ELEMENTS OF HUMOR
Humor is easy to recognize but hard to define. Most humor has brutal honesty at its core. Much humor is grounded in a particular context, often defined by a particular culture, though some is ageless and timeless, focusing on general human foibles and frailties. Below are the main elements that make situations and writing humorous. See if you can identify one way Vonnegut uses each technique in Slaughterhouse-Five, as well as how each element works in contemporary TV or films. (Source: How to Write Funny, ed. John. B. Kachuba, Writer’s Digest Books, 2001.)
INCONGRUITY: a subversion of the commonplace, producing something unexpected. This includes Absurdity, anachronisms, surprises, and the generally bizarre. …show more content…
Irony “pulls back the curtain and reveals the masquerade.” Often, the joke is on one of the characters in the story… we may or may not be in on it beforehand. Irony often involves an “expectation and reversal” set-up, otherwise known as an ironic twist.
EXAMPLES: (Vonnegut’s favorite technique!!)
SATIRE OR PARODY: mocking someone or something through exaggeration in order to make it appear ridiculous. Satire and parody are the highest forms of humor, requiring skill and cleverness to be successful. In its gentlest form (Horatian), satire can suggest ways to improve what is wrong; in its most biting form (Juvenalian), satire can sting – and suggest that the object of satire be destroyed.
EXAMPLES: (Saturday Night Live is a good source.)
EXAGGERATION and UNDERSTATEMENT: when someone either over-reacts or under-reacts to a given situation. Stretching life as we know it to its extremes is a common source of humor. Another word for exaggeration is HYPERBOLE. (Film butlers are notorious for understatement.)
Humor is easy to recognize but hard to define. Most humor has brutal honesty at its core. Much humor is grounded in a particular context, often defined by a particular culture, though some is ageless and timeless, focusing on general human foibles and frailties. Below are the main elements that make situations and writing humorous. See if you can identify one way Vonnegut uses each technique in Slaughterhouse-Five, as well as how each element works in contemporary TV or films. (Source: How to Write Funny, ed. John. B. Kachuba, Writer’s Digest Books, 2001.)
INCONGRUITY: a subversion of the commonplace, producing something unexpected. This includes Absurdity, anachronisms, surprises, and the generally bizarre. …show more content…
Irony “pulls back the curtain and reveals the masquerade.” Often, the joke is on one of the characters in the story… we may or may not be in on it beforehand. Irony often involves an “expectation and reversal” set-up, otherwise known as an ironic twist.
EXAMPLES: (Vonnegut’s favorite technique!!)
SATIRE OR PARODY: mocking someone or something through exaggeration in order to make it appear ridiculous. Satire and parody are the highest forms of humor, requiring skill and cleverness to be successful. In its gentlest form (Horatian), satire can suggest ways to improve what is wrong; in its most biting form (Juvenalian), satire can sting – and suggest that the object of satire be destroyed.
EXAMPLES: (Saturday Night Live is a good source.)
EXAGGERATION and UNDERSTATEMENT: when someone either over-reacts or under-reacts to a given situation. Stretching life as we know it to its extremes is a common source of humor. Another word for exaggeration is HYPERBOLE. (Film butlers are notorious for understatement.)