Humour and Irony in Great Expectations

Question 1

Letter to John Forster, p533, October 1860

Answer 1

“You will not have to complain of the want of humour asin The Tale of two cities. I have made the opening, I hope, in its general effect exceedingly droll. I have put a child and a good-natured foolish man, in relations that seem to me very funny. Of course I have got in the pivot on which the story will turn too- and which indeed,as you will remember, was the grotesque tragi-comic that first .. encouraged me

Question 2

Humour def

Answer 2

erives from the Latin “humor” = moisture, hence humid used int Middle Ages & during the Renaissance period - in the tradition of Hippocratic pathology and physiology - to denote the 4 humours of the body

4 fluids : lood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.
Depending on which fluid you had most in your body, you were : Sanguine / phlegmatic / choleric or melancholic

Question 3

Comedy of humours def

Answer 3

developed characters who were dominated by a particular mood , inclination or peculiarity. Ben Johnson, Everyman in is Humour, 1598

Question 4

humour in 18th century

Answer 4

But it is not until the 18th century that we find “humour associated with laughter and being used in contradistinction to wit.
⇒ wit = l’ironie = esprit brillant, mais mordant qui n’a pas bcp de compassion pour le false wit. ⇒ fossé entre humour et ironie.

False wit vs True wit = discrepancy ⇒ comedy of humours in the 16th century. Ben Johnson, 1st play created on this theory of personality and this passion.
1599 ⇒ B. Johnson wrote Everyman out of his Humour

Question 5

Humour is inseparable from a writing that plays with

Answer 5

The variations of the rhythm / too slow or too fast
The unsuitability of the tone to te content
The incongruity of the lexical register
The burlesque logic that settles at the most serious moment
The digression and the comments that attack the novelistic matter, taking away from it all emotional charge.

Question 6

Humour / human
Bergson, Le Rire Essai sur la signification du comique

Answer 6

“Le rire n’a pas de plus grand ennemi que l’émotion”
⇒ dès qu’on est dans l’empathie ou dans l’émotion on ne peut plus se moquer
⇒ discrepancy makes you laugh = relief = comic relief

Question 7

Humour / Human
YET at the same time humour is linked to us being human being
Bergson

Answer 7

“Il n’y a pas de comique en dehors de ce qui est proprement humain. Un paysage pourra être beau, gracieux, sublime, insignificant ou laid, il ne sera jamais risible”
Bergson, Le Rire Essai sur la signification du comique

Question 8

At the time when Dickens wrote GE there was a fairly recent but well-established tradition of humorous literature in GB.

Answer 8

Comedy of Humours : late 16th cent
Golden Age of Humour : 17th to 18th centuries
Humour : one of the main characteristics of Englishness

“[…] it so opens out before me that I can see the whole of a serial revolving on it in a most spectacular and comic manner” (Letter to John Forster, mid-September 1860, p 531)

Question 9

Irony

Answer 9

Dissimulation (Greek : eiron “dissembler, eironeia (simulated ignorance, Latin ironia
Unlike humour it has a long tradition : Socrates
1502 : First mention of Irony in English “yronie” : “of grammare, by whiche a man sayth one and hyveth to understand and the contrary”

Question 10

Irony for Cicero

Answer 10

the meaning was contrary to the words : discrepancy between signifier and signified

Question 11

Term that did not come into general use until latine in

Answer 11

Term that did not come into general use until latine in the 17h or early in the 18th
The concept of irony developed gradually and lagged far behind the practice of it.
Awareness of a discrepancy or incongruity between words and their meaning or btw actions and their results, btw appearance & reality.
In all cases : elements of the absurd and the paradoxical

Question 12

Functions of irony

Answer 12

: instrument of truth / chides, purifies, prefines, deflates, scorns and sends up ⇒ cathartic dimension ⇒ main fonctions

Question 13

Types of Irony :

Answer 13

Verbal irony : saying what one does not mean
Situational irony (or dramaticà irony :
Dramatic irony occurs whenever and author deliberately asks us to compare what 2 or more characters say of each other or what a character says now , with what he says or does later.
Irony is more ferocious than humour has a satirical character (social satire and moral condemnation)

Question 14

Characters and Value : Mrs Joes & Mr pocket

Answer 14

Mrs Joe : represents the cruel mother, meanness
Mrs Pocket : the unworthy mother, she is idle and snobbish

Question 15

The figure / tropes of Irony

Answer 15

antiphrasis (expressing the opposite) hyperbole (intention exaggeration for emphasis or comic effect), Litotes and understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite/ understatement for emphasis : not bad = good)

Question 16

Humour vs Irony

Answer 16

Main difference btw Irony and Humour : humour includes the other irony excludes him / her

Humour rime avec amour : le but est d’inclure l’autre VS Irony is at the expense of someone else.

