On the other side of the triptych the boundaries between discovery and comic invention are equally fluid -- as the present chapter will show -- although at first sight this is less obvious to see. That the Jester should be brother to the Sage may sound like blasphemy, yet our language reflects the close relationship: the word 'witticism' is derived from 'wit' in its original sense of ingenuity, inventiveness.* Jester and savant must both 'live on their wits'; and we shall see that the Jester's riddles provide a useful back-door entry, as it were, into the inner workshop of creative originality.
The Laughter Reflex
Laughter is a reflex. The word reflex, as Sir Charles Sherrington said, is a useful fiction. However much its definitions and connotations differ according to various schools -- it has in fact been the central battleground of psychology for the last fifty years -- no one is likely to quarrel with the statement that we are the more justified to call an organism's behaviour 'reflex' the more it resembles the action of a mechanical slot-machine; that is to say, the more instantaneous, predictable, and stereotyped it is. We may also use the synonyms 'automatic', 'involuntary', etc., which some psychologists dislike; they are in fact implied in the previous sentence.
Spontaneous laughter is produced by the coordinated contraction of fifteen facial muscles in a stereotyped pattern and accompanied by altered breathing. The following is a description abridged from Sully's classic essay on the subject.
Smiling involves a complex group of facial movements. It may suffice to remind the reader of such characteristic changes as the drawing back and slight lifting of the corners of the mouth, the raising of the upper lip, which partially uncovers the teeth, and the curving of the furrows betwixt the corners of the mouth and the nostrils (the naso-labial furrows). To these must be added the formation of wrinkles under the eye, which is a further result of the first movement . . . and the increased brightness of the eyes.
These facial changes are common to the smile and the laugh, though in the more violent forms of laughter the eyes are apt to lose under their lachrymal suffusion the sparkle which the smile brings.
We may now pass to the larger experience of the audible laugh. That this action is physiologically continuous with the smile has already been suggested. . . . How closely connected are smiling and moderate laughing may be seen by the tendency we experience when we reach the broad smile and the fully open mouth to start the respiratory movements of laughter. As Darwin and others have pointed out, there is a series of gradations from the faintest and most decorous smile up to the full explosion of the laugh.
. . . The series of gradations here indicated is gone through, more or less rapidly, in an ordinary laugh. . . . The recognition of this identity of the two actions is evidenced by the usages of speech. We see in the classical languages a tendency to employ the same word for the two. . . . This is particularly clear in the case of the Latin ridere, which means to smile as well as to laugh, the form subridere being rare (Italian, ridere and sorridere; French rire and sourire; German lachen and lächeln).
We may now turn to the distinguishing characteristics of laughing; that is, the production of the familiar series of sounds. . . . [1]
But these do not concern us yet. The point to retain is the continuity of the scale leading from the faint smile to Homeric laughter, confirmed by laboratory experiments. Electrical stimulation of the 'zygomatic major,' the main lifting muscle of the upper lip, with currents of varying intensity, produces expressions ranging from smile to broad grin to the facial contortions typical of loud laughter. [2] Other researchers made films of tickled babies and of hysterics to whom tickling was conveyed by suggestion. They again showed the reflex swiftly increasing from the first faint facial contraction to paroxysms of shaking and choking -- as the quicksilver in a thermometer, dipped into hot water, rapidly mounts to the red mark.
These gradations of intensity not only demonstrate the reflex character of laughter but at the same time provide an explanation for the rich variety of its forms -- from Rabelaisian laughter at a spicy joke to the rarefied smile of courtesy. But there are additional reasons to account for this confusing variety. Reflexes do not operate in a vacuum; they are to a greater or lesser extent interfered with by higher nervous centres; thus civilized laughter is rarely quite spontaneous. Amusement can be feigned or suppressed; to a faint involuntary response we may add at will a discreet chuckle or a leonine roar; and habit-formation soon crystallizes these reflex-plus-pretence amalgams into characteristic properties of a person.
Furthermore, the same muscle contractions produce different effects according to whether they expose a set of pearly teeth or a toothless gap -- producing a smile, a simper, or smirk. Mood also superimposes its own facial pattern -- hence gay laughter, melancholy smile, lascivious grin. Lastly, contrived laughter and smiling can be used as a conventional signal-language to convey pleasure or embarrassment, friendliness or derision. We are concerned, however, only with spontaneous laughter as a specific response to the comic; regarding which we can conclude with Dr. Johnson that 'men have been wise in very different modes; but they have always laughed in the same way.'
