Radhakrishnan 1 Sachin Radhakrishnan EWRT 1C Shively 22 November 2010 Aunt Julias White Teeth Comedy can be expressed in various

ways, different writers employing their own unique set of methods garnered from a diverse grab-bag of comic modes and writing styles. Two texts that are quite different in several areas, yet still cater to readers looking for a laugh, are Zadie Smiths White Teeth and Mario Vargas Llosas Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. With both texts, readers find themselves succumbing to the heavily infused black comedy infused, but the laughs emerge in different ways and at different times as the authors impregnate the text with their own unique methods to garner mirth. Although both authors use black comedy throughout their novels, they vary wildly in tone, comedic timing, and subject matter, the former text containing much more laughable content, with the latter arousing more feelings of discomfort. Black comedy is a comic mode that focuses on finding the humor in morbid topics and will most likely bring about laughter and feelings of discomfort at the same time. Zadie Smith is able to apply this comic mode in White Teeth without the latter result of its usage, findings ways to amplify the humor in the text to mask any distress arising from her chosen content. Right off the bat in Smiths novel, the reader experiences her black comedy as Archie is sitting in his car with the windows rolled up, trying to commit suicide:

Radhakrishnan 2 Hes gassing himself, Abba, [said Arshad] . . . No one gasses himself on my property, Mo snapped as he marched downstairs. We are not licensed . . . Do you hear that, mister? Were not licensed for suicides around here. This place halal. Kosher, understand? If youre going to die round here, my friend, Im afraid youve got to be thoroughly bled first . . . Archie dragged his head off the steering wheel. And in the moment between focusing on the sweaty bulk of brown-skinned Elvis and realizing that life was still his, he had a kind of epiphany . . . Life wanted Archie. She had jealously grabbed him from the jaws of death, back to her bosom . . . Archie, still choking on the thank-yous, reversed, pulled out from the curb, and turned right (Smith 7). Although Archie is trying to kill himself in a painful way, the scene is able to garner laughs from the reader because of how the butcher cant accept his attempt at suicide with the lame reason of it not being Halal and that he and his father have no license for suicides. The funnier part of this scene is how Archie mistakes the butchers words for an act of goodwill that he was trying to stop his suicide and give Archie a second chance at life. Archies decision to abandon his gassing attempt eradicates the discomfort caused by the butchers lack of compassion and lets the readers laugh as we realize Archie will remain in the story. This scene illustrates Smiths ability to overcome uncomfortable situations by making it so nothing disastrous happens as a result, for example: Archie did not just go somewhere else to resume killing himself. Because of this, the reader discards the notion that he/she cannot laugh due to Archies attempt at painfully gassing himself and bursts into laughter as Archie is pathetically saved by a guy who didnt even want to save him. Smiths comedic timing, choosing to end off the dramatic scene with comic relief, transitions the tone of the text from a disconcerting, on-edge feeling to a soothing sigh of liberation, as the reader is released from the discomforting bind of the perilous situation. The

Radhakrishnan 3 idea of Archie gassing himself to death adds to the hilarity because the author decides to involve her character in a suicide method that is highly improbable, usually leading one to the hospital in an unconscious state instead of the afterlife. Since the method takes a long time to carry out, it takes away from the seriousness of the matter as the reader bores quickly and finds the suicide more of a time-consuming task than a tragic event. If Archie had been in the butchers lot with a gun pointed at his head, the scene would have a much more dangerous tone to it because of the deathly sense of immediacy of the event, garnering fear from the reader as well as more attention from the butcher, which would effectively turn the story away from comedy. Smith succeeds in finding the right mixture of subject matter to control the reactions of readers to keep a sense of death involved, but makes it so the readers are not too worried about the character dying to laugh their heads off. In Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter however, Llosa does not seek to overcome the discomfort, but rather ends his scenes in a morbid fashion that garners more uneasiness than laughter. In the third serial installment of the novel, we see Camachos character, Gumercindo Tello, in the courtroom fighting against a rape accusation. What happens is not usual of a courtroom proceeding, but rather an outbreak of chaos: I borrowed it from you to prove my innocence . . . There was a Nazarene expression on his face, and the knife in his right hand gave off a terrible premonitory gleam. His left hand slid down unhurriedly toward his trousers . . . I am pure, Your Honor. I have never known a woman. What other men use to sin with, I only use to pee with . . . Gumercindo Tello was now holding the corpus delicti in his left hand and, an executioner brandishing an ax and mentally measuring its trajectory to the victims neck, raising the knife and preparing to let it fall to consummate the inconceivable proof (Llosa 119-120).

Radhakrishnan 4 Llosas scene contains enough exaggeration of a normal courtroom scene to prompt some laughter, but more discomfort comes as a result of the violent path on which his story manipulations take the reader. Although it may be funny for the defendant to lunge across the courtroom and grab a petty letter-opener, risking getting shot by the bailiff and giving the judge more reason to favor the opposition, his proposed actions give the reader discomfort as a courtroom castration does little to arouse laughter. The end result of Tello chopping off his manhood and not something similar to the comical ending as we see in White Teeth gives the reader some queasiness because of the lack of any obvious comic relief. Llosas subject matter differs greatly in seriousness from Smiths because the act of self-mutilation through the quick travels of a sharp object brings about much more humiliation and pain in a very short period of time than compared to the long and pathetic attempt at gassing oneself. There is too much serious in Aunt Julia to not take it seriously. The idea of self-inflicted pain is apparent in both scenes, but the difference that prompts more laughter in Smiths novel rather than Llosas is the end result that affects the seriousness of the preceding events, the former author reducing the seriousness of the story while the latter amplifying it and outdoing the dramatic sequences with a painful, queasy bang. The tone is affected as a result of the absence of comic relief at the end, never allowing the reader to sit back in his/her chair in laughter but rather bringing him/her to the edge in anticipation of a horrid transpiration of events. Even if the author were to add something funny at this point, it would seem out of place and probably breathe an aura of relief rather than hilarity. Overall, Llosa takes too far of a stride into the zone of serious to retreat back and make a joke about it, which differs from Smiths writing as she smartly places her big toe just over that line to be able to quickly retract it and make her story funny.

Radhakrishnan 5 In conclusion, the results of the black comedy used in both White Teeth and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter are radically different due to the authors respective methods for going about expressing such a form of comedy, the former giving readers more room for laughter, the latter allowing for more discomfort to ensue from the reading. The differences in the seriousness between novels contribute heavily these results as Smith seeks to insert more laughable content more frequently while Llosa makes quick, uncertain jabs with his comedy, the reader getting more mixed feelings to the comedic timing. Even though much of Llosas dramatic and serious content comes during the radio serials, which the readers know are make-believe, it is tough not to perceive them as reality within the text as the author dedicates a generous amount of the novel to the meta-fiction. Perhaps the goals of the authors attribute the differences between the texts, as we can deduce Llosas inclination to focusing on satirizing certain subjects compared to Smiths goal of producing laughter out of any morbid situation. Nevertheless, the readers looking for a book painful for their abdomen will find more laughter in White Teeth rather than Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which will undoubtedly cause pain in their hearts more than anything else.