Laughter and Joy

In connection with Ch. 11's discussion of laughter as caused by "Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy," I read some interesting comments about Flannery O'Connor's use of the grotesque as a form of humor.

O'Connor, as a Christian, was a realist, recognizing the actual presence of evil in man and the world. She said in Mystery and Manners, p. 33: "My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of the Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable."

Jose Jimenez Lozano, an acclaimed Spanish novelist, in an interview in the Flannery O'Connor Review, expressed his opinion that O'Connor's use of the exaggerated, the grotesque, while it may "seem like dark pessimism, or even the Apocalypse, to a world for which evil does not exist, or is merely circumstantial and will be expelled through pedagogy and progress"(p. 159), is actually connected to "the trust she placed in the capacity of the comical to reveal and express reality, and even to break what might be considered the law, or the necessity, of a reality possessed by evil. With the comical, reality opens itself up to another reality, which is hope." (ibid.)

In another portion of the interview (p.161), Lozano says that when we laugh at certain passages, we "locate ourselves in the world of freedom and play, and the joyfulness that goes with them. . . . Laughter is connected to the world which does not exist, with the world turned upside down, and with our rejection of the real, historical world for another one which is invisible but also real, which we truly inhabit when we laugh. . . .The humor in Flannery O'Connor's writing truly liberates us and brings hope to the darkness or the ferocity of the story she tells."

I mentioned Lincoln's humorous-serious question, "What is the best way to defeat your enemy? You can best defeat your enemy by making him your friend." On another occasion he suggested that those Southerners who were want to extoll the positive benefits of slavery for slaves, would do well to consider assuming the yoke to benefit themselves!

These examples well describe the power of humor to paint an alternate "comic" reality at odds with a dire actuality. And as Lozano notes, this "world turned upside down" is a source of joy. In fact, isn't it the only source of joy? No wonder Screwtape says that this kind of laughter "does us no good" and "is of itself disgusting and a direct insult to the realism, dignity, and austerity of Hell." Laughter truly is an insult to the actuality of evil. The book's frontspiece quotes indicate that this is Lewis' central maneuver in Screwtape Letters.