The Paradox of Laughter
I have taken pains to show that laughter is, in the sense indicated above, a true reflex, because here a paradox arises which is the starting point of our inquiry. Motor reflexes, usually exemplified in textbooks by knee-jerk or pupillary contraction, are relatively simple, direct responses to equally simple stimuli which, under normal circumstances, function autonomously, without requiring the intervention of higher mental processes; by enabling the organism to counter disturbances of a frequently met type with standardized reactions, they represent eminently practical arrangements in the service of survival. But what is the survival value of the involuntary, simultaneous contraction of fifteen facial muscles associated with certain noises which are often irrepressible? Laughter is a reflex, but unique in that it serves no apparent biological purpose; one might call it a luxury reflex. Its only utilitarian function, as far as one can see, is to provide temporary relief from utilitarian pressures. On the evolutionary level where laughter arises, an element of frivolity seems to creep into a humourless universe governed by the laws of thcrmodynamics and the survival of the fittest.
The paradox can be put in a different way. It strikes us as a reasonable arrangement that a sharp light shone into the eye makes the pupil contract, or that a pin stuck into one's foot causes its instant withdrawal -- because both the 'stimulus' and the 'response' are on the same physiological level. But that a complicated mental activity like the reading of a page by Thurber should cause a specific motor response on the reflex level is a lopsided phenomenon which has puzzled philosophers since antiquity.
There are, of course, other complex intellectual and emotional activities which also provoke bodily reactions -- frowning, yawning, sweating, shivering, what have you. But the effects on the nervous system of reading a Shakespeare sonnet, working on a mathematical problem, or listening to Mozart are diffuse and indefinable. There is no clear-cut predictable response to tell me whether a picture in the art gallery strikes another visitor as 'beautiful'; but there is a predictable facial contraction which tells me whether a caricature strikes him as 'comic.'
Humour is the only domain of creative activity where a stimulus on a high level of complexity produces a massive and sharply defined response on the level of physiological reflexes. This paradox enables us to use the response as an indicator for the presence of that elusive quality, the comic, which we are seeking to define -- as the tell-tale clicking of the geiger-counter indicates the presence of radioactivity. And since the comic is related to other, more exalted, forms of creativity, the backdoor approach promises to yield some positive results. We all know that there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous; the more surprising that Psychology has not considered the possible gains which could result from the reversal of that step.
The bibliography of Greig's Psychology of Laughte
r and Comedy, published in 1923, mentioned three hundred and sixty-three titles of works bearing partly or entirely on the subject -- from Plato and Aristotle to Kant, Bergson, and Freud. At the turn of the century T. A. Ribot summed up these attempts at formulating a theory of the comic: 'Laughter manifests itself in such varied and heterogeneous conditions . . . that the reduction of all these causes to a single one remains a very problematical undertaking. After so much work spent on such a trivial phenomenon, the problem is still far from being completely explained.' [3] This was written in 1896; since then only two new theories of importance have been added to the list: Bergson's Le Rire and Freud's Wit and its Relations to the Unconscious. I shall have occasion to refer to them.*
The difficulty lies evidently in the enormous range of laughter-producing situations -- from physical tickling to mental titillation of the most varied kinds. I shall try to show that there is unity in this variety; that the common denominator is of a specific and specifiable pattern which is of central importance not only in humour but in all domains of creative activity. The bacillus of laughter is a bug difficult to isolate; once brought under the microscope, it will turn out to be a yeast-like, universal ferment, equally useful in making wine or vinegar, and raising bread.
The Logic of Laughter: A First Approach
Some of the stories that follow, including the first, I owe to my late friend John von Neumann, who had all the makings of a humorist: he was a mathematical genius and he came from Budapest.
Two women meet while shopping at the supermarket in the Bronx. One looks cheerful, the other depressed. The cheerful one inquires: 'What's eating you?' 'Nothing's eating me.' 'Death in the family?' 'No, God forbid!' 'Worried about money?' 'No . . . nothing like that.' 'Trouble with the kids?' 'Well if you must know, it's my little Jimmy.' 'What's wrong with him, then?' 'Nothing is wrong. His teacher said he must see a psychiatrist.' Pause. 'Well, well, what's wrong with seeing a psychiatrist?' 'Nothing is wrong. The psychiatrist said he's got an Oedipus complex.' Pause. 'Well, well, Oedipus or Shmoedipus, I wouldn't worry so long as he's a good boy and loves his mamma.'
The next one is quoted in Freud's essay on the comic.
Chamfort tells a story of a Marquis at the court of Louis XIV who, on entering his wife's boudoir and finding her in the arms of a Bishop, walked calmly to the window and went through the motions of blessing the people in the street.
'What are you doing?' cried the anguished wife. 'Monseigneur is performing my functions,' replied the Marquis, 'so I am performing his.'
Both stories, though apparently quite different and in their origin more than a century apart, follow in fact the same pattern. The Chamfort anecdote concerns adultery; let us compare it with a tragic treatment of that subject -- say, in the Moor of Venice. In the tragedy the tension increases until the climax is reached: Othello strangles Desdemona; then it ebbs away in a gradual catharsis, as (to quote Aristotle) 'honor and pity accomplish the purgation of the emotions' (see Fig. 1,a on next page).
