My Dry Humor

           I hate having to come up with things that are funny. My purposeful humor is not funny in the least. It's like asking horse to 'moo' like a cow. It's just unnatural and plainly not right.
           My humor is completely in the moment and sometimes unintentional. It's also usually dry, sarcastic humor that can either be taken as a joke or completely seriously. Sometimes that kind of humor helps me out, but most of the time it back fires. I'll say something completely sarcastic and someone will take it seriously. There is always one person who just doesn’t understand, and , usually, it's my parents. They fall for it and then they will walk away talking about the 'kids these days' and how they can 'never understand us.'
           It's either that, or I'll say something controversial as a joke and the people around me will take me seriously and it will turn into a huge argument. This happens to me all of  the time and it usually ends badly because, even though I told the people that I was joking, they still insist that I should not have been joking about such a serious topic.
           But, when someone kactually does understand my humor, it makes me feel very funny and happy that somebody actually understands me.

Tartuffe Comments

Sarah Hyland as Haley Dunphy

                   

                    Through sarcastic dialogue with her siblings and her parents, Sarah Hyland’s depiction of Haley utilizes contrasting foil, blue humor and flat character in order to portray a stereotypical teenage girl.  

                    Haley is characterized as a stereotypical teenage girl and her younger sister, Alex, is characterized as a book nerd—Haley’s polar opposite. Their interactions are similar to a typical relationship between two sisters, always fighting and disagreeing with each other. Haley is constantly having arguments with her mom about how she does not need to go to college and puts little effort into learning different subjects in school; “Holá Gloria, gracias for coming over.” Alex, her foil, wears glasses, and seems to always have a book with her. It can be inferred that she has great dreams about college and her future. A teenager who is able to hide things very easily from her parents, Haley got mad at Alex in a scene when they were trying to hide a dent in their mom’s van, saying, “you disgust me—“ to Alex, then immediately cutting off to Gloria “—Are you hungry?” Their scenes together are very funny because the audience is easily able to connect to their stereotypical characterizations. They talk about things that two normal sisters would talk about, and make fun of each other as well, such as when Alex says a big word and Haley says, “I don’t know what that means—and don’t tell me.” The humor also comes from Alex’s side when she says to Haley, “The only stage you’ll be jumping to will have a pole on it,” suggesting that Haley does not have a bright future ahead of her.

            Blue humor is when comic effect is brought about with a topic that can be easily offensive, and Haley seems to always be caught up in these conversations with her dad. The fact that these conversations are with her dad make the scenes even funnier because daughter-father conversations are commonly awkward. In Virgin Territory, the two are caught talking about virginity through dolls, and how “it happens, dolls grow up.” The humor in this scene is that both of them keep using the dolls as an analogy for Haley and how she is no longer a virgin. She also gets caught in awkward moments where she exclaims about “wearing one of [Kenneth’s] bras” and asking Kenneth if he would still have been as successful as he is now if he had gone to college, “except [it would come] four years later.” Another seemingly offensive topic that Haley is caught in with Phil turned from a nice conversation about Phil “walking [Haley] down the aisle,” and turned to Haley telling her dad that he would probably be “in perv jail” by that time. Different from the other scenes, this one brings the comic effect because of the offensive way that Haley ruined Phil’s moment.

            Previously mentioned, Haley is a stereotypical teenage girl who loves to party and hates school, this can also characterize her as one of the flat characters in Modern Family. Haley’s attitude and tone do not change from scene to scene, no matter which member of her family she is talking to. Her care free and sarcastic attitude carries from conversations with her sister that “saying nothing is not lying” to her mom when she says, “ease up. It’s a holiday.” The stereotypical teenager comes out when she says “Uh I have a party tonight. You promised I could go if I got a B on my test. I studied, I read stuff, what was the point of all that?” This side of her is commonly seen when she is talking about school or her friends, and doesn’t change much in her conversations with and about her family.

            Teenage girls are easily able to connect to Sarah Hyland’s character, Haley Dunphy, because she provides comic scenes through her sarcastic dialogue with her family using the contrasting foil between her and Alex, the blue humor in her interactions with her father, and the flat character that helps portray her as a stereotypical teenage girl.