Humour is not a genre, nor a sub-genre of the comic. Irony carries a judgement and tends to fix the meaning, humour casts a doubt on reality and institutes an interpretative uncertainty
But humour and irony are related

In both cases, the laughter is provoked by the co-presence in our mind of what is saif and not said, what is explicit and implicit. Humour, like irony depends upon a discrepancy btw signifier and signified (as in puns) or btw the intentions of the characters and what he truly achieves

Question 17

Epitomy of Irony in GE

Answer 17

Trabbs’ boy (cf XXX, p 188, 1, 8-19) pantomime / parody / mimesis / hyperbole: “fained to be in a paroxysm of terror” vs before it could have been a true behvaior.
He is affecting a false behaviour which is kind for a kind of drama. Trabb’s boy is like an actor. The gest by trabbs boy chapter XXX is a drama piece in three acts during p 22. “And I felt act on it could fail I” difference in how he is and how acting.
3rd act in this parody “I had not got as much..”

⇒ This pantomime. Directly pretending to incarnate Pip and pretend to ignore. He turns him out of the city. Somehow Pip is turned into a kind of scapegoat.
⇒ This is what Mimesis is about

Question 18

Mimesis

Answer 18

kind of irony through which you repeat what s.o else has said in a way that pretends to imitate his / her behaviour, posture, gestures, and tone in way that seems at first positive / favourable but which in effet / in the end ridicules them

Question 19

pastiche

Answer 19

(in which the stylistic devices and affectations of a writer are copied) or of parody (one particular work is copied)

sur les défauts alors que la parodie est + grinçante, s’empare de l’objet pour le déconstruire

Question 20

The ironic charge can be more or less conspicuous

Answer 20

(the hyperbole being a definite clue, exaggerated statement or claim not meant to be taken literally.)
The ironical intent of a text is seen through its repeating / echoing or mentioning a former text.

Question 21

To warp =travestir

Answer 21

Trabb’s boy doesn’t just imitate Pip”’s gesture but also his language = repeating with a variation.
⇒ Passage du pastiche à la parodie

Question 22

Scapegoat

Answer 22

goat has to bear all the diseases of the society. He has to leave the society to evacuate the diseases
Scapegoat > Pharmakos/ Pharmakon
⇒ He is at everybody’s expense = makes the other pay = irony

Only canonical texts or stereotypes, cultural clichés and topoï can thus be subjected to an ironical reference
In GE, see the use made of Hamlet (IV, p26, l9-10 & XXXI, p 193 beginning of the chapter. Saint Grace is here said with theatrical declamation : usually = intimate, low voice but here

Question 23

A tragi-comic text : Northrop Frye The anatomy of Criticism, 1957

Answer 23

Hero of the low mimetic mode, ie of most comedies and of realistic fiction : hero//us, common humanity
VS hero of the high mimetic mode : hero superior to other men, but not to his natural environment. Hero of most epic texts and of tragedy.
But because not superior on the natural environment he may suffer a dramatic irony on his main environment.

Question 24

GE : a tragi comic text

Answer 24

Pip transofmé en scape goat par Trapp’s boy.
In GE the catharsis belongs to the plot, not on the reaction of the reader. ⇒ pity
Pip is placed in the position of spectator, he experiences fear, atonement

Question 25

Aristotle’s Poetics :

Answer 25

Tragedy is ruled by a mythos = a plot defined once and for all
Mythe = structure figée adaptée et répétée par différentes civilisations, différents textes etc.

