This article explores the role absurdist humour fulfils in the narrative structure of novels as well as its impact on the process of literary interpretation. Tracing the historical and philosophical ...roots of absurdist humour, the article emphasises the importance of the concept of incongruity. It then critically evaluates current and influential cognitive and linguistic theories of humour, specifically incongruity-resolution theories and their purported suitability for literary analysis. Drawing on schema-theory, the article examines a passage from Douglas Adams’s
(1980; henceforth
) and illustrates why literary humour cannot be analysed in the same manner as short, often specifically designed, joke texts as is common practice in most humour research. Subsequently, the traditional classification of absurdist humour as a type of humour where resolution cannot be achieved is also challenged as the analysis reveals how absurdist humour is part and parcel of the narrative structure of
and how the incongruity is resolved at the moment of literary interpretation.
What do existential elevators, sentient mattresses, paranoid androids, humans and other aliens have in common? For one thing, they want answers. The fact (yes fact) that there are no answers (except, ...perhaps, for 42) causes some humans (and other aliens) to face this empty madness we call life with Sisyphus-like defiance. Others choose to sulk or skulk or annihilate themselves. Another thing these creatures have in common is that they are all born mad, and some remain so. One is.
The challenge for community and technical colleges is ensuring the future workforce can acquire the expanding skill sets necessary for success in a rapidly changing employment environment. ...Facilitating noncredit/credit integration of stackable credentials can increase our flexibility and shorten our response time for meeting the lifelong learning needs of our communities. The clock is ticking and it's up to us to break down silos, to innovate our instructional methods, and to collaborate like never before to ensure a bright future for our learners and communities, whatever that future may hold.M Hope Cotner is president and CEO of the Center for Occupational Research and Development in Waco, Texas.
This research emerges from an observation that Douglas Adams’s Hitch Hiker Series is not merely characterised by light-hearted comedy, but is underpinned by intricate philosophical ideas, especially ...those of twentieth century Existentialism and the related notion of absurdity. The study also investigates the interlaced functions of Adams’s fantasy and landscapes of alterity. Paradoxically, Adams’s fantastical creatures serve to illuminate the human condition and the follies and monstrosities that lurk at the heart of humanity. Not only does Adams’s fantasy mirror the maladies of twentieth century society, thus serving a satirical function, but it is also a mechanism for constructing meaning in the shape of alternative realities. Concepts related to alterity, such as simulation (Baudrillard), the structure of ‘reality’, dreaming (Descartes) and parallel universes are investigated as building blocks of Adams’s fantastic story space. Furthermore, the ideas of Sartre, Camus and other originators of Existentialism, a philosophy which considers the futility of existence and the compulsion to construct subjective meaning, are elucidated and explored in relation to Adams’s work. Existentialist concepts such as facticity and angst, as well as the Beckettian universe and the Theatre of the Absurd, are also discussed in the light of the Hitch Hikerseries. Adams’s extensive satirical comment is also emphasised in this study. Adams’s satire does not merely castigate the evils of twentieth century society such as capitalism and bureaucracy, it also unmasks universal human vices such as pomposity and grandiosity, vices that are rooted in the rejection of objective morality. Although Adams comments on the folly at the heart of society, he also presents the reader with an alternative: the subjective reconstruction of one’s inner world in an attempt to spin individual webs of meaning from the nothingness at the world’s core. This study also investigates the ambiguous concept of madness as a subjective reality born of the necessity to construct meaning, and analyses Adams’s alternative landscapes based on the suggestion that ‘much madness is divinest sense’ (Emily Dickenson, in Ferguson et al., 1996: 1015).
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