As usual, here are a few ideas to consider as you read through the next two chapters on "Plotting Mischief" and "Underdogs":
* Why is the nature of a joke a frustrated expectation--or an unexpected surprise? How is this beneficial for society as a way of "maintain[ing] data integrity"?
* Why can we consider a joke as much HOW it is told as what is told? Why is delivery so important?
* Chapter 3 talked a bit about love as a form of comedy, and in Chapter 4 we learn that "to be in love is to have lost the plot" (52). What does this mean? How does this help make love comedic--and the reason we have romantic comedies, and not as many romantic tragedies?
* What does Bevis mean by saying "Comedy is often a story in which people can believe their luck" (53)?
* E.M. Forster said that "In a novel there is always a clock," but the clock in a comedy doesn't run in a normal fashion (unlike tragedy, which is run on a dramatic, methodical tempo). Why is time so skewed in comedy? And why is comedy not exactly about getting to the point?
* How does the film, Groundhog Day, provide a metaphor for the very philosophy of comedy? What does he learn that anyone who finds themselves in a comedy would learn?
* Why does comedy make more sense from the perspective of an underdog? Why do we have less comedies of the upper classes, rather than the lower (or middle)?
* The word philosopher invites the pun "foolosopher," which many "fools" in plays and movies certainly warrant. Why is the fool--the one who cracks the jokes--often the wisest man or woman in the room?
* What are the two types of fools in plays, particularly Shakespeare's? Why is one more 'foolish' than the other?
* Why did comedy develop past merely laughing at the fool to imagining "what it would feel like to be a fool or clown" (71)?
* Is it true that we can really only laugh at ourselves? Is that the essence of comedy (again, the idea of identity)?
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