The function of laughter in 'Don Quijote', 'Pnin', and 'Only Yesterday'

This dissertation examines the function and significance of laughter in three novels: Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes, Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov, and Only Yesterday by S.Y. Agnon. The focus and starting point of this examination is represented laughter, i.e., how and why fictional characters laugh. This fictional laughter reveals a range of attitudes toward the laughable and conditions our appreciation of the text. In all three novels, laughter plays an indispensable role, because the moral and aesthetic purpose of laughter is a central theme in each of these texts. So for example both Don Quijote and Pnin are cast in the role of laughingstock; we laugh at them, you might say, ergo they exist; and the name Yitzh&dotbelow;aq, the hapless hero of Only Yesterday, is a Hebrew word that means "Will Laugh." These three protagonists are defined in relation to the laughable: they are not meant merely to make us laugh but to make us think about laughter. Thus, each of these novels creates a new and original image of laughter, and through this image a new understanding of laughter's role in the communicative and aesthetic process.;The Introduction attempts to comprehend the universal and strictly human paralinguistic behavior known as laughter and to locate its function in narrative fiction. Chapter One analyzes the representation of laughter in Don Quijote, which serves as a kind of model for the study of laughter in the novel. Chapter Two posits Pnin as Nabokov's attempt to challenge the kind of laughter inspired by and located in Don Quijote and thus to overcome the influence of Cervantes. Chapter Three argues that laughter inscribes itself as a force of playfulness and rebellion in Only Yesterday through the protagonist's quasi-etiological name and his golem-like double, the dog Balaq. And the Conclusion uses Samuel Beckett's Watt to tie together the various arguments laid out in the previous chapters.