In light of the recent death of Robin Williams in June of last year, the world began to realize the complex life of a person who lived to put smiles on the faces of many. We learned in the life of Williams that behind the happy face laid a man drowning in depression and bipolar disorder, his being was gilded, charming, funny, and happy on the outside but on the inside sad and fighting demons he couldn’t beat. This relationship between comedic joy and personal struggle and sadness is what William Hazlitt discusses in Lectures on the English Comic Writers. He contends that maybe happy and sad, or in terms of Robin Williams, comedic expression and personal strife aren’t opposites but rather that indifference is the opposite of all emotions. He further argues that comedic expression and tragedy are both essential to a persons’ being and that how we experience and interact with these emotions are the most real aspects of human existence. In the passage, Hazlitt’s animated tone helps support his claims, his tone leads to the creation of an excited mood, as if Hazlitt has had a “eureka” moment and found the missing piece to the puzzle that is the relationship between comedy and tragedy and its effect on a persons’ being. As he discusses the relationship between comedy and tragedy, Hazlitt writes about how both are seen by the masses as completely polarized and couldn’t coexist within one being. This was the same belief people held when news was released of the death of Robin Williams, people questioned how the man who was deemed the “funniest man on the planet” could have suffered from any degree of depression. But as mentioned earlier, Williams was a man with a gilded life, and this is the exact concept Hazlitt tries to convey in his essay. Hazlitt states that comedy is a form of defense mechanism, a way to shield oneself from their inner complexities as well as the social constructs that may be daunting to the everyday person. Comedy is a way for those who can’t face the world to be able to stare right into the face of emotional and even literal death and mock it, as did Robin Williams do before his death. In the light of Williams’ death, Hazlitt’s argument makes all the more sense, there is a relationship between comedy and tragedy, the relationship is that both are the two sides of the same coin as written by Hazlitt.
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If one were to look at comedy today, the majority of it is a parody of social tragedies and personal strife, for example a College Humor video titled “Diet Racism” satirized the existence of racism in our society today, another example is famous comedian and actor Kevin Hart who has a special called Laugh at my pain which is filled with jokes made on his long and hard divorce with the mother of his children. These acts take something deep and tragic and turn it into something that makes people laugh and provide an escape from reality. By presenting the connection between the two in the form of the coin metaphor, Hazlitt successfully conveys his argument that there is a relationship between the emotions. To further support his animated tone and free flowing thought that he demonstrates in the passage, Hazlitt displays fluid and parallel prose
If one were to look at comedy today, the majority of it is a parody of social tragedies and personal strife, for example a College Humor video titled “Diet Racism” satirized the existence of racism in our society today, another example is famous comedian and actor Kevin Hart who has a special called Laugh at my pain which is filled with jokes made on his long and hard divorce with the mother of his children. These acts take something deep and tragic and turn it into something that makes people laugh and provide an escape from reality. By presenting the connection between the two in the form of the coin metaphor, Hazlitt successfully conveys his argument that there is a relationship between the emotions. To further support his animated tone and free flowing thought that he demonstrates in the passage, Hazlitt displays fluid and parallel prose