Different stages :
→ Hubris : wanton insolence (ex : Prometheus who want to steal the fire from the God. A hero want to be as good as gods)
→ Hamartia : tragic error in judgement/ flaw (tragic error that leads him to make a mistake)
→ Peripeteia : reversal of situation / shift of the tragic protagonist’s fortune from good to bad
→ Anagnorisis : recognition,
- p238, l25 “new” “recognition” “driven axay” = processus d’expulsion de quelque chose, ++ dudden but a clue that turn the whole plot around in a peripeteia.
- chp 42 p 240 l30

⇒ purification du héros se fait aussi grace à la réaction de peur et de pitié du spectateur pour le personnage. Ici c’est PIp qui ressent la peur et la pitié pour Magwitch ce qui fait qu’il change de comportement)

Question 26

In Greek tragedy : Hero turned into an outcast / scapegoat

Answer 26

In GE, the plot does not stop with moment of anagnorisis
In GE catharsis and purification are part and parcel of the plot.
Pip, because he is put in a marginal situation (sharing the convict’s plight) is expelled from GB : self-expulsion but the result is the same.

Question 27

Therapeutical effect of his empathy for Magwitch,

Answer 27

, chap 42 p263, l38 “he regarded me with a look of affection that made him almost abhorrent to me again, though I had felt great pity for him”

⇒ Pip evolves from Fear (XXXIX) to Pity (XLII) to Love ( XLVI)

Question 28

⇒ Pip evolves from Fear (XXXIX) to Pity (XLII) to Love ( XLVI)

Answer 28

Pip is finally reintegrated in the society he had left : this in itself is not enough to have the text turn into a tragi-comedy instead of just being a tragedy.
But this final turn of events is compounded with the pathos of the Pip’s situation. Pip is no longer a hero, he only wishes for a quiet happiness.
⇒ He manages to depart from the plot that has been written for him. Smdy has achieved to conspire him into someone he isn’t.

Question 29

Loss of identity crisis

Answer 29

don’t achieve to breath : Pip has to die the young boy he was
⇒ This recognition, Magwitch is his benefactor sweeping along from his sordid world in chihc living is synonymous with danger. Magwitch may be evicted. Either your own life is in danger or you are bound to be evicted = tragic–

His symbolic reintegration into society is signified by his return from New England : from being an outsider, he becomes normal again, reintegrates his family : from marginal he becomes normal again.

Question 30

& 3 GE : from mild humour to wriy irony and satire

Answer 30

The strings of comedy : joyful and light aspect of the text
See the scenes presenting the ill treatment of Pip by Mrs Joe Gargery.
Verbal puns which underline the comic of situation : description of Wemmick with his father, or Joe with Pip : tenderness and amusement. (Chap 25, p159 l 28-30 : ellipse of the logical link make the whole scene observed)

Herbert’s puns (XXX, p 189) “you brought your adoration and your portemanteau here” (syllepsis and zeugma at the same time). ⇒ adoration (sens figuré) associé au sens concret (port e manteau ) Zeugme = quand associé à un même verbe. Syllepsis ⇒ surcharge rhétorique stylistique qui crée décalage : soit on rabaisse adoration qui n’est pas un grand sentiment noble & le bagage peut être élevé et compris comme quelque chose de + métaphorique.

And about Clara’s father’s (30, p 192, l36-41) pun on “live on” confusion between the economic behind PIp’s question and the very pragmatic answer given by Herbert
Gap btw signifier and signified

Again (30, p 193, l3-6) difference btw metaphorical meaning of “to see” and its concrete literal perception (allez voir quelqu’un et voir devant soi)
Other examples : XXV p 159, XL, p 247, l14-15, XXIX, p 179 l44-45

Question 31

Repetitions and their comic effects

Answer 31

XXII p 145 “look about
Tilt x6 p 11 = comique de répétition = mvt physique et répétition dans le langage
KV p 336-7 wedding scene between Wemmick and Miss Skiffin “ Halloa! Here’s..the church/ a couple of pair of gloves.. “ : avoir apporté canne à pêche = image du fait qu’il a attrapé un beau poisson.

“Brought up by hand” Pumblechook / “portable property”. Wemmick : speech mannerism /
More or less the same effect is created by mispronunciation :
Joe & his difficulty with polysyllabic words :
“Coddle shell” (for codicil), LVII, p345- L32)
“Purple leptic fit” (apoplectic or epileptic, VII, p 41, l 21)
“Architectootallooral ( XXVII, p 171, l 43)

Question 32

Excess and hyperboles :

Answer 32

About Old Barley, Clara’s father “old Gruffandgrim” alliteration in G ( XLVI, p 280-281, l 35-39)
Herbert trying to open a door XXI, p 138 l 14(“making jam of his fruit by wrestling with the door” = situational humour + cliché of any funny movie

