Abstract
The fabricated disaster caused by war and conflict and its traumatic
effect on people and the environment hardly seems an appropriate subject of
comic representation. Yet such an unamusing topic has often been represented in
literature and visual arts through humour. Joseph Heller’s novel Catch 22 and
movies such as Tai a Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit or Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful
exemplify artistic expression that uses laughter to substantiate the poignant
absurdity of war and genocide. Similarly, British-Nigerian writer and film
director Biyi Bandele’s WWII novel Burma Boy, the focus of the present article,
uses Comedy to portray the futility, irrationality and madness of a war that had
mortal consequences and traumatic resonances on the lives of the often-forgotten
young Black African soldiers who participated in the Burma Campaign. In this
article, I read the novel through a Bergsonian lens of the Comic to suggest that
such techniques reveal the absurdity and tragedy of war by dragging the reader
onto the stage to perceive themselves as part of the failings of humanity and,
above all, of western modernity.
effect on people and the environment hardly seems an appropriate subject of
comic representation. Yet such an unamusing topic has often been represented in
literature and visual arts through humour. Joseph Heller’s novel Catch 22 and
movies such as Tai a Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit or Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful
exemplify artistic expression that uses laughter to substantiate the poignant
absurdity of war and genocide. Similarly, British-Nigerian writer and film
director Biyi Bandele’s WWII novel Burma Boy, the focus of the present article,
uses Comedy to portray the futility, irrationality and madness of a war that had
mortal consequences and traumatic resonances on the lives of the often-forgotten
young Black African soldiers who participated in the Burma Campaign. In this
article, I read the novel through a Bergsonian lens of the Comic to suggest that
such techniques reveal the absurdity and tragedy of war by dragging the reader
onto the stage to perceive themselves as part of the failings of humanity and,
above all, of western modernity.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 10.31178/UBR.12.2.2 |
| Pages (from-to) | 20-33 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | University of Bucharest Review: Literary and Cultural Studies Series |
| Volume | XII |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Publication status | Published - 3 Oct 2022 |
Keywords
- Biyi Bandele-Thomas; Burma Boy; Henry Bergson; Comedy; the Absurd; the Burma Campaign.
