Kara Ireland
Professor Winterhalter
ENGL 2112
7 December 2017
A Pessimist’s Guide to Humor
Humor is used to make people laugh. Though audible laughter is not always required, it does serve to rouse amusement in its audience. With regard to sadness, the use of humor alleviates tension. In our society, Millennial culture embodies the humorous defense mechanism. To dilute the severity of mental illness, Millennials shroud it with humor in the form of memes, jokes, and incorporating it into casual conversation. Depression-based jokes often hit their intended target, which allows Beckett’s infamous line, “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness,” to come to fruition – even sixty years later (Beckett 773). After standing the test of time, it must be true. In NoViolet Bulawayo’s “We Need New Names,” and Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame,” humor is used to represent unhappiness through hyperbole, irony, and puns.
Schadenfreude is the satisfaction felt at someone else's misfortune. People laugh at others’ misfortune because it makes them feel better about themselves. The concept of schadenfreude validates Beckett’s claim because misfortune equates to unhappiness. Throughout “Endgame,” there is titillating banter between Hamm and Clov. It seems that Clov looms his threat of leaving over Hamm’s head at any minor inconvenience. As his caretaker, the threat is callous – leaving a blind, immobile man to his own devices. Moreover, he is indebted to his adopted father of sorts. Choosing to leave him in his griping senility is immoral after being taken in by him as a boy. At one trivial instance of adjusting his chair, Clov mutters: “If I could kill him, I’d die happy” (Beckett 789). Similarly, in “We Need New Names,” Darling is experiencing animosity towards her decrepit father. His contraction of AIDS from South Africa is now prohibiting her from playing with her friends. She hates him for that, in addition to his “many years of forgetting [them]” (Bulawayo 91). She is incensed by the unfairness of “[having] to watch Father now, like he is a baby and [she is] his mother” (Bulawayo 95). She becomes so vexed by his company, she “[thinks,] Die. Die now so I can go play with my friends, die now because this is not fair” (Bulawayo 98). The extremity of equating death as justifiable solutions to their small problems is a comedic stroke. The hyperbolic measure is a form of literary humor within both texts. The characters’ unhappiness and their sadistic nature of dealing with it is funny.
Indignity inspired several humorous scenes in both pieces. It is linked to unhappiness because the sense of being belittled and disparaged tends to upset most people. Nagg is perhaps the funniest character in Endgame, offering the most comedic relief. Nagg interrupts Hamm and Clov’s conversation with his recurring “Me pap!” (Beckett 770). He cries for it four times. The indignity of being reduced to his “stumps” prevented him from getting it himself and he relied on Hamm and Clov, who were ignoring him (Beckett 770). It is followed by his recurring “Me sugar-plum!” after obediently listening to Hamm’s story by the ironic bribery of said sugar-plum (Beckett 785). He offered no response, save the immediate gratification of the sugar plum he was promised. Humor is implemented here because the indignation of Hamm stems from the dismissal of his long-winded story.
This is prevalent in We Need New Names, too, because children are usually dismissed. Indignation is almost synonymous with childhood. Ironically enough, the children’s encounter with the security guard flipped the script as he is continuously disrespected. After Bastard spit on the street beneath him, the security guard “[got] all animal-like as if he were a dog and somebody yanked his tail” (Bulawayo 108). As a security guard wielding his baton, it is clear that he felt like he should have been revered for his position. The children disrespected him by confronting him on his means of action with, “So where are the handcuffs and squad car, or are you going to call the police for that part?” (Bulawayo 109). His indignity is apparent because he struggled to admonish them with “his mouth all quivering” (Bulawayo 111). Being disrespected is tantamount to unhappiness because it affects one’s self-esteem and confidence. This is funny because a grown man could not handle a bunch of unruly children, and he got so worked up about it.
A subtler humorous tactic that shows up in both pieces is the use of charactonyms. Both authors employ the use of euonyms – or, appropriate names for people, places, or things. In We Need New Names, Bastard’s character is a perfect example. It is not revealed whether Bastard knows his father, but the colloquialism sticks as an unpleasant person. Although Darling is friends with him, he is a nuisance to most other people. The security guard regarded him as a “dirty pest” and a “pathetic, fatally miscalculated biological blunder” (Bulawayo 111). Also, Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mboro, is a charactonym simply because Darling is not fond of him. In Endgame, Nagg qualifies as a charactonym because he is constantly asking for something. He is nagging for either his pap or his sugar-plum. He repeatedly asked Nell to “kiss [him]” and “give [him] a scratch before [she goes,]” to which she declines (Beckett 772-773). These puns can be connected to unhappiness because the connotations of the names are all negative.
There is a laughter motif that can be traced between both texts. In We Need New Names, the children are always laughing. The line “then he laughs and gives it to Sbho, who laughs and gives it to Bastard, who laughs and gives it to me” encompasses the innocence and freedom of childhood that is prominent throughout the story (Bulawayo 129). In Endgame, laughter has a more bitter connotation. Laughter is associated with misfortune and a void. “Don’t we laugh?” comprises the spiteful nature of the entire play because laughter is only mentioned satirically (Beckett 770). All four characters in Endgame seem to regard laughter with a distant fondness, as Nell said: “We still find it funny, but we don’t laugh anymore” (Beckett 773). There is an air of unhappiness about all four of them, having reached a point of monotony in each of their lives. This contrasts the children in We Need New Names because laughter is the pinnacle of their lives. It is the notable difference in age and perception.
In essence, it is true that unhappiness is “the most comical thing in the world” (Beckett 773). It is a rather cynical take on humor, but mostly everything that provokes laughter or amusement in people is related to unhappiness in some form. All of the themes are interconnected in literary devices. Hyperbole, puns, and irony all function as an outlet for comedic relief within a text. Indignity falls under irony because when an expected response is not given, it invites unrest. The charactonyms belong to the nature of puns because their names are a play on the words they encompass. The sadism of Darling and Clov classifies as hyperbole because there are several alternatives to death. Humor worked in literature to benefit Endgame because this peculiar piece would have been unbearable if it were not funny. It worked in We Need New Names because it helped relate to the children. Humor has proven to be a necessary device in literature because it reduces tension and boredom.
Works Cited
Beckett, Samuel. “Endgame”. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Third Edition. Edited
by Martin Puchner. Norton, 2012. pp. 760-795.
Bulawayo, NoViolet. We Need New Names: A Novel. Reagan Arthur Books, 2013.