In the Chamfort anecdote, too, the tension mounts as the story progresses, but it never reaches its expected climax. The ascending curve is brought to an abrupt end by the Marquis' unexpected reaction, which debunks our dramatic expectations; it comes like a bolt out of the blue, which, so to speak, decapitates the logical development of the situation. The narrative acted as a channel directing the flow of emotion; when the channel is punctured the emotion gushes out like a liquid through a burst pipe; the tension is suddenly relieved and exploded in laughter (Fig. 1,b):
I said that this effect was brought about by the Marquis' unexpected reaction. However, unexpectedness alone is not enough to produce a comic effect. The crucial point about the Marquis' behaviour is that it is both unexpected and perfectly logical -- but of a logic not usually applied to this type of situation. It is the logic of the division of labour, the quid pro quo, the give and take; but our expectation was that the Marquis' actions would be governed by a different logic or code of behaviour. It is the clash of the two mutually incompatible codes, or associative contexts, which explodes the tension.
In the Oedipus story we find a similar dash. The cheerful woman's statement is ruled by the logic of common sense: if Jimmy is a good boy and loves his mamma there can't be much wrong. But in the context of Freudian psychiatry the relationship to the mother carries entirely different associations.
The pattern underlying both stories is the perceiving of a situation or idea, L, in two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference, M1 and M2 (Fig. 2). The event L, in which the two intersect, is made to vibrate simultaneously on two different wavelengths, as it were. While this unusual situation lasts, L is not merely linked to one associative context, but bisociated with two.
I have coined the term 'bisociation' in order to make a distinction between the routine skills of thinking on a single 'plane', as it were, and the creative act, which, as I shall try to show, always operates on more than one plane. The former may be called single-minded, the latter a double-minded, transitory state of unstable equilibrium where the balance of both emotion and thought is disturbed. The forms which this creative instability takes in science and art will be discussed later; first we must test the validity of these generalizations in other fields of the comic.
At the time when John Wilkes was the hero of the poor and lonely, an ill-wisher informed him gleefully: 'It seems that some of your faithful supporters have turned their coats.' 'Impossible,' Wilkes answered. 'Not one of them has a coat to turn.'
In the happy days of La Ronde, a dashing but penniless young Austrian officer tried to obtain the favours of a fashionable courtesan To shake off this unwanted suitor, she explained to him that her heart was, alas, no longer free. He replied politely: 'Mademoiselle, I never aimed as high as that.'
'High' is bisociated with a metaphorical and with a topographical context. The coat is turned first metaphorically, then literally. In both stories the literal context evokes visual images which sharpen the clash.
A convict was playing cards with his gaolers. On discovering that he cheated they kicked him out of gaol.
This venerable chestnut was first quoted by Schopenhaner and has since been roasted over and again in the literature of the comic. It can be analysed in a single sentence: two conventional rules ('offenders are punished by being locked up' and 'cheats are punished by being kicked out'), each of them self-consistent, collide in a given situation -- as the ethics of the quid pro quo and of matrimony collide in the Chamfort story. But let us note that the conflicting rules were merely implied in the text; by making them explicit I have destroyed the story's comic effect.
Shortly after the end of the war a memorable statement appeared in a fashion article in the magazine Vogue:
Belsen and Buchenwald have put a stop to the too-thin woman age, to the cult of undernourishment. [4]
It makes one shudder, yet it is funny in a ghastly way, foreshadowing the 'sick jokes' of a later decade. The idea of starvation is bisociated with one tragic, and another, utterly trivial context. The following quotation from Time magazine [5] strikes a related chord:
Across the first page of the Christmas issue of the Catholic Universe Bulletin, Cleveland's official Catholic diocesan newspaper, ran this eight-column banner head: It's a boy in Bethlehem. Congratulations God -- congratulations Mary -- congratulations Joseph.
Here the frames of reference are the sacred and the vulgarly profane. A technically nearer version -- if we have to dwell on blasphemy -- is
We wanted a girl.
The samples discussed so far all belong to the class of jokes and anecdotes with a single point of culmination. The higher forms of sustained humour, such as the satire or comic poem, do not rely on a single effect but on a series of minor explosions or a continuous state of mild amusement. Fig. 3 is meant to indicate what happens when a humorous narrative oscillates between two frames of reference -- say, the romantic fantasy world of Don Quixote, and Sancho's cunning horse-sense.
Matrices and Codes
I must now try the reader's patience with a few pages (seven, to be exact) of psychological speculation in order to introduce a pair of related concepts which play a central role in this book and are indispensable to all that follows. I have variously referred to the two planes in Figs. 2 and 3 as 'frames of reference', 'associative contexts', 'types of logic', 'codes of behaviour', and 'universes of discourse'. Henceforth I shall use the expression 'matrices of thought' (and 'matrices of behaviour') as a unifying formula. I shall use the word 'matrix' to denote any ability, habit, or skill, any pattern of ordered behaviour governed by a 'code' of fixed rules. Let me illustrate this by a few examples on different levels.
The Act of Creation Page 2