preview

Analysis Of Miss Lonelyhearts And The Day Of The Locust

Decent Essays

In Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, each character experiences suffering, and in each case the suffering is ridiculed. Schadenfreude is a basic human experience; human beings do find humor in other’s misfortune. Society is so accustomed to the feeling of schadenfreude that hardly anyone knows exactly where it comes from or how distasteful it is. Society feeds schadenfreude of physical pain by letting it reside throughout comedy. Almost every comedic movie, show, song, sketch or any other form of entertainment is cluttered with people being hurt. Harry Greener’s clown show in The Day of the Locust is completely centered around his pain. “‘When he stands up, the audience, which failed to laugh at his joke, laughs at his limp, so he continues lame for the rest of the act,’” (West, The Day 78). The entire comedy genre thrives off of schadenfreude. Perhaps this is because the audience knows that the subject is not truly hurt, so it becomes funny to see people such as Curly, Moe, and Larry beat each other. Perhaps it is because people use laughter as a shield against pain. When people see pain they laugh to make it seem that it did not actually hurt. It is a product of empathy for him who was hurt. Laughter serves to camouflage embarrassment which is included in empathy. The ways in which characters receive injuries are usually embarrassing, and the audience feels the embarrassment causing them to laugh.
Schadenfreude is embedded in human emotions such as envy,

Get Access