Despite its Serious Themes, "To Kill a Mockingbird" Contains Much Humour. Give an Account of the Various Types of Humour and Suggest Why Harper Lee Used Them.

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Chris Turner

Despite its Serious Themes, “To Kill a Mockingbird” Contains Much Humour. Give an Account of the Various Types of Humour and Suggest Why Harper Lee Used Them.

        “To Kill a Mockingbird” has many humorous moments, which have been put there deliberately by the author.

One type of humour used is recognition; when something happens which is perfectly in keeping with what we would expect. An excellent example of this is when Scout “splits her knuckle to the bone” on Francis’ front teeth, after he insults Atticus. We already are familiar with her as prone to having fights, so this is humorous. I think Harper Lee uses this type of humour to build up our familiarity with the characters, and to make us realise our understanding of them.

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Another type of humour is role reversal. This is when two distinctly different people with obvious roles are switched, for example when the students are trying to comfort Miss Caroline. They “clustered around her desk, trying in their various ways to comfort her”. This is humorous because it is the opposite to what would usually occur. I think Harper Lee does this to show how fragile stereotypes are.

Satire is also used frequently in the book. Satire is criticising humorously, for example when Atticus asks Aunt Alexandra if she would say “the Finches have an Incestuous streak”. This ...

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