“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness – yes, it’s the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, in the beginning. But it’s always the same thing. Yes, it’s like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don’t laugh any more.”
– Nell in Endgame*, by Samuel Beckett
When I was reading the play, Endgame, for one of my theatre classes, this ironic line reminded me of the scene where Truman visits Tommy Odds in the hospital. As we discussed in class, Truman speaks up to Tommy in an inappropriate and comical mood to boost him up, but it immediately ends up failing; it actually brings a serious mood ultimately. His action gouges Tommy’s trauma out. How does his comical (or optimistic) action turn out a tragic, serious situation?
Obviously Truman soon recognizes that Tommy has been crippled, and he knows it is “impossible to joke” (139) in this situation. Nevertheless, he tries turn this depressing atmosphere into a cheerful one. As he imagines, “how funny it would be when the two of them talked about the frantic jump he and Trilling made” (138), he seemingly jokes with Tommy habitually, so he expects Tommy to laugh by his joke, as usual. His joke is not definitely funny, but he believes it is funny. Why?
By bringing back the quote from Endgame, the character Nell invokes, “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.” There are many interpretations here, but one of them is that humors can be emphasized by objectively ridiculing unhappy events in order to relieve the tragic feelings. In this scene, “unhappiness” lies on Tommy’s serious wound and trauma. If Truman was successful in joking on his wound, both would have shared a funny moment together, and the scene would have drawn a happy end. However, the imbalance between Truman’s physiological expectation and Tommy’s emotions ironically make Truman recognize that his actions do not correspond to Tommy’s feelings but rather separate his emotions from the actual atmosphere, as Nell says, “we still find it funny, but we don’t laugh anymore.”
As The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms defines “comedy” as, “Although comedies aim to evoke laughter, they may also have a serious purpose,” (71) there is only a fine line between tragedy and comedy, and Truman just jokes about Tommy’s tragedy in order to save himself from the tragic situation.
*Endgame, written by Samuel Beckett, is a tragicomedy which first performed in 1957.