The Least Little Toad Frog I Ever Did See

I grew up in the country and one particularly rainy summer, our entire gravel road was filled with both mud puddles and toads half the size of my thumb nail. The title of this blog entry is my neighbor's reaction when my little sister and I, so proud of our discovery, showed her. My neighbor was like a grandma to me, an elderly lady who had grown up in the South. She was full of these colorful phrases and was one of the kindest people I'd ever met. We used to sit for hours on her front lawn, sipping lemonade and talking with her.

Well, she did most of the talking. The truth is, Simon Wheeler's monologue about Leonidas W. Smiley could have been a direct quote of one of my neighbor's stories. For her, everything contained at least two shaggy dog stories. Her descriptions were so circular; she'd begin telling one story, remind herself (without explaining the connection to us) of another story, tell that one, pick back up at the exact place that she left off in the first story, get sidetracked again, and finish after making our head spins so much we were no longer sure what the end had to do with anything at all. But she knew, and it was certainly entertaining to listen to her get there.

When Wheeler starts talking about Jim Smiley, Twain tells us he "never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the quiet, gently-flowing key to which he turned the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm" (171). No wonder Twain was angry at Mr. A Ward for sending him to this man. I can't imagine having sat through all those stories of my neighbor's if she hadn't been absolutely loving every minute of the transaction. Her stories were full of animation and joy. Her voice changed to indicate different characters, different emotions, and she waved her arms around expressively as she gestured to make sure we understood.

Wheeler's turns of phrase and descriptive metaphors make his story come to life. When he says the frog was "whirling in the air like a doughnut," I can see it. And of course the frog hit the floor "as solid as a gob of mud" (174); now it seems like the only reasonable way for a frog to hit the floor. The personification of these outrageous animals is also pure entertainment. When Andrew Jackson "gave Smiley a look as much as to say his heart was broke," I really felt for him. I believe, truly, that Dan'l Webster was "modest and straight for'ard" (174).

But as I read it, I heard it in my neighbor's voice. I couldn't make the description Twain gives of Wheeler's narration match the story itself. This is a story that demands animation. I don't blame the listener for getting up and leaving before hearing about the yellow cow, but if my neighbor had been telling it, I bet he would have stayed.

The Risks of Satire

Reading Swift's "A Modest Proposal" made me wonder about the power of satire. Certainly, we've been presented (and are likely to continue to be presented) with political satire on every side. Particularly memorable satirical moments from the past presidential campaign came to mind.

Tina Fey's eerie mimicry of Sarah Palin provided a much-needed boost to SNL's ratings. Palin was already a common topic of mockery across the internet and, in some cases, even on news stations. Fey managed to catch the essence of the most commonly cited visual elements of satire: the hair, the glasses, the unidentifiable accent, and the catchphrases. As far as the things Fey actually said, they didn't stray that far from Palin's actual remarks. The satire came mainly in taking these actual quotes and isolating them, bringing even more attention to them.

Speaking of visual elements, who can forget the uproar surrounding the satirical New Yorker cover?

The New Yorker tried without much luck to defend the decision to print this cover. America was outraged by the portrayal. This incident clearly illustrates that satire is not always going to work.

Despite that risk, however, several politicians took a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach to satire. Sarah Palin herself later appeared on Saturday Night Live, standing next to her doppelganger and cracking jokes about her air headed persona. John McCain likewise appeared on SNL, mocking his own campaign strategy in a very amusing QVC satire. Perhaps my favorite example, Huckabee, during the primary season, appeared on the Daily Show and laughed off the fact that it was statistically impossible for him to win his party's nomination.

My question, then, is what makes satire work? It obviously can. Then again, it can obviously fail. And, like most humor, it can work for one person and fail for another.

Swift's proposal mocked not only the attitude that some had about the underprivileged children they saw in the streets, but also Aristotelian argument itself. However, if the reader doesn't recognize that he's using Aristotelian argument, that part of the satire fails. One factor for satire, then, is knowledge. The audience must be knowledgeable about the topic at hand. McCain's QVC skit probably wouldn't be funny to someone who wasn't following the campaign. The New Yorker cover required the reader to be familiar with the recent criticisms of Obama and his wife (that his wife was anti-American, that the two of them participated in a "terrorist fist bump," that Obama was a Muslim). Did this cover fail to gain popularity because it tried to satirize too many things at once? Did it fail because it picked up on some of the comments from a marginalized group of people?

I wonder, then, if in order to be successful, satire must also discuss something that a majority of people are (at least partially) guilty of doing? Though I can't pretend to be an expert on the subject, I'd imagine that most of Swift's contemporary readers would have to feel a pang of guilt while reading the essay. Of course their first reaction would be indignation at the horrendous suggestion that we eat children, but they would then have to compare that defense to the indifference or annoyance they likely felt towards those same children moments before. Though Swift's essay is not a modern piece, it has staying power with readers because the mistreatment of our most impoverished citizens is an issue we still struggle with today.

Another example of a piece that meets these standards is this Onion piece about a man with Hodgkin's Disease that no one "would hold up as a model employee" that is costing his co-workers "$22 per employee per month" because of his health care costs. Most readers should be familiar with the health care problem in America and recognize the satire of it. At the same time, I think that most readers feel that familiar pang of guilt. How many of us have looked at the taxes we pay and complained that they are too high? It also satirizes consumerism's tendency to put a dollar sign to everything, to judge merit in productivity.

