Dear Mom,
how are you doing and how is your leg after the operation at the robot hospital?
I am on a spaceship at the moment we stole from the governor of the Universe, who then declared war because of the missing spaceship. Physically all my technological individual parts are working but mentally i sadly have to tell you that I have serious matter depressions. No one needs me on the ship because they think they found the question to the universe already which is not true, because I know the answer but they won’t ask me for help or advice. My depressions are getting worse because no one gives me love and affection. There are no other robots here so I feel left alone and cant share my technological feelings with them as well as love. I am not satisfied with my situation here and additionally to everything we face near death situation every day, and I am so not ready to die already mom. I was to expensive to die and I know to much. Mom I need you and your yummy pancakes you used to make me every morning with milk, the only thing we have on the spaceship is alcohol. Everything what Arthur, Zaphod and Ford are doing is getting drunk and not even this can help my depressions because the alcohol gets rejected by my inside computer so I cannot even get drunk.
The board captain allowed me to have a friend over for an intergalactic trip but since no one cares about me and I have no friends I wanted to ask you to come to the spaceship, bake me pancakes and fix my depressions with only one move of a specific lever.
I miss you mom,
Lots of love, your depressed son Marvin
Mittwoch, 25. März 2009
Montag, 16. März 2009
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy- Humor
Blog 500 words about the use of motifs in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Think about how the motifs are connected to the creation of humour in the radio play.
In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy humor is presented in many different ways with help of different motifs. In particular the idea of time travel, alcohol consumption and extra-terrestrials are tools used to help to develop the comedic aspects of the radio play.
Time travel, for us an unrealistic thing, seems to be the most normal thing in this book. The characters travel from one century to the next, 1000 years in the future. It explained as an understatement which makes it funny. Time travel is nothing unusual in the book and how the characters handle the situation and how it's being explained makes it humorous. "He is on an intergalactic cruise!" (page 130), it is amusing to read, how the characters spent their weekend, as an prediction of the future, they don’t do things we do in the present, for them things that we do would be most probably unrealistic.
"They are drunk.", "Let's have a drink. Here is another bottle." or "Let's just get drunk." (Page 134) are the kind of sentences, that present the motif alcohol consumption over and over again. The scenario that they drink in the most mistimed situations is reoccurring over and over again. They take the plenty near-death situations they face as an understatement and take it with humor that they might die soon so they "celebrate" this situation with alcohol, to get drunk and pass the situation in a kind of "trance".
The third tool, extra-terrestrials, is another important one to help create humor in this radio play.
"Haggunenons, super evolutionary life forms. That is to say they can re-evolve into any shape in a matter of seconds." Douglas Adams includes the presence of futuristic creatures that are unrealistic and have supernal powers. They cause a confusion when they are explained and are amusing when the reader gets to know how they occur in the story and what characteristics they have being a futuristic creature. Additionally these creatures make fun of us humans. Us, the people who think are the most normal thing on earth and the centre of the universe. But in this situation we are in the opposite situation, humans are something unusual and the earth is just a little planet among all the other thousand planets in the universe that are still unknown to us at the moment and we can only dream of discovering them.
Douglas Adams uses these motifs purposely to create humor in his radio play. Among the plenty descriptions how his future will look like in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Douglas develops comedic aspects through the understatement of time-travel, seeing it as the most normal thing "on earth", the reoccurring scenario the characters getting drunk when they face near death situations or the futuristic creatures with their amusing characteristics.
In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy humor is presented in many different ways with help of different motifs. In particular the idea of time travel, alcohol consumption and extra-terrestrials are tools used to help to develop the comedic aspects of the radio play.
Time travel, for us an unrealistic thing, seems to be the most normal thing in this book. The characters travel from one century to the next, 1000 years in the future. It explained as an understatement which makes it funny. Time travel is nothing unusual in the book and how the characters handle the situation and how it's being explained makes it humorous. "He is on an intergalactic cruise!" (page 130), it is amusing to read, how the characters spent their weekend, as an prediction of the future, they don’t do things we do in the present, for them things that we do would be most probably unrealistic.
"They are drunk.", "Let's have a drink. Here is another bottle." or "Let's just get drunk." (Page 134) are the kind of sentences, that present the motif alcohol consumption over and over again. The scenario that they drink in the most mistimed situations is reoccurring over and over again. They take the plenty near-death situations they face as an understatement and take it with humor that they might die soon so they "celebrate" this situation with alcohol, to get drunk and pass the situation in a kind of "trance".
The third tool, extra-terrestrials, is another important one to help create humor in this radio play.
"Haggunenons, super evolutionary life forms. That is to say they can re-evolve into any shape in a matter of seconds." Douglas Adams includes the presence of futuristic creatures that are unrealistic and have supernal powers. They cause a confusion when they are explained and are amusing when the reader gets to know how they occur in the story and what characteristics they have being a futuristic creature. Additionally these creatures make fun of us humans. Us, the people who think are the most normal thing on earth and the centre of the universe. But in this situation we are in the opposite situation, humans are something unusual and the earth is just a little planet among all the other thousand planets in the universe that are still unknown to us at the moment and we can only dream of discovering them.
Douglas Adams uses these motifs purposely to create humor in his radio play. Among the plenty descriptions how his future will look like in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Douglas develops comedic aspects through the understatement of time-travel, seeing it as the most normal thing "on earth", the reoccurring scenario the characters getting drunk when they face near death situations or the futuristic creatures with their amusing characteristics.
Dienstag, 3. März 2009
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Pages 90-94:
How is time used to create humor?
"Remember when we were children, what we were wearing for clothes? We looked horrible. And the first party we went to, oh I would never wear the top today again if I would go to a party like this again, it looked horrible."
Don’t we all know the situation when we talk about "good old times" and can laugh about how we were dressed and what things we did?
One can laugh about thing in the past because they become funny if you look back in time. Time changes our way of living, technology, economy etc. Beyond these things there is also humor. I think if we would watch a comedy from the 60s we would not think everything they say is funny because they base everything on their present and so do we. We wouldn’t understand their way of humor as it changes and so do the people but we can use the time change an make fun of what changed over the time.
How could this be viewed as dark comedy?
First, what is black comedy? " It is a story for example, in which the humor comes from objects that are not traditionally considered humorous (e.g. war, death, inappropriate or loveless relationships) "
On page 91, Ford is speculating where the group (Ford, Arthur, Trillian, Zaphod) is at the moment, after they heard the giant explosion and sais: "We didn’t stand a chance, we must been blown to bit. Arms, legs; everywhere" and the answer he gets by Zaphod is a simple "Yeah" followed by the question, by Garkbit, whether the group wants to order drinks. In a situation like that the question whether they have been blown to bit and this is afterlife is most probably not quite funny but for the reader the tone and they way this question is asked makes it funny.
Time changes and so do the people, a good example for this is Hitler. People after WWII didn’t even think of making fun of Hitler whereas today besides historical movies several comedy movies already exist about Hitler. Even though Hitler as a person is not rudimentary funny, in the comedy the way he is presented can be funny. The thing with black comedy is, that one has to know where the limits are about what you make fun of and how.
Over time, people create a different way of expressing their humor and what they find funny.
How is time used to create humor?
"Remember when we were children, what we were wearing for clothes? We looked horrible. And the first party we went to, oh I would never wear the top today again if I would go to a party like this again, it looked horrible."
Don’t we all know the situation when we talk about "good old times" and can laugh about how we were dressed and what things we did?
One can laugh about thing in the past because they become funny if you look back in time. Time changes our way of living, technology, economy etc. Beyond these things there is also humor. I think if we would watch a comedy from the 60s we would not think everything they say is funny because they base everything on their present and so do we. We wouldn’t understand their way of humor as it changes and so do the people but we can use the time change an make fun of what changed over the time.
How could this be viewed as dark comedy?
First, what is black comedy? " It is a story for example, in which the humor comes from objects that are not traditionally considered humorous (e.g. war, death, inappropriate or loveless relationships) "
On page 91, Ford is speculating where the group (Ford, Arthur, Trillian, Zaphod) is at the moment, after they heard the giant explosion and sais: "We didn’t stand a chance, we must been blown to bit. Arms, legs; everywhere" and the answer he gets by Zaphod is a simple "Yeah" followed by the question, by Garkbit, whether the group wants to order drinks. In a situation like that the question whether they have been blown to bit and this is afterlife is most probably not quite funny but for the reader the tone and they way this question is asked makes it funny.
Time changes and so do the people, a good example for this is Hitler. People after WWII didn’t even think of making fun of Hitler whereas today besides historical movies several comedy movies already exist about Hitler. Even though Hitler as a person is not rudimentary funny, in the comedy the way he is presented can be funny. The thing with black comedy is, that one has to know where the limits are about what you make fun of and how.
Over time, people create a different way of expressing their humor and what they find funny.
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