Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
idea suggested, however, is far from being always accepted with like
docility. Not infrequently, the mesmeriser only succeeds in getting an
idea into his subject's head by slow degrees through a carefully
graduated series of hints. He will then start with objects really
perceived by the subject, and will endeavour to make the perception of
these objects more and more indefinite; then, step by step, he will
bring out of this state of mental chaos the precise form of the object
of which he wishes to create an hallucination. Something of the kind
happens to many people when dropping off to sleep; they see those
coloured, fluid, shapeless masses, which occupy the field of vision,
insensibly solidifying into distinct objects.
Consequently, the gradual passing from the dim and vague to the clear
and distinct is the method of suggestion par excellence. I fancy it
might be found to be at the root of a good many comic suggestions,
especially in the coarser forms of the comic, in which the
transformation of a person into a thing seems to be taking place before
our eyes. But there are other and more subtle methods in use, among
poets, for instance, which perhaps unconsciously lead to the same end.
By a certain arrangement of rhythm, rhyme and assonance, it is possible
to lull the imagination, to rock it to and fro between like and like
with a regular see-saw motion, and thus prepare it submissively to
accept the vision suggested. Listen to these few lines of Regnard, and
see whether something like the fleeting image of a DOLL does not cross
the field of your imagination:
... Plus, il doit a maints particuliers La somme de dix mil une livre
une obole, Pour l'avoir sans relache un an sur sa parole Habille,
voiture, chauffe, chausse, gante, Alimente, rase, desaltere, porte.
[Footnote: Further, he owes to many an honest wight Item-the sum two
thousand pounds, one farthing, For having on his simple word of honour
Sans intermission for an entire year Clothed him, conveyed him, warmed
him, shod him, gloved him, Fed him and shaved him, quenched his thirst
and borne him.]
Is not something of the same kind found in the following sally of
Figaro's (though here an attempt is perhaps made to suggest the image
of an animal rather than that of a thing): "Quel homme est-ce?--C'est
un beau, gros, court, jeune vieillard, gris pommele, ruse, rase, blase,
qui guette et furette, et gronde et geint tout a la fois." [Footnote:
"What sort of man is here?--He is a handsome, stout, short, youthful
old gentleman, iron-grey, an artful knave, clean shaved, clean 'used
up,' who spies and pries and growls and groans all in the same breath."]
Now, between these coarse scenes and these subtle suggestions there is
room for a countless number of amusing effects, for all those that can
be obtained by talking about persons as one would do about mere things.
We will only select one or two instances from the plays of Labiche, in
which they are legion.
Just as M. Perrichon is getting into the railway carriage, he makes
certain of not forgetting any of his parcels: "Four, five, six, my wife
seven, my daughter eight, and myself nine." In another play, a fond
father is boasting of his daughter's learning in the following terms:
"She will tell you, without faltering, all the kings of France that
have occurred." This phrase, "that have occurred," though not exactly
transforming the kings into mere things, likens them, all the same, to
events of an impersonal nature.
As regards this latter example, note that it is unnecessary to complete
the identification of the person with the thing in order to ensure a
comic effect. It is sufficient for us to start in this direction by
feigning, for instance, to confuse the person with the function he
exercises. I will only quote a sentence spoken by a village mayor in
one of About's novels: "The prefect, who has always shown us the same
kindness, though he has been changed several times since 1847..."
All these witticisms are constructed on the same model. We might make
up any number of them, when once we are in possession of the recipe.
But the art of the story-teller or the playwright does not merely
consist in concocting jokes. The difficulty lies in giving to a joke
its power of suggestion, i.e. in making it acceptable. And we only do
accept it either because it seems to be the natural product of a
particular state of mind or because it is in keeping with the
circumstances of the case. For instance, we are aware that M. Perrichon
is greatly excited on the occasion of his first railway journey. The
expression "to occur" is one that must have cropped up a good many
times in the lessons repeated by the girl before her father; it makes
us think of such a repetition. Lastly, admiration of the governmental
machine might, at a pinch, be extended to the point of making us
believe that no change takes place in the prefect when he changes his
name, and that the function gets carried on independently of the
functionary.
We have now reached a point very far from the original cause of
laughter. Many a comic form, that cannot be explained by itself, can
indeed only be understood from its resemblance to another, which only
makes us laugh by reason of its relationship with a third, and so on
indefinitely, so that psychological analysis, however luminous and
searching, will go astray unless it holds the thread along which the
comic impression has travelled from one end of the series to the other.
