Thoughtful Laughter Essay

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Crystal Grooms Grooms 1 Dr. Baker AP Literature 18 September 2012 Thoughtful Laughter In order to write an essay about thoughtful laughter one must define it. Defining thoughtful laughter is as easy as reading the word its self. Thoughtful laughter causes immediate laughter from the reader; in addition to entertaining and amusing one it also makes one think about the meaning and application. A comedy achieves thoughtful laughter when the first response from the audience is laughter, because the situation is amusing, then leaves the audience thinking about the theme of the show. The amusing yet thoughtful comedy, Aristophanes Lysistrata is a great example of a comedy that carries thoughtful laughter. Aristophanes presents a comical tone throughout the dialogue of the main character Lysisrata, as well as the dialogues of the other characters, for example, “Women! Announce a debauch in honor of Bacchos, a spree for pan, some footling fertility fieldday, and traffic stops-the streets are absolutely cloggers with traffic females banging on tambourines. No urging for an orgy! But today there’s not one women here” (Lysistrata 16). This quote displays the comical tone portrayed by lysistata and the women. Every action portrayed from a character makes an even greater sense of comedy to the already comical plot of the story. The play deals with sex and sexuality in a comedic fashion and also is able to show the humor that can be found in the foolishness and ignorance of men, the men being away at war would come home when they could, sexually relieve themselves and then leave again to continue a meaningless war, however the women changed there ways and stopped allowing men to do as they please; which forced the men to stop the war. The women did everything they could do to get men to understand that they are equally intelligent, as well as having
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