Humor in Great Expectations

1. Humor in Great Expectations Concepts from James Kincaid. Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter. Los Angeles: U of Southern California, 1971. Victorian Web. 2 Feb. 2006 <www.victorianweb.org>. http://images.google.com/images?

2. “The analysis of laughter is likely to leave a very bitter after taste.” -Henri Bergson

3. http://images.google.com/images Obituary in The Spectator: “Charles Dickens was the greatest humorist whom England ever produced, Shakespeare himself certainly not excepted.” Burial stone in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey

4. On Dickens’s body of work “I think [critic] J. Hillis Miller has demonstrated persuasively how much organic unity there is in Dickens’s career; at any rate, there is consistency in his use of laughter, terror, pathos, indeed all the tools at his disposal to support his dominant themes and effects.”

5. “I believe Dickens to be as little understood as Cervantes, and almost as mischievous.” -Ruskin

6. “Laughter [in Dickens] is. . .always important. As Dickens progressed, he used humor for perhaps more serious purposes, attacking and persuading the reader more and more subtly.” --Kincaid

7. Serialization in Dickens’s Magazine, All the Year Round: 1. Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (completed Oct. 1859) 2. Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White 3. Charles Lever, A Day’s Ride (“horse-racious and pugnacious silver-fork [high society] novel”)

8. Dickens’s Intent • Sept. 1860, plummeting magazine sales. • To E.M.Forster: “I have decided to begin the story [G.E.] on the first of December [1860]. . .in a crushing” process of weekly installments that lasted through August 1861. • Reread David Copperfield; wrote friends new novel (G. E.) had his signature humor, guaranteed to please readers. • Circulation exceeded London Times

9. PERSPECTIVE Concrete Detail Idioms Darkness http://images.google.com/images?q=Dickens Examining Dickens’s Humor

10. Perspective/Narrative Stance “Nothing can be funnier, properly considered, than the fact that one’s own father is a pigmy if he stands far enough off.” G.K. Chesterton Clipart fromWindows XP Professional

11. On perspective “Dickens is a master at controlling our distance from the matter at hand in order to evoke laughter. In its simplest form, the contrast of language and action can itself be funny. “ --Kincaid • Think incongruity.

12. Who is the narrator? According to critics Jordan and Partlow, the narrator "is neither Pip nor Mr Pip, but Mr Pirrip, a moderately successful, middle-aged businessman” recounting his past. Pip's first visit to Miss Havisham is full of the lingering echoes of Victorian business letters. Pip files his report on his past life: "I entertained this speculation. . .I calculated . . . I took note. . .I regret to state. . . .”

13. Difference between this narrator’s voice and the action “Even when he fights the young Herbert in the Satis House garden and the latter butts him, he comments on Herbert's head: ‘I had a right to consider it irrelevant when so obtruded on my attention’” (xi, 119). The contrast between boys head-butting each other in the yard and the world of “high desks, scratching pens and formal communications” evoked by the narrator’s diction is ludicrous—and funny.

14. Incongruity between the topic and the narrator’s tone Chapter 17 (early) “I sat silent, recalling what a drudge she had been until Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt successfully overcame that bad habit of living so highly desirable to be got rid of by some people.”

15. Perspective CONCRETE DETAIL Idioms Darkness http://images.google.com/images?q=Dickens Examining Dickens’s Humor

16. The use of the concrete “One aspect of Dickens’s humor often noted is it is rooted in the specific and continually manifests itself in the vivid and exact details which George Orwell called the ‘florid little squiggles on the edge of the page.’” --Kincaid

17. What do you see here? (Ch.37) “As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a shadowy corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr. Wemmick’s mouth, powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually stealing his arm around Miss Skiffins’ waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly stopped him with the green glove,

18. unwound his arm again as if it were an article of dress, and with the greatest deliberation, laid it on the table before her. Miss Skiffins’ composure as she did this was one of the most remarkable sights I have ever seen. . . .” http://images.google.com/images?

19. http://images.google.com/images Pumblechook and the flowering annuals

20. It’s all in the details – Ch.57 “That’s it, Pip,” said Joe; “and they took his till, and they took his cash box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his wittles, and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him to his bedpust, and they giv’ him a dozen, and they stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out.”

21. Monty Python’s Flying Circus Dead Parrot skit The customer complains to the store owner that he has been sold a dead parrot:

22. “It’s not pining. It’s passed on. This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It’s stiff. Bereft of life. It rests in peace. If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up daisies. It’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot.” Dry British humor began with Dickens. These Cambridge graduates, who have read Dickens, imitate his use of repetition, concrete detail, and incongruous perspective.

23. Perspective Concrete Detail IDIOMS Darkness http://images.google.com/images?q=Dickens Examining Dickens’s Humor

24. Using idioms “Much of the force of Dickens’s humorous characters rests in their absolutely distinctive language.” --Kincaid Look at the idiomatic dialogue of • Joe in Chapter 15 • Pumblechook in Chapter 19 • Trabb’s Boy in Chapter 30

25. Joe “Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning were—Make a end on it!—As you was!—Me to the North, and you to the South!—Keep in sunders! [Joe thinks Pip wants to make a present for Miss Havisham] That’s true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set of shoes all four round – and which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all four round might not act acceptable as a present, in a total wacancy of hoofs.”

