Joke Analysis Terminology
Examples from an assortment of possible essays in italics
Message: What does the joke say or mean? This joke implicitly suggests that for a man to act as a woman would be demeaning.
Structure: How do the parts of the joke relate to each other? The long build-up suddenly deflates with a surprise punchline.
Deep Structure: Does the joke rely on deep structures of meaning in human life, like our conceptions of the self and other, civilized and savage, beautiful and ugly, etc. When the man tells the judge he’s an orphan, it exaggerates the problem we all have reconciling our different selves across time.
Form: The shape of the joke. Some jokes have conventional forms, like the knock-knock or the “Two men go into a bar…” This joke uses the conventional form of the 3-men-on-a-sinking-ship. Such a joke usually sets up a cruelty that will be perpetrated by one person on another.
Reversal: Many jokes get their laugh by reversing the fates of characters or the expectations of listeners. In a reversal, the perpetrator suddenly becomes the victim, upending our expectations.
Anxiety: The theory of humor we used in class suggests that jokes get laughs by building anxiety and suddenly releasing it. This joke exploits straight male anxiety about homosexual desire.
Premise: One way to construct a joke is to start with a premise and then exaggerate it. Some premises are conventional and expected. This joke rests upon the premise that blondes are stupid.
Diction: Just as when we analyze poems, diction involves the connotation or denotation of words.
Imagery: Another term we already know from analyzing poems.
Social Context: Virtually any analysis of a joke can feature a paragraph about the social context. Jokes are rooted in our society and its moral, religious, aesthetic, and political beliefs, which they also reveal. Current attitudes toward immigrants range from empathy to racist condemnation of them, and this joke situates itself on the racist end of that spectrum.
The Magic Number 3: Many jokes use 3 events or 3 characters. The first two set up a pattern, and the final one gives that pattern a twist or overturns it completely.
Hyperbole: Exaggeration. Many jokes take a premise and exaggerate it. When the speaker claims his parents gave him a toaster and a radio for bath toys, it exaggerates the premise that his parents didn’t love him, and that he is, in fact, unlovable.
Figurative/ literal: Some jokes switch between literal meanings and figurative meanings. “Figurative” means metaphoric, colloquial, or some other meaning of words and phrases that are not literally true.
Sacred/ Profane: Sacred things are those that we treat with great reverence. Profane things are those that we are not supposed to speak of at all. If a joke smashes the two together, it is sure to offend some and make other laugh. When God’s bolt of lightning strikes the pious nun instead of the blasphemous golfing priest, and He curses like the golfing priest did, the sacred falls victim to the profane.