Definition of Black Comedy:
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor that makes light of the otherwise solemn subject matter, or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor. Black comedy is a form of drama that displays a marked disillusionment and cynicism. It shows human beings without convictions and with little hope, regulated by fate or fortune or incomprehensible powers. In fact, human beings are in an ‘absurd’ predicament. At its darkest, such comedy is pervaded by a kind of sour despair: we can’t do anything, so we may as well laugh. The wit is mordant and the humor sardonic.
Origins of Black Humor
The term black humor (from the French humour noir) was coined by the surrealist theoretician André Breton in 1935, to designate a sub genre of comedy and satire in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism, often relying on topics such as death. Breton coined the term for his book Anthology of Black Humor (Anthologie de l’humour noir) which is concerned with the humorous treatment of the shocking, horrific and macabre, in which he credited Jonathan Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor, and included excerpts from 45 other writers. Breton included both examples in which the wit arises from a victim, with which the audience empathizes, as is more typical in the tradition of gallows humor and examples in which the comedy is used to mock the victim, whose suffering is trivialized, and leads to sympathizing with the victimizer, as is the case with Sade. Black humor is related to that of the grotesque genre.
Breton identified Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor, particularly in his pieces Directions to Servants (1731), A Modest Proposal (1729), A Meditation Upon a Broom-Stick (1710), and a few aphorisms.
Black comedy has its roots in the tradition of tragi-comedy, with certain works of Shakespeare exhibiting elements of dark humor, such as The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, All’s Well That Ends Well, and The Winter’s Tale. Additionally, playwrights like Jean Anouilh and Jean Genet are known for writing plays that exhibit black comedic elements, such as Voyageur sans bagage (1936) and Les Bonnes (1947). Modern playwrights, including Edward Albee (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Harold Pinter (The Homecoming), and Joe Orton (Loot), also contributed to the genre of black comedy.
Early American writers who employed black humor were Nathanael West and Vladimir Nabokov. In 1965 a mass-market paperback, titled Black Humor, was released. Containing work by a myriad of authors, which included J.P. Donleavy, Edward Albee, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Vladimir Nabokov, Bruce Jay Friedman, himself, and Louis-Ferdinand Celine, this was one of the first American anthologies devoted to the conception of black humor as a literary genre; the publication also sparked nation wide interest in black humor.
Themes of Black Humor:
The purpose of black comedy is to make light of the serious and often taboo subject matter, and some comedians use it as a tool for exploring vulgar issues, thus provoking discomfort and serious thought as well as amusement in their audience. Popular themes of the genre include murder, suicide, depression, abuse, mutilation, war, barbarism, drug abuse, terminal illness, domestic violence, sexual violence, pedophilia, insanity, nightmare, disease, racism, homophobia, sexism, disability (both physical and mental), chauvinism, corruption, and crime. Black comedy might include an element of irony or even fatalism. For example, the archetypal black-comedy self- mutilation appears in the English novel Tristram Shandy. Tristram, five years old at the time, starts to urinate out of an open window for lack of a chamber pot. The sash falls and circumcises him; his family reacts with both chaotic action and philosophic digression.
Other Examples:
In the 20th century, black comedy became more prominent in the literature of the absurd. Writers like Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, and Samuel Beckett incorporated elements of absurdity and dark humor into their works. For example, Kafka’s The Trial and Metamorphosis reflect absurdity, while Camus and Ionesco’s works explore themes of existentialism and life as a tragic farce.
Some less famous books of darkly comic include Serge Godefroy’s Les Loques (1964), Thomas Pynchon’s V (1963) and his The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961), D. D. Bell’s Dicky, or The Midnight Ride of Dicky Vere (1970) and Mordecai Richler’s St Urbain’s Horseman (1966).