Carnivalesque Laughter in Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

[[abstract]]This thesis aims to provide an alternative reading of laughter in Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by relating it to Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesque laughter. Laughter is a concept, by which we measure values of time. Bakhtin points out that laughter is extraordinarily important in Rabelais’ time since the plebeians were allowed to laugh in public only in carnival or otherwise their unscrutinized laughter might loosen the base of the hierarchy and invert social norms. Though laughter is not forbidden nowadays, Kundera finds that it has been abusively twisted for being loaded with too many meanings. Facing the angelic people of the magic circle, Kundera is overwhelmed by his nostalgia for the ambiguity of laughter, which is best known to the devil. However, both Kundera and Bakhtin regard laughter can defy the dominant delimitation of the authority or temporarily invert the monolithic official system. The following chapters are going to justify the linkage between Bakhtin and Kundera and the essence of carnivalesque laughter, differentiating demonic laughter from angelic one, tracing the route to cross the border via laughter, and finally connecting humorous laughter to Kundera’s art of the novel. In Chapter Two we firstly side with Kundera to stroll along the merry yet phony carnival circle, which contains no genuine carnivalesque essence. Comprehending carnivalesque laughter helps us to capture the pure representation of laughter in an age when laughter is overloaded with meanings. To distinguish the devil from the angelic crowd is our priority in Chapter Three. Though both groups do laugh, untuneful laughter helps us to distinguish humorous demonic laughter from miming angelic laughter. As we have conceive the power of carnivalesque laughter and demonic one, we are informed that laughter is capable of crossing the limited border of things, to puncture the ideological meanings. The border is not only an existence but also the everyday experience for characters of this novel. We are going to examine how laughter equips characters for crossing the border of totalitarian terror in the fourth chapter. The focus of the final chapter, however, shifts to Kundera’s lasting concern to reveal the humor, which is the synonym of the wisdom of the novel, and to represent human condition to the utmost in his works.