XXVI, p 162, l 36-40 Wemmick fires his gun on Pip’s first visit :

Question 33

Excess and caricatures

Answer 33

‘from the Italian : incaricare : exagérer)
Processes of metonymy and synecdoche at play
Wemmick a wooden creature (XXI, p 135, l21-27) also summed up by his mouth
(XXI, p13, l 17) + variations around his mouth (METTRE POST IT)
Comparison (XXIV, p 155, l 23-25)
Metaphor (XXIV, p 155, l39)
Repetition (XXXII, p199, l32, p 199-200 & 201 meant to convey Mr Wemmick’s humour + comic relief

Question 34

Reification : people turned into thing

Answer 34

Pip : small bundle of shivers (I, p10) // Mrs Woopsle’s great aunt : “ a miserable old bundle of incompetence (XVII, p 101, l 9) // p213 Pip “a likely young parcel of bones (X p63)
Lack of respect for people / dehumanised society.
Wemmick when he courts Miss Skiffins from l29 onwards XXXVII p 225. Close up on Wemmick’s mouth getting elongated

Mechanical aspect of things

Question 35

Mechanical aspect of things

Answer 35

“Ce qu’il y a de risible dans ce cas (….) c’est une certaine raideur de mécanique là où l’on voudrait trouver la souplesse attentive et la vivante flexibilité d’une personne” (essai sur la signification du comique)

Question 36

Other instances of mechanical behaviour inducing laughter:

Answer 36

Mr. Matthew Pocket lifting himself up by the hair when in despair (XXIII, p. 151, l. 2-6, p.152, l. 45)
Joe Gargery pulling his whiskers when embarrassed
Mr Jaggers Biting the side of his forefinger at people by the way of menace
Magwitch’s throat making clockwork noises

Pathetic fallacy and synecdoche

Cf Pumblechook choking an tar-water when he expects to drink Brandy : perfect illustration of the humorous art of Dickens. (V, p. 28, from l. 10) Definition of comedy by Bergson “Du mécanique plaqué sur du vivant.”

Question 37

Dramatic irony:

Answer 37

Occurs whenever an other deliberately asks us to compare what two or more characters say of each other, or what a character says now, with what he says or does later

Estella: brought up as a snob when she is in fact the daughter of a gypsy and of a convict. Matthew Pocket: a hapless father who has no time for his children but writes advice books on parenting.
Herbert Pocket: turns out to be Pip’s great friends.
Identity of Pip’s benefactor: cf dramatic irony of the title itself.
Pip’s expectations, not so great after all.

Question 38

Ferocious irony with a satirical slant:
Satirist

Answer 38

Satirist: “Self-appointed guardian of standards, ideals and truth, of moral as well as aesthetic values. He is a man who takes it upon himself to correct, censure and ridicule the follies and vices of society and thus to bring contempt and derision upon aberrations from a desirable and civilized norm. (…)

Question 39

Satire, Cuddon

Answer 39

Satire is born of the instinct to protest; it is protest become art”. (Cuddon p. 828)

Very often, satire is intentionally social: aims at the socio-cultural context of the work of art. Both the private and the public spheres can be the target of the satirist.
Here the tradesmen ( XIX p.119) and the law are decried.

Question 40

Here the tradesmen ( XIX p.119) and the law are decried.

Answer 40

Against religious authorities: Mrs Gargery’s funeral XXXV, p. 212-214: Dickens’ distaste of and mirth at funeral pomp see note p. 213.
When Pip and Drummle argue about Estella: XXXVIII, p. 233, l. 9 “Whether it was possible in a Christian country to get on without blood[…]”

Against moral flaws incarnated by certain characters: Mrs Joe Gargery: the bad mother, the shrew, Mrs Pocket: idleness and snobbishness (XXIII, p. 148-149), bad mother too (p. 151, l. 19, l. 44).
Opportunists, flatterers, boot-lickers who pester Pip once they think his fortune is made: servile Mr. Trabb ( XIX, p. 118-119), servile Mr Pumblechook (XXXV, p. 213, l.6 )
Gallery of pompous, silly and hypocritical sycophants around Miss Havisham, see her relative, Camilla (XI, p. 71)

Question 41

Avec Satire on vise

Answer 41

Avec Satire on vise la société toute entière.
“Du mécanique plaqué sur du vivant”
Dramatic irony