AGONY MASKED UNDER INCONGRUITY IN “THIS IS GOING

TO HURT”

BS Research Proposal

Submitted by: Noor ul ain Mufti

BS-ENG-MF17-ID107 / 17407

Supervisor: Ma’am Uzma Moin

NUML, Islamabad

Department of English (UGS)

National University of Modern Languages
Islamabad

Date: ……………………….
Signature of Supervisor …………………………..
 Table of Contents Page No.

1: Introduction …………………………………………………

1.1 Statement of the Problem …………………………………………………

1.2 Significance of the Study …………………………………………….……

1.3 Research Objectives ….………………………………………………

1.4 Research Questions …………………………………………………

1.5 Delimitations …………………………………………………

1.6 Chapter Breakdown …………………………………………………

2: Literature Review …….……………………………………………

3: Research Methodology …………..……….………………………………

3.1 Theoretical Framework ………….………………………………………

3.2 Research Design ……….…………………………………………

3.3 Research Method …….……………………………………………

3.4 Procedures and Tools ………………………………………………….

References ……………….………………………………….
 Introduction
Throughout centuries people accompanying other emotions are aware of
humour and laughter. The very significance of comedy which brought to
spotlight was by none other than Greeks. From Aristotle till present day,
human beings as social beings used to get amused with satire. But that
necessarily doesn’t mean that all beings get amused by the same kind of
comedy. Over time, it progressed and flourished according to the social
needs and criteria. The main point is that previously it was taken as just a
technique to make a person laugh by doing something unusual or not
expected usually. But with the progress in science and philosophy, humour
is being looked at from different perspectives. And from this point, our
research focus starts. Adam Kay is a renowned British comedy writer
whose book “This is Going to hurt”, on which the entire focus of this
research work is on. This compilation of secret diaries is of Junior Doctor
(Adam Kay himself) and, it’s the record of his journey of 6 years from junior
doctor to senior registrar till his resign. The writer in his book speaks of his
sufferings but in an incongruous manner and through mirth. In conveying a
serious message through the investigation of the tool of humour, this
research will work through The Incongruity Theory given by Arthur
Schopenhauer and will apply the Suls two-stage model, for resolving the
incongruity in punch lines.

1.1 Statement of the Problem:

Humour a Quality in something that makes us laugh, in a situation, in someone’s
words or actions, or a book or a film. For some; talking incongruous is utterly
preposterous, however there are some for whom the humour plays an essential
part in delivering their serious message, expressing their anxiety or suffering.
Humour has always been the tool used to convey the inner meaning of things that
one cannot say unreservedly. This research inquest analyses the expression of
suffering/pain expressed through incongruity in Adam Kay secret diaries named
“This is going to hurt”. The work is about, to avail the humour to get rid of anxiety
and stress or convey absurdity. Hither the issue is to analyze how satire plays like
the best disguise to project the seriousness of suffering, and how it helps to
counterbalance the dismay.

1.2 Significance of the study:

To study the effectiveness of humour to deliver a hidden, serious message or

suffering is significant. It is because it will provide the readers with a newer
perspective of the book. The study will offer valuable information to the readers
about how psychologically and philosophically important is it to express the pain
masked in incongruity.

This study is vital because identifying the incongruity or punch lines and then
deciphering the hidden meaning is, what explains the purpose of humour which is
changed now. It not only causes laughter but, also, it engages the listeners or
readers in exploring the hidden purpose (can be seriousness; can be suffering).

The purpose is a fair try to create a link between the uses of incongruity or
absurdity as an effective aid for the relief of anxiety and also to show how
important is this approach to express the seriousness of the issue while humoring.

1.3 Objectives of the research:

Following represent the objective of the study:

To investigate the tool of humour namely sitcom comedy used to mask the severity of
pain or suffering.

To explicate the use of humor as an effective way to communicate the actual purpose of
writing the book “This is Going to Hurt”.

