Dark Laughter and Light Comedy: Humor and the American Character

ErTUM: Please insert in your copy of Volume 12, Number 3 (Winter 1981). Page 377, line 40 should read: "through minority religious and)' racial groups, the shock of discovering themselves to be the richest industrial nation in the world through" . TheCanadian Review of American Studies, Volume 12,No. 3, Winter 1981 Dark Laughter and Light Comedy: Humorand the American Character R. G. Collins JamesC. Austin. American Hwnor in France. 'fo,oCenturies of'French Criticisim ol the Conuc Spirit in American Literature.' Ames:Iowa State University Press, 1978. 177 pp. Walter Blair and Hamlin Hill. America:, Hunw1: FromPoor Richard to Doonesbun•. NewYork: Oxford University Pre~s, 1978. 559 pp. Ronald Wallace. The Last Laugh: Form and Af!irmation in the Contempo1wy American Comte Novel. Columbia: University of Missouri Press,1979. 159 pp. In the Tom Stoppard play Night and Day, two English colonials in an African country are briefing a newly arrived journalist. The black strong man who runs the country as president-a mixture of Idi Amin and George Washington -is expected to arrive at their house at any moment, and the journalist is warned of his unpredictable temper in something like the following words: "Don't worry, unless he laughs. If he laughs, look out!" Buried in the general discussion, the comment is apt soon to be forgotten by the audience. A few minutes later the dictator arrives, and slouches amiably in a deck chair as the group engages in conversation. Then, a casual comment by the journalist evokes a booming laugh; a second later, the massive fist of the black ruler lashes out and strikes the journalist to the floor. It is only those hoodwinked by it who fail to see that laughter is, more often than not, a sign of serious concerns. And since it is rarely marked by the emphasis of a blow, many of us never do realize it. Laughter, as Stoppard reveals, is an attitude, an outlook, an aspect of character which may relate to many things in many ways. If, as we like to say, character determines destiny, national character determines national destiny. The English got where they were at the end of the nineteenth century through a mixture of mindless courage, idealism and practical ambition: the Sir Francis Drake in them. By some accounts, they got where they are today 376 R. G. Collins through languor and love of the lolly: the Andy Capp in them. (If nothing more, in our insatiable, gossipy search for explanations, this one packages a situation neatly and so gives us guardianship over it.) Correspondingly, if humor is a significant aspect of national as well as personal character, it becomes so because it is useful or effective or at least functional in the life of the community. We are, in one sense, what we chortle over. Theoretically, a definition of what humorous taste and appetite consist of can mean a great deal with respect to national character. Probably the simplest and most popular view of humor is that it is a "light" manner of treating a subject. Unfortunately, it is a definition that is not completely wrong; the problem lies in what we mean by "light." The popular mind is apt to see humor itself as light-weight stuff, amusement (a-muse: to take away thought) or diversion for its own sake. The object is all, and the object is laughter or delight; therefore, the subject has little importance other than as a means to reach that end. The most artistic part of what the world has produced under the general label of humor, or comedy, however, has obviously had a far greater importance than that of a casual laugh. In fact, a good part of literary and dramatic art exists within a comic tradition, while the mythic history and oral tradition of a given culture-ranging from that of a small neighborhood to a large state-frequently is carried through humorous characterization and embodiment. The point at which folklore passes into epic personification is an invisible one. In the now-familiar distinction of comedy and tragedy as modes tied, respectively , to the novel and to drama, the first is conceived of as handling the multiple facts...