I realize that I haven't really made any conclusive statements about much of anything in this post, but I find satire fascinating and confusing. And while it sometimes makes me feel guilty, I usually find it hysterical.

Metaphor in "Parson John Bullen's Lizards"

In class, "Parson John Bullen's Lizards" was introduced to us as "written slapstick." Admittedly, I'm not a particular fan of slapstick. It never really makes me laugh.

However, as I read through the description of the chaotic climax of "Lizards," I found myself more amused than I typically am with slapstick. I could visualize the scene, and what I visualized was fairly typical of the slapstick I've seen on the screen: the slapstick that isn't funny to me. What then, is the difference? Why does this make me laugh when watching it acted out probably would not?

I'm not certain of the answer, but I think that it has a lot to do with the metaphor. The first part of the story that I marked as particularly funny to me was the description of the pastor "standin' astraddle of [Sut], a-foamin' at the mouf, a-chompin' his teeth--gestrin' with the hickory club--and a-preachin'" (236).

Sut's narrative voice is full of these metaphorical descriptions that bring the action to life in a way that, ironically, actually bringing the action to life wouldn't work for me. Maybe it's because envisioning someone foaming at the mouth and chomping at the teeth while preaching allows for a comical imaginative scene whereas actually seeing this portrayed would just seem over the top and ridiculous.

Another example of this descriptive metaphor occurs when Sut describes one of the lizards diving "head-fust into the bosom of a fat woman as big as a skinned hoss and nigh onto as ugly" (239). Once more, any attempt to physically portray this woman would either fall short of Sut's description or be too ridiculous for me to find funny (unless, perhaps, it was a cartoon rather than live action). Now that I think of it, I find slapstick humor in cartoons much funnier than I do in any live-action portrayal, so the way that I envision these descriptions is probably connected with that.

The metaphor also functions as a supplement to the dialect. Many of the metaphors are region specific. For example, Sut comments that the lizards' climbing made "a noise like squirrels a-climbin a shellbark hickory" and the Pastor slapped himself "about the place where you cut the bes' steak outen a beef." These colorful phrases acted to not only highlight the humorous quality of the action, but to also create a better understanding of the setting, a central point to the plot of the story. This story would not be nearly as funny if it took place in a large city. The fact that these people all know one another and know everything about one another's lives highlights the humility of the Pastor (as well as the initial reason for the lecture he gives Sut).

What Are You Laughing At?

I have to admit when I first read the series of (often conflicting) theories of humor for class, I began to wonder if it was even worth trying to figure out why we laugh. From Descartes' biological explanation of laughter being spontaneously produced when blood fills the lungs to Hobbes' belief that we laugh because we recognize our own superiority, it seems unclear if we'll ever really know the physiology behind laughter.

Freud's theory, however, raised new questions that renewed my interest in the topic. When Freud discusses humor (which he categorizes as different from the comic and joking), he remarks that in making a joke about one's own situation "one spares oneself the affects to which the situation would naturally give rise and overrides with a jest the possibility of such an emotional display." To me, this shifts the focus from "What causes us to laugh" to "What purpose does laughing serve"--a question I find infinitely more interesting.

A quick search query about humor as a defense mechanism led me to this blog entry. In it, "Dr. Sanity" blogs about various levels of defense mechanisms. The first (and most psychologically detrimental) manifests itself in denial and delusions. The second (categorized by immaturity) is marked by projection and "acting out." The third (widespread, but ineffective coping mechanisms) contains things like repression and dissociation.

Humor, however, falls into the fourth category--a category "Dr. Sanity" says is both the most healthy and most mature way of dealing with difficult events. Humor has for it's category-mates altruism and anticipation: both categories that illustrate foresight and useful action.

Humor, then, seems to not only be a defense mechanism, but one of the most sophisticated and productive ones. I think it would be very interesting to look at the types of humor that come about as defense mechanisms and to see if there are any correlations between types of humor and severity of the trauma. (Some of the information that I found while browsing this topic included studies over the humor some Jewish victims used during the Holocaust).

Of course, defense is not the only productive role humor can play in our society. Humor can also make us think about a topic in more depth (as we discussed when watching the George Carlin clips) or perpetuate ideas in an attention-grabbing way (the first thing that comes to mind is the anti-smoking campaign that often uses humor to get across its message).

I may be starting to venture into a new topic now, but I think that this last point also brings up a clear concern with the way that humor is used in our society. As a critical viewer of advertisements, I have realized that many ad campaigns use humor in place of substance. Instead of illustrating the worth of a product, many commercials rely completely on making us laugh. The most obvious example to me would be the beef jerky commercials with the Sasquatch; there's nothing in these commercials that should make someone want beef jerky or that illustrates why this beef jerky is the best quality, value, etc. The primary goal of the commercial is to make us laugh and, presumably, to remember them (ironically, I've forgotten the brand name). I would like to look into it more, but I assume that this advertising strategy is effective or it would not be used so often. If so, does this highlight some of the risks of humor? Can it be a distraction from substance? Shouldn't we, as a society, think more critically about the ideas being pitched to us?