Laughter : An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic

Regarded from this latter point of view, the comic seems to show itself in a form somewhat different from the one we lately attributed to it.  Up to this point, we have regarded laughter as first and foremost a means of correction.  If you take the series of comic varieties and isolate the predominant types at long intervals, you will find that all the intervening varieties borrow their comic quality from their resemblance to these types, and that the types themselves are so many models of impertinence with regard to society.  To these impertinences society retorts by laughter, an even greater impertinence.  So evidently there is nothing very benevolent in laughter.  It seems rather inclined to return evil for evil.

But this is not what we are immediately struck by in our first impression of the laughable.  The comic character is often one with whom, to begin with, our mind, or rather our body, sympathises.  By this is meant that we put ourselves for a very short time in his place, adopt his gestures, words, arid actions, and, if amused by anything laughable in him, invite him, in imagination, to share his amusement with us; in fact, we treat him first as a playmate.  So, in the laugher we find a “hail-fellow-well-met” spirit—­as far, at least, as appearances go—­which it would be wrong of us not to take into consideration.  In particular, there is in laughter a movement of relaxation which has often been noticed, and the reason of which we must try to discover.  Nowhere is this impression more noticeable than in the last few examples.  In them, indeed, we shall find its explanation.

When the comic character automatically follows up his idea, he ultimately thinks, speaks and acts as though he were dreaming.  Now, a dream is a relaxation.  To remain in touch with things and men, to see nothing but what is existent and think nothing but what is consistent, demands a continuous effort of intellectual tension.  This effort is common sense.  And to remain sensible is, indeed, to remain at work.  But to detach oneself from things and yet continue to perceive images, to break away from logic and yet continue to string together ideas, is to indulge in play or, if you prefer, in dolce far niente.  So, comic absurdity gives us from the outset the impression of playing with ideas.  Our first impulse is to join in the game.  That relieves us from the strain of thinking.  Now, the same might be said of the other forms of the laughable.  Deep-rooted in the comic, there is always a tendency, we said, to take the line of least resistance, generally that of habit.  The comic character no longer tries to be ceaselessly adapting and readapting himself to the society of which he is a member.  He slackens in the attention that is due to life.  He more or less resembles the absentminded.  Maybe his will is here even more concerned than his intellect, and there is not so much a want of attention as a lack of tension; still, in some way or another, he is absent, away from his work, taking it easy.  He abandons social convention, as indeed—­in the case we have just been considering—­he abandoned logic.  Here, too, our first impulse is to accept the invitation to take it easy.  For a short time, at all events, we join in the game.  And that relieves us from the strain of living.

But we rest only for a short time.  The sympathy that is capable of entering into the impression of the comic is a very fleeting one.  It also comes from a lapse in attention.  Thus, a stern father may at times forget himself and join in some prank his child is playing, only to check himself at once in order to correct it.

Laughter is, above all, a corrective.  Being intended to humiliate, it must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is directed.  By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken with it.  It would fail in its object if it bore the stamp of sympathy or kindness.

Shall we be told that the motive, at all events; may be a good one, that we often punish because we love, and that laughter, by checking the outer manifestations of certain failings, thus causes the person laughed at to correct these failings and thereby improve himself inwardly?

Much might be said on this point.  As a general rule, and speaking roughly, laughter doubtless exercises a useful function.  Indeed, the whole of our analysis points to this fact.  But it does not therefore follow that laughter always hits the mark or is invariably inspired by sentiments of kindness or even of justice.

To be certain of always hitting the mark, it would have to proceed from an act of reflection.  Now, laughter is simply the result of a mechanism set up in us by nature or, what is almost the same thing, by our long acquaintance with social life.  It goes off spontaneously and returns tit for tat.  It has no time to look where it hits.  Laughter punishes certain failing’s somewhat as disease punishes certain forms of excess, striking down some who are innocent and sparing some who are guilty, aiming at a general result and incapable of dealing separately with each individual case.  And so it is with everything that comes to pass by natural means instead of happening by conscious reflection.  An average of justice may show itself in the total result, though the details, taken separately, often point to anything but justice.

In this sense, laughter cannot be absolutely just.  Nor should it be kind-hearted either.  Its function is to intimidate by humiliating.  Now, it would not succeed in doing this, had not nature implanted for that very purpose, even in the best of men, a spark of spitefulness or, at all events, of mischief.  Perhaps we had better not investigate this point too closely, for we should not find anything very flattering to ourselves.  We should see that this movement of relaxation or expansion is nothing but a prelude to laughter, that the laugher immediately retires within himself, more self-assertive and conceited than ever, and is evidently disposed to look upon another’s personality as a marionette of which he pulls the strings.  In this presumptuousness we speedily discern a degree of egoism and, behind this latter, something less spontaneous and more bitter, the beginnings of a curious pessimism which becomes the more pronounced as the laugher more closely analyses his laughter.

Here, as elsewhere, nature has utilised evil with a view to good.  It is more especially the good that has engaged our attention throughout this work.  We have seen that the more society improves, the more plastic is the adaptability it obtains from its members; while the greater the tendency towards increasing stability below, the more does it force to the surface the disturbing elements inseparable from so vast a bulk; and thus laughter performs a useful function by emphasising the form of these significant undulations.  Such is also the truceless warfare of the waves on the surface of the sea, whilst profound peace reigns in the depths below.  The billows clash and collide with each other, as they strive to find their level.  A fringe of snow-white foam, feathery and frolicsome, follows their changing outlines.  From time to time, the receding wave leaves behind a remnant of foam on the sandy beach.  The child, who plays hard by, picks up a handful, and, the next moment, is astonished to find that nothing remains in his grasp but a few drops of water, water that is far more brackish, far more bitter than that of the wave which brought it.  Laughter comes into being in the self-same fashion.  It indicates a slight revolt on the surface of social life.  It instantly adopts the changing forms of the disturbance.  It, also, is afroth with a saline base.  Like froth, it sparkles.  It is gaiety itself.  But the philosopher who gathers a handful to taste may find that the substance is scanty, and the after-taste bitter.

[The end]