What is black humor?

"Black humor" is a popular literary genre in the United States in the 1960s, and it is a literary creation method with extremely rich connotations. With his unique thinking and exaggerated language, he satirized the social phenomenon that the writer wanted to ridicule, which was summarized by critics as "desperate comedy, morbid absurdity, gloomy smile, humor under the gallows, and' fatal stabbing' humor when disaster arrival". In order to distinguish it from Mark Twain's humor, it was named "black humor". His representative writers and major works are: joseph heller (Catch-22, Endless Trouble), Thomas Pynchon (V, Rainbow of Gravitation, Auction No.49), Kurt von Nergert, Jr. (Breakfast of Champions, Cradle of Cats, Slaughterhouse Five) and John Bass.

The school of "black humor" denies the character and value of people confirmed since the Renaissance, and thinks that people often laugh at their doomed fate out of helplessness in absurd, crazy, alienated and desperate living environment. All kinds of characters and plots in their works are intertwined, just like strange pictures, which make readers feel fresh and startled and laugh while watching; In deep reading, I was shocked and realized the absurdity of myself and the environment. Their aesthetic characteristics are: (through internal imitation and empathy) experiencing gloomy pain, depression and sadness, abnormal vitriol, indignation and cynicism, illogical and irrational interpersonal relationships and world order. Its sharpness points to a alienated, hypocritical and cruel "rational" world, exposing its morbid abomination, abomination, ridiculousness and horror, and calling for respect for people and protection of conscience.

The artistic features of "black humor" are: (1) whimsical, with extraordinary details, characters and scenes to render the theme, to render a gloomy and mysterious atmosphere, to depict absurdity and express universal significance; (2) Express a profound tragedy with cold, helpless and self-deprecating humor and through the superficial absurd comedy color; (3) to create a non-traditional hero (unlucky) protagonist, showing the essence of human life oppressed by all alienation forces; (4) The structure of the novel is loose and messy, and the fragments of real life are spliced with absurd fantasies, and nonlinear or even illogical narrative means are used to achieve the purpose of formal innovation. It is precisely because it transcends the traditional literary creation method and is different from the modernism that is usually seen, so many scholars bring "black humor" into postmodernism.