forth the thrice lucky Pope of Fools. Then surprise and admiration reached the culminating point. He had but shown his natural countenance.

        Rather let us say his whole person was a grimace. An enormous head covered with red bristles; between the shoulders a great hump balanced by one in front; a system of thighs and legs so curiously misplaced that they only touched at the knees, and viewed from the front, appeared like two sickles joined at the handles; huge splay feet, monstrous hands, and, with all this deformity, a nameless impression of formidable strength, agility, and courage. He looked like a giant broken and badly repaired.

        The picture drawn by Victor Hugo of the Pope of Fools reminds one of the Homeric awkward figure of the Cyclop Polyphemus or of Shakespeare's monster Caliban. The image that comes to one's mind is that of a powerful orangoutang or gorilla, an ape-like man or a man-like ape. In fact, that is the way the audience regards the monster:

     "Oh, the hideous ape!" exclaimed one. "'Tis the devil himself!" added another.
      "The other night he came and made faces at me through the window. I thought it not a man!"

      As we have pointed out before, physical deficiencies, whether natural or mimicked, are in the lower stages of civilization and culture objects of ridicule. The ridicule, however, is not so much directed against the physical defect itself as against the spiritual deficiency which the physical deformity expresses. The body mirrors the mind. We see a stunted mind in a deformed body.

        We laugh at deformities which express defects of personality, faults of character, inferior aberrations, and deviations of the mind. The various expressions of a foal, the silly gestures, postures, mannerisms of action, arid speech of an imbecile or of an idiot give rise to laughter. We laugh at people whose actions are thoughtless, whose manners are silly, whose speech is senseless, and whose gestures are inappropriate and meaningless.

        In every person's life activity there are foolish breaks, moments in which intelligence lapses, when the person may became the object of comic imitation. The comedian, the joker, the wit, and the wag seize on such moments and, bringing them to light, expose them to the ridicule of other people. Vacant, silly expressions of the features of the face, stupid, meaningless gestures, irrational actions all go to form the subject matter of the comic and the ludicrous.

        Motor reactions are the mirror of mental life: The deformities of physical expression are regarded as reflections of mental deficiencies. Deformities of bodily expression are regarded as indications of flaws of character and defects of mind. We read by the physical expressions the stupidities that lie behind them. In all comic imitation the imitated acts suggest mental inferiority of some kind. It is this mental inferiority, suggested by imitation of gestures and expressions, that is regarded as ludicrous. Moral and mental defects brought out by physical expressions of attitude, deportment, physiognomy are the factors of the ludicrous in all forms of imitation and mimicry of the comic.

        The cartoonist in drawing his cartoons of individuals or situations is bringing to light mental and moral deficiencies which, by a form of suggestion, he exposes to the gaze of the public. By a play of the features of the face, by exaggeration or diminution of organs and traits of character the ludicrous side is exposed to view. The nose may be lengthened, the lips may be made thick or retreating, the teeth be formed like tusks, the ears may be made large, the forehead may be made retreating and possibly horns and hoofs added. All sorts of deformities may be brought into play in order that mental and moral traits may be exposed to ridicule. Sometimes a very slight change in the features of the face or in the figure may do the work, may bring about the ludicrous effect. The cartoon may be regarded as a joke, a jest, a travesty, a farce, or burlesque done in pictures.

        We may look at the cartoon as an ideographic joke. Quite often the cartoon is supplemented, as we find in the comic-papers, by the ordinary form of joke. The two often interpret and interpenetrate each other. The inscription made on the picture explains its meaning, which is further supplemented and developed by the usual joke. The picture illustrates the verbal joke, and the joke in its abstract and verbal farm is strengthened by the cartoon or caricature. Visual and auditory images are blended to intensify the ludicrous side of the abject or of the situation. As, for instance, the boy who made a picture of a wagon and under it wrote: "drawn by a horse."

        The pictures may be given in a series and may represent a whole dramatic performance of various individuals under different conditions and in various situations, bringing the whale to a climax, all the scenes having a running verbal commentary. We may say, then, that in all forms of comic mimicry, of comic imitation there must be present the strong undercurrent of suggestion of mental inferiority. The very object, the aim of mimicry, of imitation is the revelation of the inferiority of the butt of ridicule. The success of mimicry or of comic imitation consists in the happy selection of traits which are regarded as law, mean, and below the standard of ordinary intelligence and morality, characteristic of the given group, society, or age in which the joke, the cartoon, or caricature is made.

        The cartoon does not ridicule physical being, but mind, character, spirit. In all forms of the comic it is not the body, but it is the soul that is the subject of ridicule. It is not the material, the physical side, the mechanical, the automatic functions of the body which are ridiculed, but it is always the virtues of the soul, when falling below the normal accepted standard, that form the everlasting butt of ridicule. The material, the physical is no matter for the joke, for the comic. It is the mental, the spiritual in all its infirmities, shortcomings, and failures that forms the everlasting material of the joke and the comic.

        The infirmities of the spirit are as much chastened by laughter as they are purified by pain. It is laughter, ridicule that arouses the spirit out of its torpor, gives the slumbering soul a shock, stings the spirit into action and further development. When man or society falls into mental turpitude it is the whip of ridicule that lashes it into mental awakening and further work. Aristotle is right―the ridiculous deals with mental turpitude unattended with pain and destruction. Like a flash of lightning on a dark night, so laughter or ridicule illuminates the dark abyss of the human spirit and awakens the soul to the active light of day.

        When two people look alike we may smile. We smile because we regard one as an imitation of the other. The situation is ludicrous because we are in a state of perplexity, since we regard each one as an imitation of the other, we do not know which is the original and which is the mimicking imitation. I have, however, inquired of a number of people, and I find that it is not so much the likeness of the individuals that is laughed at as the misunderstanding to which the close resemblance gives rise. Twins are laughed at only when we are apt to confuse them and have misapprehensions of an absurd character which are on that account ludicrous. Shakespeare, in his "Comedy of Errors," represents a, couple of twins with complicated absurd situations in which one of the twins is taken for the other, with ludicrous results, because of the confusion and misunderstanding of their actions and misinterpretation of what the twins say and do. After a series of misunderstandings the double set of twins are confronted before Adriana and the duke, who exclaim in amazement:

        In the comedy of "Twelfth Night" Shakespeare resorts to a similar plot in which Sebastian and his sister Viola are made to look alike. Out of such an ambiguous situation the poet weaves a net of misunderstandings. When the plot comes to a solution and the two are confronted Shakespeare makes the lookers-on exclaim:

        Mark the fact that when the twins are confronted there is no laughter at their close resemblance, but there is present a state of astonishment with nothing of the ludicrous in it. The ludicrous arises out of the ambiguity of situations, out of the play of misapprehensions, false vexations, trivial troubles, various farms of foolings which amuse and delight the audience. We laugh at the way people are, intentionally or unintentionally, misled and fooled by imitations.

        Imitation, imitativeness, or mimicry is laughed at because it indicates lack of intelligence, either of the original or of the copy. In imitativeness, in mimicry we laugh at lack of brains. The essence of the ludicrous in mimicry may be summarized by the following fable:

        A fox entered the house of an actor and, rummaging through all his properties, came upon a Mask, an admirable imitation of a human head. He placed his paws on it, and said, "What a beautiful head! yet it is of no value, as it entirely wants brains."

        The cunning fox and the brainless Mask are well contrasted. The human head, however fair, is made ludicrous through lack of brains.

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