1.4 Research questions:

1. How by availing sitcom comedy expresses the ultimate suffering of a Doctor’s life, in
the book “This is Going to Hurt”?

2. How writing in humorous manner an effective way to impart the actual purpose?

1.5 Delimitations:

The current study is limited to the Schopenhauer idea of incongruity in The

Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor “This Is Going To Hurt” by Adam Kay. The
dissertation focuses on the ways of expressing suffering masked under
absurdity.
1.6 Chapter Breakdown:

 1. Introduction
 2. Literature Review
 3. Theoretical framework
 4. Methodology
 5. Conclusion

Literature review:
Incongruity:

Since many decades and centuries Humour has been the source of relieving
peoples’ anxiety and providing them a good show time away from the
worries of life for a while. Incongruity is part of humor that has been lucidly
worked on as we have a whole theory related to that. But all of the work is
related to the type of incongruity that is absurd and and providing a little
meaning; we have Schopenhauer, Morealls, Suls’ Incongruity resolution
model and so on. Another emerging name is of Steve Kaplan who in his
book talked about writing in an incongruous manner and says that “you
need to see the world in unique way, not the way everybody sees the
world.” (kaplan, 2013)

Schopenhauer also talked about perception and reflection and then

representation, and while doing so he indicated that when something in
reality doesn’t match with the perception or idea held in mind; that creates
incongruity.

The wit of the older times is now represented as cognitive ability to create
humor out of situations and that’s precisely explained by Aristotle “That
greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that
cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of a genius since a good
metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilar”.
(Grat, 1963)

Incongruity overall provides a purpose even if it is meaningless

‘apparently’. Some incongruities are rational and meaningful; others are
irrational and meaningful, while there is third type that is irrational and
apparently meaningless. The reason to mention these is that there is a role
of cognitive abilities involved in expressing our subconscious what we
cannot say in words. But not all think on the same level. Some might enjoy
a comic play for the sake of leisure but there are some who goes deep
down into the meaning behind of what has been expressed.

Borev calling comical a socially relevant Incongruity says that “The comical in art is
a means to uncover the contradictions of reality and as such is an aesthetic form
of critique”

This objective quality which incongruity possess is what gives it a special rank to
express any reality or suffering through it.

But Borev’s point of view is still narrow as in his opinion the truly comical is what
does not conform to the “real course of history” and what stands in contradiction
with the “real destiny of life”.

The basis of the comedy is always about contradictions with real life, human
incongruity. The incongruity according to them can be real and seeming but it
should not be too significant and painful. Our argument starts from here that if
the pain or suffering expressed incongruously, the actual empathy to sense for
the writer (in case of autobiography) would be less painful.

Apart from all the aspects of Incongruity theory shown, Arthur Schopenhauer
presented the rationalism of incongruity. If the things and concepts are
represented in a logical rational manner with some of the features of the notion
of object excluded from what the actual real object is, then it seems comical but
only in some cases.

Therefore, the Schopenhauer Theory is narrow in some sense but if we further

elaborate and build our conceptual framework over it we get to know that
Schopenhauer has provided the path to further work on subjectivity and
objectivity of incongruity. This is further elaborated by Moysey Kagan who says
that the comical arises as a result of the clash between reality and ideals. But this
brings the comical to the phenomenon of tragic that when a person perceives the
reality and represents that artistically and sometimes that reality can be harsh full
of suffering and pain but it is represented through irony, sarcasm or simply with

laughter the phenomenon becomes comical. It is the point of view of the ideal
that is judging, neglecting, and humiliating the real. That’s pretty much related to
Aristotle’s idea that we laugh at the deficiencies and weakness of human being
only when they are harmless to us or society.