26. Pumblechook “But my dear young friend, you must be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the Boar, here’s one or two little things had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. . . . And may I–may I—? Here is wine. Let us drink, Thanks to Fortune, and may she ever pick out her favourites with equal judgment! And yet I cannot see afore me One—and likewise drink to One—without expressing—May I—may I—? “And your sister which had the honour of bringing you up by hand! It’s a sad picter, to reflect that she’s no longer equal to fully understanding the honour, May—”

27. Trabb’s Boy “He wore the blue bag in the manner of my great-coat, and was strutting along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of the street, attended by a company of delighted young friends to whom he from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his hand, ‘Don’t know yah!’ and a little later, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his attendants, ‘Don’t know yah, don’t know yah, pon my soul don’t know yah!’”

28. Perspective Concrete Detail Idioms DARKNESS http://images.google.com/images?q=Dickens Examining Dickens’s Humor

29. Dickens’s Darkness “The important point is that Dickens often asks us to laugh at the very subjects he is, in other parts of the novel, asking us to sympathize or be angry with: death, loneliness, improvidence, rigidity, spontaneity, cruelty—the list could be extended indefinitely.” --Kincaid

30. Freud on Dark Humor Freud calls it gallows humor; we laugh at hopeless situations. We don’t want to know why we laugh because we use laughter to keep our conscious attention at a distance or to avoid examining our own “aggressive, exhibitionistic or egoistic impulses.”

31. Stephen Kingon Dark Humor We need dark humor and horror stories to keep the “alligators of our subconscious” fed and somewhat under control.

32. Dickens’s Use of Dark Humor Development of Themes Characterization Appeal to Reading Public’s Needs—as Freud and King suggest Social Reform

33. Social Satire to • Produce Reform • Dickens described himself as “first and last, a reformer.” • Wealth and class, snobbery & social injustice • Penal system that transports felons for minor crimes • Educational system • Culture that has let theatre deteriorate

34. What about Christmas Dinner? “I’ll roast ye and baste ye. . .” (Medieval ms) http://images.google.com/imgres?

35. “’Why is it that the young are never grateful?” “’Naterally wicious.’ “’True!’ Joe’s station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when there was company, than when there was none. But he always aided and comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate at this point, about half a pint.”

36. “’Look at Pork alone. There’s a subject! If you want a subject, look at Pork!’ “’True, sir. Many a moral for the young might be deduced from that text.’ “(‘You listen to this,’ said my sister to me in a severe parenthesis.) “Joe gave me some more gravy.”

37. “’. . .What is detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy. . . . Besides, think what you’ve [Pip] got to be grateful for. If you’d been born a Squeaker.” “‘He was, if ever a child was,’ said my sister emphatically.” “Joe gave me some more gravy.”

38. “. . .’You [Pip] would have been disposed of for so many shillings according to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you under his left arm, . . .tucked up his frock to get a penknife, . . .and he would have shed your blood and had your life. No bringing you up by hand then. Not a bit of it!’ “Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.”

39. Nutcrackered Babies & Almost Aristocratic Mothers http://images.google.com/images?

40. “Mrs. Pocket was the only daughter of a certain. . .deceased Knight, who had invented for himself a conviction that his deceased father would have been made a Baronet but for somebody’s determined opposition arising out of entirely personal motives. . . . He had directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who in the nature of things must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic knowledge” (189).

41. “Both Mr. And Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in somebody else’s hands, that I wondered who really was in possession of the house and let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the servants” (190). “Mrs. Pocket looked at the young Nobles that ought to have been, as if she rather thought she had had the pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn’t quite know what to make of them” (191).

42. “Flopson [a Pocket nanny], by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a Dutch doll, then got it safely into Mrs. Pocket’s lap, and gave it the nutcrackers to play with: at the same time recommending Mrs. Pocket to take notice that the handles of that instrument were not likely to agree with its eyes. . .” (193).

43. “I was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket’s falling into a discussion with Drummle respecting two baronetcies, while she ate a sliced orange and. . .forgetting all about the baby on her lap: who did most appalling things with the nutcrackers. At length, little Jane perceiving its young brains to be imperiled, softly left her place, and with many small artifices coaxed the dangerous weapon away” (193).

44. “Mrs. Pocket said to Jane: ‘You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down this instant!’” “Mamma dear,’ lisped the little girl, ‘baby ood have put hith eyeth out.’” “Belinda,’ remonstrated Mr. Pocket, ‘how can you be so unreasonable? Jane only interfered for the protection of baby.’”

45. “‘I will not allow anybody to interfere,’ said Mrs. Pocket with a majestic glance at the little offender. ‘I am surprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the affront of interference.’” “’Good God!’ cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate desperation. ‘Are infants to be nutcrackered into their tombs, and is nobody to save them?’” (194).

46. Perspective Concrete Detail Idioms Darkness How well does this verbal humor translate to film? (1:06:54 to 1:11:38 Exxon Mobil version; visit to Wemmick’s) http://images.google.com/images?q=Dickens Examining Dickens’s Humor