Up to now, comic characters have been examined, as well as some of the techniques by which they can be represented in a ridiculing way. Comical situations, plots, and actions, which are very different and comprise a very extensive area of investigation, will now be considered. Comical plots can be found in dramatic art, cinema, circus, and variety shows; much humorous and satirical literature is based on them, and so is a significant amount of narrative folklore. The available material is inexhaustible, and the cases that occur most frequently cannot be itemized even approximately. However, it is not necessary to do this, as some vivid and pertinent examples are sufficient to illustrate the matter.
When minor misfortunes happen to people – for instance, when they suddenly get caught in heavy rain, or their grocery bags burst, or the wind carries away somebody’s hat, or they stumble and fall – then those around them laugh. This somewhat malicious laughter depends on the scale of the misfortune, as different people will respond in different ways. Where one will laugh, another will run up and help. But one can do both at the same time – that is, laugh and help simultaneously. The humorist Stephen Leacock considered this type of laughter improper. He gives the example of a skater circling gracefully and suddenly breaking through the ice. This is not ridiculous because a person falling through ice can die. But contrary to what Leacock says, this case can even be ridiculous. For example, in The Pickwick Papers Dickens narrates how Mr Pickwick skates on a frozen pond and suddenly falls through the ice. Only his hat remains on its surface, though nothing terrible happens. He appears from under the water, panting; he is taken home and helped to warm up and to straighten out his clothes. No great misfortune occurs; in these instances something merely unpleasant unexpectedly happens to people that disturbs their peaceful routine. In these cases, human will is unexpectedly undermined to a certain extent for some absolutely fortuitous, unforeseen reason. Yet not every instance of foiled plans is comical. The ruin of some great or heroic undertaking is not comical but tragic. A failure in everyday routine events caused by some equally minor circumstance will be comical.
This principle is often used in cinema, in which the presence of certain aspirations or desires is usually emphasized. People do not just walk, or drive, or amuse themselves, they want something, or are doing something, or starting to do it; then an unexpected obstacle thwarts their plans. In Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936), the main character is renovating a shack built with various boxes and boards somewhere in the suburbs together with a girl, who is as poor as he is. He leaves the shack in the morning, patting himself on the belly, and goes for a swim wearing swimming trunks, with a towel slung over his shoulder. There is a stream near the house that forms a small cove right at that spot, and there is also a small bridge. He takes a running start and dives into the water, but the stream happens to be quite shallow and he hits the bottom with a bump. Soaking wet, he limps slowly back to the shack. Laughter does not deter us from feeling sympathy for this small, modest man who meets with misfortune everywhere. This case is comical and sad at the same time, which is typical of Chaplin’s work.
There are cases where the comic does not have this touch of sadness but, instead, the gloating delight of a person motivated not merely by trivialities and superficial aspirations, but by selfishness and mean-spir-itedness. In such cases, the failure caused by external circumstances, revealing the pettiness of the aspirations and the wretchedness of the person, is seen as well-deserved punishment. The comic effect increases if this undermining takes place suddenly and unexpectedly for the characters or for the audience and the reader. The episode in which Bobchin-sky falls down on the floor together with the door in the second act of The Government Inspector is a classic example of foiled plans. Bobchinsky wants to eavesdrop on the conversation between the town governor and Khlestakov, but he leans too heavily against the door, which suddenly flies off its hinges. ‘Bobchinsky lands on the stage on top of it’ (1998, 277) is how Gogol describes the failed attempt.
In some cases the person does not seem to be the cause of his or her own failure. But this only seems so because the failure is actually caused by a lack of foresight or observation and by the inability of the person to get his or her bearings in the situation, which results in laughter regardless of the motives. The desire to take a swim is not ridiculous in itself. In Chaplin’s film, the comic effect was increased by emphasizing physiology (he pats himself on the belly) and by the good mood that will soon be spoiled. Nevertheless, the spectator laughs quite spontaneously. In the case of Bobchinsky’s fall, there is also some improvidence and shortsightedness in that he did not imagine that the door would not hold up. But at the same time, failure revealed the improper nature of his secret intentions. The scene is doubly comical as Bobchinsky has been punished both for his lack of judgment and for his intention to eavesdrop.
In the examples analysed, foiled plans are the result of events beyond an individual’s control, but at the same time these are caused by purely personal hidden reasons. Nevertheless, thwarted intentions can also be caused by purely intrinsic reasons, though external ones seem to be the reason why they happen. The depiction of human absent-mindedness, which is the butt of numerous jokes, is a case in point. To express it somewhat paradoxically, we can say that absent-mindedness is the result of a certain type of concentration. Having devoted him or herself exclusively to a certain idea or concern, a person pays no attention and acts automatically, leading to the most unexpected consequences. The widely known absent-mindedness of professors occurs because learned people who are completely absorbed in thought sometimes fail to notice what is happening around them. This is certainly a flaw, and it causes laughter. This reminds us of what happened, shortly before the Russian Revolution, to I.I. Lapshin, a prominent philosophy and psychology professor who was popular among students because of his kindness. He attended a congress in Vienna, and one morning in his hotel he wanted to put on his well-pressed, best trousers, which he thought he had hung on the back of his bed the previous evening. He discovered that the trousers were not there, and the maids swore they were not responsible. This led to trouble. When the congress was over the professor returned to St Petersburg, came home late at night, and went immediately to bed. On awakening the next morning he saw his recently pressed trousers hanging on the back of his bed, and sent an apologetic telegram to the hotel.
