Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Twain Readings
In reading Twain's "Roughing It," I came across several difficulties in reading chapters 7 and 24. I did not find them so much as humorous as I did "cute." They were both stories in which I did not laugh at all throughout reading but after I could manage breathing out a "hah." However, I did enjoy reading chapter 47 and it was because of the qualities we brought up in class. I did notice that it was not a tall-tale and was definitely less slap-stick. I tend to enjoy humor more when it is more rhetorically-based, as opposed to the slap-stick in chapters 7 and 24. I find it also more true to life because my parents grew up in West Virginia and they have their own sayings that I don't understand and I'm sure I say things that I pick up from being in the city and around other people my age that they don't understand. When the priest and Scotty are talking and Scotty says that "they've scooped him," meaning death had come for Fanshaw, and the priest doesn't understand what that means, it reminds me of those kind of regional sayings that are still in existence today all over the country.
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Your post brings up an interesting point...do we have to laugh out loud to consider something humor or comedy or wit? You are not the first to mention "not laughing" when analyzing a reading or viewing. Which reading elicits this response differs across the class, but the response remains the same. What then do we consider humor to be?? Does something have to make you laugh out loud? Can it merely draw a smile? Or even a groan? (most puns get that response from me).
ReplyDeleteI tend to watch a lot of comedy, and a lot of things I find really funny do not always make me laugh out loud. I'm not sure of the reason, and Jan brings up a really good question in the comment above me; I think something can be humorous without inciting explicit laughter as long as it is amusing.
ReplyDeleteI also tend to shy away from slap-stick although I enjoy a crotch-shot just as much as the next guy (as long as it's not happening to me,) and I too enjoyed the miscommunication in Chapter 47 for the same reasons you listed.