Page 92 - The Language of Humour

WRITTEN TEXTS—LITERATURE 79
number twenty unable to define a horse.’ This parodies the curt style
associated with a blunt, plain-speaking man. He uses a number of
absolute terms: ‘nothing, alone, ever, only’. In the words of Ambrose
Bierce, he is ‘Positive at the top of his voice’. Though plain-speaking in
terms of sentence structure, he uses a formal level of lexis: ‘veterinary
surgeon, farrier’. These terms are thrown into contrast with the words of
Sissy Jupe, who had just referred to her father: ‘he belongs to the horse-
riding’. She has already been established as the likeable foil to
Gradgrind and to the younger version, Bitzer, by the use of words with
favourable connotations: ‘a deeper and more lustrous colour from the
sun’. In contrast, the words used to describe Gradgrind, his schoolroom
and his favoured pupil have a negative range of connotations: ‘vault’,
‘cellar’, ‘cannon’ etc.
The narrator is also infected with Gradgrind’s style of speech and
repeats the word ‘square’ in almost every sentence. The sentence
structure imitates the monotony to which he refers, by beginning a
series with The emphasis was helped by…’. This clumsy repetition helps
to create a sense of irony, as the reader does not feel that anything is
‘helped’, rather ‘hindered’. The absurdity of Gradgrind’s views are
highlighted in his statement ‘Sissy is not a name’, saying something
which is patently not true (Grice’s maxim of quality). He continues to
refer to her as ‘Girl number twenty’—using numbers not names has a
range of aggressive or impersonal connotations.
Gradgrind himself is the butt of the humour, particularly in the
physical descriptions linking the man to solid, inanimate objects. The
caricature reaches its most absurd level when his head is compared,
incongruously, to both a plantation of firs and a plum pie. The direction
of the satire is widened out to embrace Facts, in the image of his
‘neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating
grasp, like a stubborn fact’. The absurdity of his view of knowledge
is shown in the contrasting attitudes to Sissy’s and Bitzer’s knowledge
of horses: ‘Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one
of the commonest of animals.’ (It is her father’s trade!) The desired
answer is a wonderful exaggeration of a collection of incidental facts,
expressed in abbreviated sentences with scientific jargon: ‘Quadruped.
Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty four grinders, four eye-teeth,
and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds
hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known
by marks in mouth.’