Resolution of incongruity to appreciate the humour or comical takes us to the

Two-stage incongruity resolution Model of Jerry M. Suls. Suls says: “The punch
line creates incongruity and then a cognitive rule must be found which enables
the content of the punch line to follow naturally from the information established
in the setup.” It’s like you going on a straight road and out of nowhere a surprise
speed breaker comes in a way and you get a jerk. Same is the case that while
reading through the text you suddenly get a surprise of punch line which violates
the expectations. But for the violation, some cognitive background of the concept
must be built up so that if the violation gets occurred, one’s mind captures and
resolves it immediately and only then laughter can result.

Research methodology

3.1 Theoretical Framework:

Incongruity theory has first proposed by German philosophers Arthur
Schopenhauer and George Hegel. Earlier use of the term was around 1532, put it
in the form of theory, it made progress in the 18th century, to challenge the
superiority theory. Hither a fact that Aristotle, although didn’t mention explicitly
but he did mention a slight hint of incongruity provided some base for humour.

Schopenhauer in his book “the world as will and representation” talked about
laughter and mentioned that we are reflecting on the world based on our
perception and the rational knowledge about things. At the moment, that
perception doesn’t meet the requirements of what is actually in the world so, that
creates a violation of expectation in mind. And the result can sometimes be
laughter or sadness or aggression too, which ultimately make incongruity obvious.

Incongruity has so much to provide and it does not only rely on providing the
laughter but deep down it is serving a lot more job. One main thing from Vischer’s
formula is that it says about incongruity as “poverty and inner emptiness covered
with an external shape which pretends to have content and real significance.”
(Dziemidok, 1992)

All of the incongruity theorists agree on the point that the source of the comical
or laughter is always the Incongruity between the content and the form of a
phenomenon. Although not every incongruity needs not to be comical it is simply
the purpose of incongruity that the best of it is the one that violates the
expectation completely.
Conceptual framework:

The conceptual framework to work on, which I selected for my work is to

illustrate further the idea of Schopenhauer and applying the Suls’ model to
show how the punch lines create a ludicrous effect and how a person gets
speechless when the jokes violate the expectation. This framework will
provide further help in observing the expectation-violation in the book

“This Is Going to Hurt” and how the writer expressed the ultimate harsh
realities of his life and heavy work hours incongruously, or we should say
that how he masked his suffering by using the technique of incongruous.

3.2 Research Design:

The following research will be qualitative because it will go for the deep
understanding of the book and its message given by Adam Kay in “This Is
Going to Hurt”. Further, it will analyze the use of certain punch lines and
the effect they produced by Suls’ Two-stage incongruity resolution model.

3.3 Research Method:

This qualitative research analyses the book ‘This Is Going to Hurt’ while
generating some deep understanding of the purpose of writing the book.
As the book contains many punch lines so to analyse the hidden meaning
behind the absurdity, this work has collected the non-random samples
upon which the Sul’s two-stage model has put in to observe the effect of
punch lines and how this is the subtle way to communicate the hidden
denotations.

The research work collected samples of punch lines throughout the book.
While some of the punch lines are to connote the frustration and anxiety
concealed in them, others have resulted to reveal the denotation of the
purpose of the book.
 References:

Schpenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1,

Dover Publications, 1969, pp. 34–50.

Kramer,A.Chris.(2015). Incongruity and Seriousness. Florida

Philosophical Review, vol. XV, 10-15

Kaplan, Steve. (2013). The Hidden Tools of Comedy The Serious

Business of Being Funny. Los Angeles: Michael Wiese Productions

Dziemidok, Bohdan. (1992). The Comical A Philosophical Analysis.

Nijhoff International Philosophy Series, vol.47, 23-34

Nijholt, Anton. (2018, December). All the World’s a stage:

Incongruity Humour Revisited. Retrieved November 25, 2020, from
https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10472-018-9609-7

MEINECK, P. (2011). The Neuroscience of the Tragic Mask. Arion: A

Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 19(1), third series, 113-158.
Retrieved February 16, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41308596

Plant, B. (2009). Absurdity, Incongruity and

Laughter. Philosophy, 84(327), 111-134. Retrieved December 23,
2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20533173