Laughter as Pain Killer

If Pride and Prejudice happened at a small American university…..Lizzy Bennet would be the super smart, bordering on nerdy girl trying to get into graduate programs. Darcy would be the quiet guy who dresses suspiciously tidy, sits in the back of class and always has headphones on when doing homework in the courtyard. But really, he is watching everything happening and secretly plotting to take over the universe.

Jane works as an RA/dorm mother and always has a cheerful word for everyone. A psychology major, her professors adore her. Bingley could also be an RA who is super involved in campus life and friends with everyone from the Dean to the gardener. Pedantic Mary is the only girl in her medieval philosophy classes, and Kitty and Lydia are freshmen. Need I say more?

Wickham is the super senior on his fourth or fifth transfer. He rolls out of bed for class and forgets to show up to his finals. Mr. Bennet is an adjunct professor who enjoys watching his students behave ridiculously more than he does lecturing to them. Lady Catherine is a booster who descends on the college regularly to survey her tax-deductible gifts at work and reminisce about her school days two million years ago.

I can’t really picture Mrs. Bennet on a college campus. Unless, she’s the flighty mother dropping her child off on move-in day and scoping out the lay of the land. Charlotte Lucas represents the student with three different jobs, working her way through school. Mr. Collins is the friendless friendly guy who talks to everyone and instructs them about anything they appear to need assistance with, such as their homework, jobs, relationships or how to play the guitar. Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley might be upper classmen who still haven’t figured out that they are no longer enrolled in high school.

Perhaps that is a rather scathing picture of people and personalities based on brutal stereotypes. But what I’ve been learning about Jane Austen lately is that her texts tend to be rather biting representations of people and society. Typically, this is the nature of social commentaries. Often, when you think about satire it seems a hurtful sort of humor.

Some philosophize that laughter acts as a mask for pain. The endorphins released by laughter help to dull painful feelings. The invariable laughter/pain connection can be observed when someone attempts to tickle you to death. Tickling causes some discomfort which, in turn, typically causes us to react with hysteria.

So the satirical vein of Austen’s work causes us to laugh at the exaggerated and sometimes painful representation of the people which it presents. We chuckle while simultaneously thanking our mothers for not acting like Mrs. Bennet. And we squirm and chortle with discomfort as we watch Mr. Collins act completely inappropriately, raising discomfort in social situations to a new level.

As readers, we find ourselves in the same frame of perspective as Elizabeth, Mr. Bennet and the text itself: critical observers of everyone else’s folly. But eventually, like Lizzy, we discover our own disillusionment or, like Mr. Bennet, our very grave oversight. Or we find ourselves caught in personal pride with Mr. Darcy. Or perhaps we glimpse our mutual awkwardness with characters like Mary or Mr. Collins. In such cases as these, perhaps it is best to realize the pain of our own folly through laughter.