A Modest Proposal for Over Population

During the Great Potato Famine of 1740, Ireland was undergoing a potato famine as well as over population. A different problem from this time period was that the protestant government was being overbearing and controlling with their Penal Laws that discriminated against the lower classes in Ireland. These three problems put together caused many families to become poor and depressed and in need of laughter and comedy, and that is exactly what Jonathan Swift brought with his essay. Shifting from a grim to a sarcastic tone in A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift employs dramatic imagery, humorous pantagruelism, and skewed logic in order to mock the overruling government and provide humor for the lower classes.

The beginning of the proposal immediately provides the audience with illustrations of “cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex” and “six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.” These descriptions provide the reader insight to the lives of the inferior Irish individuals who were constantly pulling the short end of the stick. It describes the scene where mothers would have their children “in [their] arms, or on [their] backs, or at [their] heels” while they all begged for food and money to help them survive. With this first paragraph alone, the reader can now imagine the difficulties that the majority of Ireland’s population was having because there were too many mouths to feed, and not enough potatoes, or food in general, to go around. Soon introducing his modest proposal, though, Swift now offers images of “young healthy child[ren]” as “a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food.” In continuation of his proposal he continues to use this sarcastic tone to bring humor to his paper and laughter to his audience.

As a resident himself, Jonathan Swift knows firsthand how serious of a situation is it in Ireland. He starts off the proposal with a serious tone, stating only the facts and using only one point of view. Soon he is able to transform the work into having a sarcastic tone where he can poke fun at the government and their lack of validity. Statements about eating children, such as “the nation’s stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum,” create pantagruelism by directing the attention to the nation and how it will benefit from such a gruesome action as eating a child. By describing that “infant’s flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after,” suggests that children are like fruit; they are best if picked and eaten while still ripe. Another example of pantagruelism is with a man towards his wife. For example, this simile: “men would become as fond of their wives, during the time of their pregnancy, as they are now of their mares in foal,” creates a different condition where Swift is making fun of the treatment of a woman by her husband, even though domestic abuse is a serious topic.

Logic, in a proposal such as this, is important to include. Jonathan Swift’s use of logos towards the beginning of his essay supplies a base for everything else to work off of and support. Also, it is important that he provided the logic before he transferred to a sarcastic tone because otherwise all of this statistics would have been discredited.  “There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born” is only one example of Swift’s logos, but it is very useful because it includes information about the large amount of children that are being born and causing the over population. On the other hand, Swift does continue to use logos after he establishes his proposal, and that is what makes it skewed. An example of this new skewed logic is when he says, “I am assured by our merchants,” then proceeds to talk about older children being “no saleable commodity.” The introduction phrase gives the rest of the sentence validity because it infers that what he is about to say is not just a guess, it is a fact—but really, it is completely fake. Also, Swift’s strategic use of numbers, as in, “of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed,” offer a different form of validity that is similar to the previous answer in that it makes it more real, but false at the same time. Swift’s use of logic, although in some places not true, presents reliable statements for the rest of the malarkey to build off of.

The bluntness of the imagery, the reliability of the logos, and the humor of the pantagruelism all come together to form the humorous piece of work that Jonathan Swift was striving for. It is an essay that was able to include all of Ireland’s troubles and capitalize on each. The most important one, it seems, was his cure for over population—just eat the babies before they get too old. There was also an emphasis on the government’s discrimination of the lower class Irish individuals when he mentioned that women and their children have to beg for food and money. That same scene provides an example of the poverty and hunger that the potato famine caused. Jonathan Swift was able to bring humor into A Modest Proposal by creating over exaggerated sarcasm through imagery, pantagruelism and logos.

My Modest Proposal for Obesity and Eating Disorders

When you look to the world around you, what do you see? Do you see people as individuals who are unique and beautiful in their own way? Do you forget about judgments and give everyone equal opportunities no matter who they are, what they look like or what side they swing for?

Of course you don’t! No one does these days! No matter how accepting you think you are, nothing will prevent you from avoiding someone at a bar that looks like he could snap you in half. You are going to run screaming and crying from that man, I do not care who you are!

This is America’s problem. We are so judgmental that if you are not pretty, muscular or skinny, you are not accepted into society. People see hair infested with dandruff, large rimmed glasses adorned at crooked nose and a pimply face and are immediately turned off. Nothing will make you want to even walk next to that person never mind have a conversation with them.

Body image is so important to people lately, especially teenagers going through middle school and high school. There is so much pressure on them that they think it is acceptable to starve themselves or binge after every meal. There is even bullying of overweight people because the look different—and that most likely only makes them eat even more.

