An Analysis of The Thurber Carnival Essay -- Thurber Carnival Essays

An compend of The Thurber Carnival The Fables for Our Time contained in Thurbers The Thurber Carnival are, in my opinion, particularly satisfactory examples of a writer successfully breaking frame of references in order to bring forth biliousness and satire. In this essay I am going to explore the briny methods Thurber uses to create humor and satire in the fables The Shrike and the Chipmunks and The Unicorn in the tend2. firstly though, what do I mean by the broken frame? This is a reference to the view that the violation of our frames of reference, and the recognition of the incongruousness caused by it, is the basic element of humour. If the incongruity needs to be explained, the humour will be lost. Kant expresses this idea when he says Laughter is an affection arising from a strained antepast being utterly reduced to nothing3. Thurber violates several different types of expectation in his attempts to create humour and satire. These range from expectation of the rule s of fable and other literature, to expectation of characterisation, and expectation of the familiar saying. The Shrike and the Chipmunks, is first and foremost a parody of the traditional fable. It has all told the traditional ingredients the anthropomorphised Chipmunks, tally with stereotyped human characters, the building of suspense over a perceived right and wrong type of behaviour, a corresponding climax, and a moral at the end. Anthropomorphism is a common proficiency of humour. Umberto Eco explains that this is so that the audience can laugh at the broken frame, without the discomfort of empathy with the frame breaker. It is for this reason that the animalisation of the comic hero is so important4. only if quite apart from this use, Thur... ... 1-9. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement, Book II. E307 Photocopy. pp. 196-203. Thurber, James. The Thurber Carnival. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books, 1983. End Notes 1. Umberto Eco, Frames of Comic Freed om, in Carnival, ed. T. A. Sebeok (Berlin Mouton Publishers, 1984), p. 4. 2. James Thurber, The Thurber Carnival (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books, 1983). Fables for Our Time pp. 278 - 305. The Shrike and the Chipmunks pp. 290-291. The Unicorn in the Garden pp. 304-305. 3. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, Book II, E307 Photocoy. p. 199. 4. Eco, p. 2. 5. Thurber, p. 290. 6. Thurber, p. 290. 7. Thurber, p. 291. 8. Thurber, p.305. 9. Burton Bernstein, Thurber A Biography (Great Britain Lowe & Brydone, 1975), p. 308. 10. Eco, p. 2.