Laughing and dying
Apr. 11th, 2007 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranIn Pride and Prejudice, there's a yawning abyss just beneath the Bennett family's feet - the threat of ruin when Mr Bennett dies if his daughters are not all suitably married off. What's particularly interesting is the way this threat is presented. It's always there, but it's projected principally through the comical hysterics of Mrs Bennett. It's interesting to think of what the story would be like if the same threat was telegraphed through Elizabeth Bennett's thoughts or intrusive narration, or if Mrs Bennett's role as a comic character had been unrelated to the crisis at hand. The fact that it's overplayed for comedy lightens the story considerably, yet makes sure the threat is constantly in the reader's imagination.
The same technique shows up quite often, in different forms. Getting a secondary character to concentrate on the threat frees up the hero from too much angsting and fretting, and getting them to overplay it helps to stop the hero from looking too much like an idiot. The dynamics work just as well if the hero, when faced with the end of the world, is just as chagrined to find that the irritating minor character may just have been right all along.
Another variation is when the threat is played straight, but laughed off by the most threatened character. A good example here would be the threat of bankruptcy faced by Stephen Oblonsky in Anna Karenina. Again, the fear is not just the simple fear that something bad will happen, but the more subtle fear of comeuppance - that we have laughed once too many times when perhaps the joke is on us.
The same technique shows up quite often, in different forms. Getting a secondary character to concentrate on the threat frees up the hero from too much angsting and fretting, and getting them to overplay it helps to stop the hero from looking too much like an idiot. The dynamics work just as well if the hero, when faced with the end of the world, is just as chagrined to find that the irritating minor character may just have been right all along.
Another variation is when the threat is played straight, but laughed off by the most threatened character. A good example here would be the threat of bankruptcy faced by Stephen Oblonsky in Anna Karenina. Again, the fear is not just the simple fear that something bad will happen, but the more subtle fear of comeuppance - that we have laughed once too many times when perhaps the joke is on us.