Bullying can cause intense depression that can even lead to suicide. Depression, often a repercussion of bullying, is common in 15% of the population. 66% of people who have depression will commit suicide and 30% will attempt it.

Suffering from depression myself, I was never bullied but I know how hard it is to deal with people whom you do not like and have to second guess everything you are wearing because you do not know if it is socially acceptable or makes you look too fat. Since I was 7 I have been self conscious and unable to really break out of my shell because I have never been comfortable with myself.

I believe that my modest proposal will completely cure our country of bullying because of weight.

I propose that every single person in our beautiful country be put on a diet that will regulate their eating habits and eventually make everyone the same size. The process will consist of three stages that will all depend on the age of the participant.

Stage one is to put everyone under the age of 65 on their respective diet. If you are 65 and suffering from an eating disorder or obesity, then you are too far gone to be helped. There is no hope for you.

But otherwise, everyone will be eating only organic foods, foods that are rich and nutrients and only the amount that they need. All diets will be balanced and healthy. We will spend about a year mastering this stage before we move onto the next.

As an alternate meal, we will be offering Plumpy’Nut, the nut based paste that is offered to African children that are dying of famine.

Stage two will be dedicated to incorporating sports into the lives of all Americans. For each age group there will be a selection of sports that an individual can choose from, and it will vary among people of different genders and ages. When one grows into a different age group, they will need to change their sport to one that is offered for their group. Only when they are 25 will they be able to choose the sport that they want to continue to play.

After half a year of this stage, more creative arts will be incorporated alongside sports so that individuals become well rounded people. Everyone knows that creative people are the only successful people in this world, so having these two activities alongside each other will be very beneficial for each individual. This will mostly benefit the older Americans because you won’t have to be attending school to get all of these benefits.

This stage will include a lot of friendship and bonding among the different groups so no one has to suffer from being an outcast.  This stage will also distract people from food in a way that these activities will keep them busy. Most people eat when they are bored. They usually aren’t even hungry; they just have nothing else to do. So with this stage, Americans won’t have time to be bored.

In the third year of developing this proposal, we will be in stage three. This stage will mostly be geared towards the younger generations. It includes changing all school systems from focusing on academics, to focusing on sports and creativity.

Like I mentioned before, it is only the creative and active people that are actually successful. No one else has any importance, so we will be giving our citizens more importance and self worth.

Put together and fully developed, these stages will bring the citizens of America to a healthy weight depending on their age.

The last stage that will occur for eternity is that individuals will have to maintain their required weight. Weight will be monitored by the government, and if we believe we need to step in, we will put the individual through a boot camp until they are at the set weight again.

Eating disorders will not be handled lightly. They are serious and need to be dealt with before they become and life altering problem that affects the individual and their peers. We do not want people to think that anorexia or bulimia—or even obesity—is alright, and that is why we cannot let it pass our radars.

Among the many benefits of this proposal, is that the price of health insurance will dramatically decrease. On a different side, suicide, as well as bullying rates will drop because there is less of a reason for people to be discriminated against.

Overall, this proposal will bring a more happy, more fit, and more successful America.

Kiss and Tell

       Illustrating an awkward interaction between a teenager on a date, and her parents in "Kiss and Tell," Alain de Borton utilizes characterizing syntax to create a comic scene about a common teenager trying to stray from the path her parents have beaten. Borton uses different syntax for each character to further characterize their personality. It seems that Isabel is trying very hard to distance herself from her parents, but by her description of her mother's "willow tree" dress, it is evident that her strides are not very successful. Later in the story her mother suggests that it is a "pity [Isabel doesn't] have more of a cleavage" for the dress she is wearing. These two quotes suggest that Isabel and her mother are actually very similar because they comment on and describe things in a the same manner. Her father seems to be on a different realm, clearly seen when he is "looking at the light fixtures" and "losing tickets to the car park," but not so different that Isabel did not inherit anything of his. Isabel's detailed description of her parents at the beginning is very similar to her father's description of the light fixtures towards the end. These examples give comedy to the fact that people may wish to be nothing like their parents but, in the end, there is nothing much that you can do to prevent it from happening.

Naked Lunch

Shifting from a characterization of the male to a characterization of the female in "Naked Lunch," Micheal Hollinger utilizes detailed characterization, extended metaphor and sarcastic irony to illustrate the complicated relationship between a dominant male and his submissive girlfriend.