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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/4521 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. Laughter Madness 0 and in Post-war American Fiction by Kate Reeves A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirementsfor the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature University of Warwick, Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies September 2000 CONTENTS Acknowledgments Declaration Abstract Abbreviations OVERVIEW P. I INTRODUCTION p. 15 Theories of laughter p. 16 The Fool p. 28 Laughter of Revelation and Laughter of Apocalypse p. 36 CHAPTER ONE: LAUGHTER OF REVELATION Introduction p. 47 Catch-22 p. 48 One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest p. 66 On The Road p. 83 Conclusion P. 99 CHAPTER TWO: LAUGHTER OF APOCALYPSE Introduction p. 104 The Fool as Demon (The Exorcist, It) p. 105 Sula p. 121 Lolita p. 138 Conclusion p. 155 CHAPTER THREE: LAUGHTER OF ENTROPY Introduction: Entropy p. 160 Slaughterhouse-5 p. 175 American Psycho p. 193 Closing Time p. 210 Conclusion p. 228 CONCLUSION p. 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY p. 244 Acknowledizements My thanks and love go to the following: Cris Nash for his guidanceand endless patience;Helen Dennis for her emotional support and common sense;Ed Gallafent for steppinginto the breachwhen Cris was away; Jeff and Caroline Reevesfor their financial support and their unstinting love and encouragement; Peter Hartley for all of the above and more. Declaration This thesis is entirely the work of the author and is intended only for submission in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature at Warwick University. None of the material included in this thesis has beenpublished elsewhere. Abstract Two philosophicalpositions seemevident in post-war American fiction: one realist, one anti-realist. Using the terms 'revelation' and 'apocalypse'to reflect the former, and 'entropy' the latter, this thesisproposes that distinctions betweenthe two can be madeby analysisof a text's treatment of the nexus betweenlaughter and madness. After an Overview that identifies and defineskey terms, the Introduction considersvarious theoretical treatmentsof laughter from which its function can be ascertainedas being both to reinforce stability within social groups and to explore new altemativesto existing modesof thought. Madnessbeing defined as an inability to balancethe opposingforces of systemand anti-system,laughter is therefore vital to maintain sanity. The Fool emergesas a crucial figure in this process. Chapter One explores,with referenceto Heller's Catch-22, Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Kerouac's On The Road, the Laughter of Revelation:a laughing relationshipbetween a Protagonistwho is trapped within the systemof an Institution and a Fool who communicatesto the Protagonist (through laughter) a meansof escape.Chapter Two then discusses,with referenceto Blatty's The Exorcist, King's It, Morrison's Sula, and Nabokov's Lolita, the Laughter of Apocalypse:a laughingrelationship in which the Fool's laughter (as mockery) is potentially destructiveof both the Protagonist's sanity and the stability of the Institution. ChapterThree explores,with referenceto Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-5, Ellis's American Psycho,and Heller's Closing Time, the Laughter of Entropy: the failure of the laughingrelationship that obtainswhen the dialectic betweenInstitution (as system)and Fool (as anti-system)collapses. The concludingremarks reflect the metafictional implicationsof the foregoing analyses.It is suggestedthat, with the collapseof this dialectic (expressedby the Laughter of Entropy), the traditional relationshipbetween Author and Reader becomesproblematic. Abbreviations A il After initial footnotes in which the full publication details are given, subsequent referencesto the primary texts are cited within the body of the thesis as Mows: C-22 Catch-22 CN One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest OR On The Road 17-v I-J.& The Exorcist it it Su Sula Lo Lolita S-5 Slaughterhouse-5 AP American Psy cho CT Closing Time OVERVIEW The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose.Foolish people ask you, whenyou have spokenwhat they do not wish to hear, 'How do you know it is truth, and not an error ofyour own? ' Weknow truth when we see it, ftom know [ ] In book opinion, as we when we are awake that we are awake ... the I read, the good thought returns to me, as every truth will, the image of the whole soul. To the bad thought which Ifind in it, the samesoul becomesa discerning, separating sword, and lops it away. Weare wiser than we know.' American literature has a history of focusing the cultural and philosophical concerns of its European counterpart. Ideas whose origins are in other countries are rapidly incorporated into American culture and appear with extraordinary clarity in its literature. The senseof Man's 'manifest destiny' to control and organise the material world that dominatednineteenth-century America, for example,is indicative of an n,k abiding confidencein the view of a human-centreduniverse whose truths are accessibleand meaningful.This post-enlightenmentview is reflected even in the essentially anti-materialistic thought of Transcendentalists such as Emerson, whose confidencein a clear, structured metaphysicalworld from which we can learn and grow is evident in the quotation that begins this overview. Both attitudes, the materialistic and the spiritual, are essentially realist (in the philosophical rather than the literary sense) in that they display the same confidence in the existence and accessibilityof a 'world as it exists in itself, independentof humanperception and thought, leading to a feeling of being a part (some would say, the most important part) of a much larger, but still coherent, system. ' Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'The Over-Soul', in Self-Reliance and Other Essays(New York: Dover, 1993), pp. 51-64 (p. 57). 2 In America as in Europe, however, this confidencehas becomeincreasingly unsteadyas ever more violent social upheavals,coinciding with a widespreadloss of faith in the dogma of establishedreligion and the linearity of establishedscience, have led to the developmentof a world view that doubts the existencenot only of a coherent external reality, but even of the self The move from humanismto solipsism to nihilism, from a trust in cosmos to an embracing of chaos, is reflected in American literature, especial-lyin novels publishedsince the SecondWorld War, where A these world views appear in the work of different authors within a relatively short space of time. A popular method for exploring such large philosophical issues in fiction is to examinethe latter's representationof madness.What is seento be mad shifts as the cultural world view shifts, instances of madnessin literature thereby providing clues to the underlying assumptions that inform them. Of particular interest in this context is the role that laughter plays in association with madness.By analysing the form that this laughter takes (who is laughing, and about what?) it is possible to reveal the dynamics that occur among diverse and often competing representations of madness in a given text, from which conclusionsabout that text's position on fundamental philosophicalquestions can be drawn. It should be noted here that I shall be dealing exclusively with the overt occurrence of laughter in the text, rather than with the issue of whether or not a given work is 'fimny'. Although a great deal of critical thought has been applied to such notions as the social function of literary comedy or the psychology of, for example, wit and irony, these issues are treated as having only peripheral relevanceto the main argumentof this thesis. Madnessis, of course, a perennialtheme not just m Amencan literature but in all literatures, and throughout the history of storytelling. Laughter also is a word of 3 such widespread,indeed invasive, occurrence and multiplicity of meaningthat it may in itself seemeither mad or laughableto try to combinethe two in a limited arena.It should therefore come as no surprisethat I shall be talking here about specific usesof theseterms, and, more importantly, about a particular relationshipbetween the two that, I shall argue, shedslight on someof the major phenomenaof post-war American fiction. I make no claims for a complete exposition of the many theories, psychological, social, or literary, that involve questions of sanity or laughter, although I shall indicate relevant source materials where questions of space or clarity forbid more lengthy description. This is especially true of theories relating to madness, since the primary focus of attention in this thesis is laughter. Neither do I make any claims for the relationship I suggest being unique to the chosen place or period. Nevertheless, I will show by the analysis of several post-war novels that American literature in the last half of the twentieth century deals with longstanding questions in a unique way. To give context and structure to the treatment of this relationship between laughter and madness, it is necessaryto clarify certain key terms that will recur throughout this thesis: