fiction

illusion of self-mockery in jewish humor

occupation / innovator as

novelist

nationality

American

is fun because you get to steal an identity and try to make it authentic.

Fiction is fun because you get to steal an identity and try to make it authentic.

is the idea that jewish jokes are not self-mockery, but are instead the mocking of a social group within the jewish community from which one would like to differentiate themselves.

DanBen-Amos has cricized what he calls the illusion of self-mockery in Jewish humor, arguing that the examination of Jewish joke-telling events reveals that the raconteur does not identify himself with the butt of the joke (1973: 123),. . . . In his words, 'The narrator is not the butt of his story and self-degradation could not possibley be a classical form of Jewish Humor.' Ben-Amos suggests that there is a generational factor. It is Jews who speak without 'Jewish' accents who especially enjoy telling Jewish jokes using accents. He feels that 'the narrators do not laugh at themselves altogether, but rather ridicule a social group within the Jewish community from which they would like to differentiate themselves (1973:125). (humor prism in 20th century america boskin).

Dan Chaon

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Dan Chaon