Where does this progressive continuity come from? What can be the
driving force, the strange impulse which causes the comic to glide thus
from image to image, farther and farther away from the starting-point,
until it is broken up and lost in infinitely remote analogies? But what
is that force which divides and subdivides the branches of a tree into
smaller boughs and its roots into radicles? An inexorable law dooms
every living energy, during the brief interval allotted to it in time,
to cover the widest possible extent in space. Now, comic fancy is
indeed a living energy, a strange plant that has nourished on the stony
portions of the social soil, until such time as culture should allow it
to vie with the most refined products of art. True, we are far from
great art in the examples of the comic we have just been reviewing. But
we shall draw nearer to it, though without attaining to it completely,
in the following chapter. Below art, we find artifice, and it is this
zone of artifice, midway between nature and art, that we are now about
to enter. We are going to deal with the comic playwright and the wit.
CHAPTER II
THE COMIC ELEMENT IN SITUATIONS AND THE COMIC ELEMENT IN WORDS
I
We have studied the comic element in forms, in attitudes, and in
movements generally; now let us look for it in actions and in
situations. We encounter, indeed, this kind of comic readily enough in
everyday life. It is not here, however, that it best lends itself to
analysis. Assuming that the stage is both a magnified and a simplified
view of life, we shall find that comedy is capable of furnishing us
with more information than real life on this particular part of our
subject. Perhaps we ought even to carry simplification still farther,
and, going back to our earliest recollections, try to discover, in the
games that amused us as children, the first faint traces of the
combinations that make us laugh as grown-up persons. We are too apt to
speak of our feelings of pleasure and of pain as though full grown at
birth, as though each one of them had not a history of its own. Above
all, we are too apt to ignore the childish element, so to speak, latent
in most of our joyful emotions. And yet, how many of our present
pleasures, were we to examine them closely, would shrink into nothing
more than memories of past ones! What would there be left of many of
our emotions were we to reduce them to the exact quantum of pure
feeling they contain, by subtracting from them all that is merely
reminiscence? Indeed, it seems possible that, after a certain age, we
become impervious to all fresh or novel forms of joy, and the sweetest
pleasures of the middle-aged man are perhaps nothing more than a
revival of the sensations of childhood, a balmy zephyr wafted in
fainter and fainter breaths by a past that is ever receding. In any
case, whatever reply we give to this broad question, one thing is
certain: there can be no break in continuity between the child's
delight in games and that of the grown-up person. Now, comedy is a
game, a game that imitates life. And since, in the games of the child
when working its dolls and puppets, many of the movements are produced
by strings, ought we not to find those same strings, somewhat frayed by
wear, reappearing as the threads that knot together the situations in a
comedy? Let us, then, start with the games of a child, and follow the
imperceptible process by which, as he grows himself, he makes his
puppets grow, inspires them with life, and finally brings them to an
ambiguous state in which, without ceasing to be puppets, they have yet
become human beings. We thus obtain characters of a comedy type. And
upon them we can test the truth of the law of which all our preceding
analyses gave an inkling, a law in accordance with which we will define
all broadly comic situations in general. ANY ARRANGEMENT OF ACTS AND
EVENTS IS COMIC WHICH GIVES US, IN A SINGLE COMBINATION, THE ILLUSION
OF LIFE AND THE DISTINCT IMPRESSION OF A MECHANICAL ARRANGEMENT.
1. THE JACK-IN-THE-BOX.--As children we have all played with the little
man who springs out of his box. You squeeze him flat, he jumps up
again. Push him lower, and he shoots up still higher. Crush him down
beneath the lid, and often he will send everything flying. It is hard
to tell whether or no the toy itself is very ancient, but the kind of
amusement it affords belongs to all time. It is a struggle between two
stubborn elements, one of which, being simply mechanical, generally
ends by giving in to the other, which treats it as a plaything. A cat
playing with a mouse, which from time to time she releases like a
spring, only to pull it up short with a stroke of her paw, indulges in
the same kind of amusement.
We will now pass on to the theatre, beginning with a Punch and Judy
show. No sooner does the policeman put in an appearance on the stage
than, naturally enough, he receives a blow which fells him. He springs
to his feet, a second blow lays him flat. A repetition of the offence
is followed by a repetition of the punishment. Up and down the
constable flops and hops with the uniform rhythm of the bending and
release of a spring, whilst the spectators laugh louder and louder.
Now, let us think of a spring that is rather of a moral type, an idea
that is first expressed, then repressed, and then expressed again; a
stream of words that bursts forth, is checked, and keeps on starting
afresh. Once more we have the vision of one stubborn force,
counteracted by another, equally pertinacious. This vision, however,
will have discarded a portion of its materiality. No longer is it Punch
and Judy that we are watching, but rather a real comedy.
Many a comic scene may indeed be referred to this simple type. For
instance, in the scene of the Mariage force between Sganarelle and
Pancrace, the entire vis comica lies in the conflict set up between the
idea of Sganarelle, who wishes to make the philosopher listen to him,
and the obstinacy of the philosopher, a regular talking-machine working
automatically. As the scene progresses, the image of the
Jack-in-the-box becomes more apparent, so that at last the characters
themselves adopt its movements,--Sganarelle pushing Pancrace, each time
he shows himself, back into the wings, Pancrace returning to the stage