"Black Humor", English name: black humor, also translated as Sick humor
Background
Black humor came into being, developed in the 1960s, and flourished in The 1970s had its own specific era background. At that time, after the Korean War in the United States, on the one hand, social conflicts and labor-capital conflicts were frequent; on the other hand, McCarthyism created a repressive and suffocating atmosphere in the entire society; in the early 1960s, the United States was involved in the Vietnam War, with the defeat of the war and the tragic suffering of the U.S. military. The casualties caused a surge in anti-war sentiment across the country, making the situation relatively turbulent and the social situation relatively chaotic. The idea of ??Western democracy has been doubted by some people in the face of reality, traditional moral concepts have been abandoned, and the truth of life and thought has been doubted. Under such circumstances, the small and medium-sized bourgeoisie in the United States, out of their innate fear of the communist revolution, and in a social context where they were at a loss what to do, began to ridicule and criticize reality, combine exposure and satire, fantasy and denial. The "black" "humor".
Origin
As early as the 1920s, a French surrealist writer Andre Breton compiled a book called "Anthology of Black Humor", 1965 In 2007, the American writer Bruce Jay Friedman compiled and published the works of 12 writers with a black humor style published in American newspapers and periodicals since the 1960s into a short book, titled " Black Humor". In the same year, the American critic Knickerbocker published an article "The Humor of a Fatal Sting", clearly calling this type of writers the "black humor" school, and thus the modernist literary genre named after "black humor" was born in the United States.
School
An important literary school in the United States in the 1960s. In March 1965, Friedman compiled a collection of short stories, including the works of 12 writers, titled "Black Humor", which is where the term "black humor" comes from. It is one of the most representative genres in American novel creation in the 1960s. After entering the 1970s, the momentum of "black humor" has greatly diminished, but new works still appear from time to time. It still has a profound influence in American literature. Its main writers include Joseph Heller, Kurt Voynig, Thomas Pinchon, John Bass, James Purdy, Bruce Jay Friedman, Donald Barthelme, Cormac McCarthy et al.
Analysis
The "black humor" novelist highlights the absurdity of the world around the characters and the oppression of individuals by society, and expresses the environment and individuals in a helpless and ironic attitude (i.e. " "self"), and amplify, distort, and deform this mutual incoherence, making them appear more absurd, comical, and at the same time heavy and depressing. Therefore, some critics call "black humor" "humor under the gallows" or "humor in times of disaster." "Black humor" writers often create some eccentric "anti-hero" characters, using their ridiculous words and deeds to allude to social reality and express the writer's views on social issues. In terms of description techniques, "black humor" writers also break with tradition. The plots of their novels lack logical connections. They often mix narratives of real life with fantasy and memories, and mix serious philosophy with gags. For example, Heller's "Catch-22", Pinchin's "Gravity's Rainbow", and Voynig the Younger's "A First-Class Breakfast". Some "black humor" novels mock the spiritual crisis of mankind, such as Bass's "The Tobacco Broker" and Purdy's "Capital Wright Begins."
As an aesthetic form, "black humor" belongs to the category of comedy, but it is also a perverted comedy with a tragic color. The emergence of "black humor" is related to the turmoil in the United States in the 1960s. The ridiculous things and "comedy" contradictions in contemporary capitalist society are not created by writers' subjective will; they are reflections of that social life. Although this kind of reflection has certain social significance and cognitive value, although the writers also criticized all authorities, including the ruling class, they emphasized that the social environment is difficult to change, so their works often reveal a pessimistic and despairing mood
Characteristics
What makes black humor different from ordinary humor is that its absurdity, cynicism, and cynicism contain heaviness and anguish, tears and pain, melancholy and cruelty. Therefore, in Its bitter laughter contains tears and even anger. Later, people usually used the term "black humor" in this sense.
The artistic characteristics of black humor
It is a kind of dumbfounding humor, a mixture of tragic content and comedy form, which expresses the absurdity of the world, the alienation of people by society, and the destruction of rational principles. The confusion and futility of self-struggle are its central content. In the face of all this, people laugh cynically and use a humorous attitude towards life to distance themselves from reality in order to maintain the dignity of the devastated people, which is the so-called "black humor".
“Anti-hero” characters: The spiritual world of characters often tends to split and become “anti-heroes” with dual colors of tragedy and comedy. They use their ridiculous words and deeds to allude to social reality and express the author’s views on social issues. view.
The "anti-novel" narrative structure method: express the confusing plot through hints, foils, contrasts, and symbols. Breaking the rational chronological order, accelerating the pace of jumps, the plot lacks logical connections, often mixing narration of real life with fantasy memories, and mixing serious philosophy with gags. The writing style is full of irony, and the language often breaks general grammar rules and inherent word collocation habits.
It is allegorical.
Main writers and their works
1. Nabokov can be regarded as the earliest writer of black humor. He published the novel "Lolita" in 1955 and later published Novels such as "Puning" (1957) and "Dark Light" (1962) have become the de facto veterans of the black humor school.
2. Joseph Heller (Joseph Heller), famous in the literary world for "Catch-22", later wrote "Something Goes Wrong" (1974) and "As Good as Gold" "(1979), became recognized as a representative writer of black humor.
3. Kurt Vonnegut (Kurt Vonnegut) is famous for his novels full of humor and peculiar style. His "Slaughterhouse-Five" (1969) made black humor novels The impact of creation reaches its peak. In addition, his "Cat's Cradle" (1963) and "Timequake" are also excellent black humor works.
4. Thomas Pynchon, who studied under Nabokov, became a rising star in the black humor genre with his novel "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973). This novel explores human sexual desire. It is connected with modern science and technology and raises issues such as life and death, the world and human nature. The author uses the parabola "gravity rainbow" formed after the missile is launched to symbolize the world and death, expressing his pessimism about the future of the world.
5. William Gaddis, whose novel "Little Tycoon" (1975) used an exaggerated satire to describe the image of a child who made a fortune through speculation, and won the 1976 National Book Award.
6. Thomas Berger, his novel "Little Giants" (1964) satirizes the seemingly powerful but actually small Western society.
7. John Hawkes, he is considered "the most original speaker of our time". The representative work "Blood Orange" describes a couple living a primitive sex life on an imaginary island, becoming a model of "anti-novel".
8. John Barth, in his masterpiece "Giles the Shepherd Boy" (1966), uses an "anti-hero" description technique to describe the impact of Giles, a college student. The description of persecution and even insanity from two aspects of magic reflects the harm caused to mankind by the two major political groups in the world during the Cold War.