These types of cases are quite common in daily life, though they are seldom found in literature since the laughter they cause happens to be pleasant but still remains somewhat superficial. Cases of absent-mindedness occur more frequently in Gogol’s work than in most other authors’, and always expose the pettiness and sometimes the meanness of the preoccupation that caused them. The governor of a town wants to put on his hat, for example, but takes the hatbox instead. This happens because he is completely preoccupied with how best to deceive the government inspector. When the governor himself notices his mistake, he hurls the box onto the floor in a fit of temper, and the spectators laugh.
In Gogol’s earlier works, similar examples of satire do not have a pronounced social character but belong to the domain of human psychology. The ending is also different, as the person does not notice his or her mistake, but the spectator or the observer does and looks forward to inevitable failure. In an episode of Gogol’s ‘Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt,’ Vasilisa Kashporovna wants to marry off Shponka, who dreams of her grandchildren, even though the marriage is still a long way off:
Often, while cooking some pastry which she generally never entrusted to the cook, she would forget herself and, imagining a little grandson standing by her and asking for cake, would absentmindedly hold out the best piece to him in her hand, while the yard dog, taking advantage of it, would snatch the tasty morsel and bring her out of her reverie with his loud chomping, for which he would always get beaten with the poker. (1999, 126–7)
Absent-mindedness is hardly the only reason intentions are foiled. In many comedies, characters have to act against their will because the circumstances prove to be beyond them. Yet force of circumstance is at the same time evidence of weakness and frailty in those defeated by it. In Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, whenever Beatrice speaks about men she curses them rather sharply, though she still gets married in the end. In Ostrovsky’s Wolves and Sheep, Lynyaev, a rich gentleman and a confirmed bachelor, is caught in the net of the grasping adventuress Anfisa, who makes him court her: she throws her arms around his neck and closes her eyes the moment someone enters the room. Almost crying, Lynyaev admits tearfully that he will now marry her. A similar case occurs in Chekhov’s one-act farce The Bear. A consumate misogynist who parades his contempt for women proposes to a lady the very first time he meets her, though he has come to her as a creditor and had challenged her beforehand to a duel in order to get rid of her.
In the example of the governor’s hat, foiled plans are shown externally through mechanical movements. The word ‘mechanical’ describes very precisely what is happening. At any rate, automatism is possible not only in movements but also in many other spheres of human activity, for example, in speech. Hurriedly, or hastily, or agitated, or concerned, an individual says something that he did not intend to, which causes laughter. There are numerous examples of this. For example, in Gogol when the town governor orders: ‘Tell the constables to take brooms and start streeting the sweep – damn it! Sweeping the street, the one that leads to the inn, and make sure they sweep it clean’ (1998, 260). The same technique can be observed in Chekhov’s ‘The Crow,’ when a military clerk meets his officer with a group of women of easy virtue. He is frightened, loses the ability to speak, and instead of saying, ‘With the universal liability for military service,’ he says, ‘With the universal militarity for liable service … With the universal militarity … military universality’ (1974–82, III:435).
In the examples examined, frustrated intentions are the result of some inferiority, hidden in the person, that is suddenly revealed, causing laughter. These flaws are to a certain extent the person’s own fault. Furthermore, laughter can be caused not through a person’s own fault, but by something that is undesirable such as a physical or psycho-physical defect -for example, deafness, shortsightedness, or a speech impediment – that results in various failures and misunderstandings. In one of Chekhov’s stories, a man wants to make a declaration of love but has such a fit of hiccups that he is unable to. This technique is relatively rare in literature, but Count Tugoukhovsky in Wit Works Woe comes to mind here. The grandmother countess and granddaughter countess try talking with him about Chatsky but find it impossible as the count hears nothing and replies only with inarticulate mumbling. Even a failure to catch the meaning of certain words can serve the same function as deafness. In ‘Marriage,’ for instance:
ZHEVAKIN: Allow me, for my own part, to enquire: with whom is it my good fortune to hold conference?
PANCAKE: Departmental manager by profession, Ivan Pavlovich Pancake.1
ZHEVAKIN: (mishearing) Yes, I had a quick bite, too. (Gogol 1998, 206)
We can find jokes in folklore about spouses or the elderly with hearing impediments who experience various misunderstandings. Psycho-physical defects can appear ridiculous in themselves; they can also lead to totally unexpected consequences. In Russian folktales there are jokes about three lisping girls who ought to follow their mother’s advice and keep silent. When they fail to do so and betray their defects, the intended fiancé runs away from them. The same happens to a shortsighted fiancée. She pretends she can see extremely well, she notices a needle on the threshold put there beforehand. Then, at table, she hits a cat that has jumped up onto it; the animal turns out to be a butter dish.