One of the most well-known philosophical work on the phenomenon of laughter belongs to Henri Bergson, the author of Laughter written in 1900. There Bergson examines laughter as a social activity caused by certain comic situations, which in their turn obtain particular patterns of mechanics or repetition. According to Bergson, laughter is an exclusively human phenomenon such that only human beings are able to laugh and also are the primary objects of laughter. In all other cases, nature or inanimate objects are laughable as long as they remind any human features (Bergson 11). Further, Bergson argues that laughter is also a social act, which can be performed in a group of people. This is an arguable statement, since following his logic as long as a person has an object to laugh at or a comic situation, he may not need other people for laughing. What I am interested in Bergson’s work is his view of laughter as a manifestation of indifference, meaning that a person should not feel neither sympathy nor hatred towards the object at the moment of laugh. This seems to be quite generalized approach towards laughter, which in The Idiot is not simply a thoughtless impulse, but a way to establish certain social borders. Furthermore, reversely laughter itself generates various types of emotional responses, that in case of Prince Myshkin vacillates between sympathy and disdain. Bergson also identifies automatism as significant contribution to laughter. Behaving automatically or in other words unconsciously brings the element of comic, this is how Don Quixote is an extremely comic due to his absentmindedness (Bergson 70). Similar absentmindedness is typical to Prince Myshkin’s behavior and certainly produces a comic effect. Nonetheless Bergson do
One of the most well-known philosophical work on the phenomenon of laughter belongs to Henri Bergson, the author of Laughter written in 1900. There Bergson examines laughter as a social activity caused by certain comic situations, which in their turn obtain particular patterns of mechanics or repetition. According to Bergson, laughter is an exclusively human phenomenon such that only human beings are able to laugh and also are the primary objects of laughter. In all other cases, nature or inanimate objects are laughable as long as they remind any human features (Bergson 11). Further, Bergson argues that laughter is also a social act, which can be performed in a group of people. This is an arguable statement, since following his logic as long as a person has an object to laugh at or a comic situation, he may not need other people for laughing. What I am interested in Bergson’s work is his view of laughter as a manifestation of indifference, meaning that a person should not feel neither sympathy nor hatred towards the object at the moment of laugh. This seems to be quite generalized approach towards laughter, which in The Idiot is not simply a thoughtless impulse, but a way to establish certain social borders. Furthermore, reversely laughter itself generates various types of emotional responses, that in case of Prince Myshkin vacillates between sympathy and disdain. Bergson also identifies automatism as significant contribution to laughter. Behaving automatically or in other words unconsciously brings the element of comic, this is how Don Quixote is an extremely comic due to his absentmindedness (Bergson 70). Similar absentmindedness is typical to Prince Myshkin’s behavior and certainly produces a comic effect. Nonetheless Bergson do