Essay On Humor In Literature

Humor, in all its varying forms, is found everywhere in literature. Even the most tragic or dramatic story has a comedic relief. It is part of human nature, and remains a staple in most great works of literature. The last place one would expect to find humor is in a haunted home, or with a man having an unpleasant rumor spread about him, and yet James Thurber’s The Night The Ghost Got In and Anton Chekhov’s A Slander manage to slide humor into those very situations. The plots themselves, while entertaining in their own ways, have few to no parallels. Some of their elements are able to blend with each other, yet most seem to be unique to their story. The Night The Ghost Got In, by James Thurber, is certain to catch the attention of its readers …show more content…
The story revolves around a schoolmaster who has gossip of him spread at a dinner party. Soon enough the whole town believes he was kissing an unattractive kitchen cook named Marfa, who is described as “a red-faced woman whose figure was like a barrel with a belt around it”. The entire rumor begins when the main character, Ahineev, heads into Marfa’s kitchen and asks to see one of the dishes, a sturgeon. In his delight of the wonderful dish, he makes a lip smacking noise very much like that of kissing. A man peeks in and jokingly suggests Ahineev and Marfa were kissing. To avoid having a colleague spread rumors of him and the cook, he tells everyone what truly happened, before getting drunk and leaving. He is later confronted about the supposed relationship by his wife, as well as a colleague in the school where he works. In turn, he confronts the man who he believed told everybody, only to find out his intuition was wrong, and is left with the mystery of who truly spread the rumor. Naturally, the reader will initially be faced with the doubt, but upon reflecting, it seems most likely Ahineev spread the rumor himself in his