Humor is the epitome of everything that has meaning. The great thing about humor, is that it can be displayed in many ways and have lots of different interpretations. For example, in Mark Twain’s “Advice to Youth,” we get to experience his use of satire and sarcasm throughout his entire essay. He uses real world examples and morphs them into his version of humor. But aside from essays and readings, specific theories of laughter are used to connect the audience to both what they read and how they expound their findings. The three theories related to “Advice to Youth”, include the incongruity theory, the superiority theory, and the relief theory. Readers would find Mark Twain’s “Advice to Youth” funny because all three theories go into effect.
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This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don’t, they will make you.” This is an example of using the superiority theory because the parents are considered to have more power over their children because they are older. And even though parents could be wrong, children must obey them because they are considered to be wiser. For these reasons, parents are thought to be superior. Twain also said, “If a person offends you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick. That will be sufficient (Twain 1882).” That is an example of incongruity theory because hitting someone with a brick seems to be very appalling and completely out of the ordinary. To explain, Twain is trying to say is that if someone threatens you, you should not resort to violence, unless it’s absolutely necessary and no one is watching …show more content…
A real-life example of incongruity theory is the act of falling down or up the stairs in front of so many people at school. At this brief and embarrassing moment, two things come in mind, either we get up right away and brush it off, or we sit down and mope about it. At time like these, quickly getting up and laughing about it seems to be the best option.
Relief theory comes into play when you have a bunch of family over for that Thanksgiving dinner that you’ve been looking forward to all year long. Suddenly someone tries to comment on someone else’s lifestyle choices within the past year, and things get bad real fast. At this moment, you can save everyone from Thanksgiving monstrosity by either cracking a joke about cold turkey or putting a funny Snapchat filter on them and showing it to them all
This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don’t, they will make you.” This is an example of using the superiority theory because the parents are considered to have more power over their children because they are older. And even though parents could be wrong, children must obey them because they are considered to be wiser. For these reasons, parents are thought to be superior. Twain also said, “If a person offends you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick. That will be sufficient (Twain 1882).” That is an example of incongruity theory because hitting someone with a brick seems to be very appalling and completely out of the ordinary. To explain, Twain is trying to say is that if someone threatens you, you should not resort to violence, unless it’s absolutely necessary and no one is watching …show more content…
A real-life example of incongruity theory is the act of falling down or up the stairs in front of so many people at school. At this brief and embarrassing moment, two things come in mind, either we get up right away and brush it off, or we sit down and mope about it. At time like these, quickly getting up and laughing about it seems to be the best option.
Relief theory comes into play when you have a bunch of family over for that Thanksgiving dinner that you’ve been looking forward to all year long. Suddenly someone tries to comment on someone else’s lifestyle choices within the past year, and things get bad real fast. At this moment, you can save everyone from Thanksgiving monstrosity by either cracking a joke about cold turkey or putting a funny Snapchat filter on them and showing it to them all