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Gallows humor is humor about very unpleasant, serious, or painful circumstances. Any humor that treats serious matters, such as death, war, disease, and crime, in a light, silly or satirical fashion is considered gallows humor. Gallows humor has been described as a witticism in response to a hopeless situation.〔 It arises from stressful, traumatic, or life-threatening situations, often in circumstances such that death is perceived as impending and unavoidable. ==Nature and functions== Sigmund Freud in his 1927 essay ''Humour'' (''Der Humor'') puts forth the following theory of the gallows humor: "The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure." Some other sociologists elaborated this concept further. At the same time, Paul Lewis warns that this "relieving" aspect of gallows jokes depends on the context of the joke: whether the joke is being told by the threatened person themselves or by someone else.〔Paul Lewis, "Three Jews and a Blindfold: The Politics of Gallows Humor", In: "Semites and Stereotypes: Characteristics of Jewish Humor" (1993), ISBN 0-313-26135-0, (p. 49 )〕 Gallows humor has the social effect of strengthening the morale of the oppressed and undermines the morale of the oppressors.〔Obrdlik, Antonin J. (1942) (''"Gallows Humor"-A Sociological Phenomenon'' ), American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 47, No. 5 (Mar., 1942), pp. 709-716〕〔Mariah Snyder, Ruth Lindquist (''Complementary and alternative therapies in nursing'' )〕 According to Wylie Sypher, "to be able to laugh at evil and error means we have surmounted them."〔 Wylie Sypher quoted in ZhouRaymond, Jingqiong (''Carver's short fiction in the history of black humor'' ) p.132〕 Gallows humor is a natural human instinct and examples of it can be found in stories from antiquity. Its use was widespread in middle Europe, from where it was imported to the United States as part of Jewish humor.〔Kurt Vonnegut (1971) ''Running Experiments Off: An Interview'', in ''Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut'' quote: 〕 It is rendered with the German expression ''Galgenhumor''. The concept of gallows humor is comparable to the French expression ''rire jaune'',〔Redfern, W. D. and Redfern, Walter (2005) (''Calembours, ou les puns et les autres : traduit de l'intraduisible '' ), p.211 quote: 〕〔Müller, Walter (1961) (''Französische Idiomatik nach Sinngruppen'' ), p.178 quote: 〕〔Dupriez, Bernard Marie (1991) (''A dictionary of literary devices: gradus, A-Z'' ), p.313 quote: 〕 which also has a Germanic equivalent in the Belgian Dutch expression ''groen lachen'' (lit. ''green laughing'').〔Brachin, Pierre (1985) (''The Dutch language: a survey'' ) pp.101-2〕〔Claude et Marcel De Grève, Françoise Wuilmart, ''(TRADUCTION / Translation )'', section ''Histoire et théorie de la traduction - Recherches sur les microstructures'', in: Grassin, Jean-Marie (ed.), (DITL ) (Dictionnaire International des Termes Littéraires), (Nov 2010 )"〕〔(1950) (''Zaïre'' ), Volume 4, Part 1, p.138 quote: 〕〔Chédel, André (1965) (''Description moderne des langues du monde: le latin et le grec inutile?'' ) p.171 quote: 〕 Italian comedian Daniele Luttazzi discussed gallows humour focusing on the particular type of laughter that it arouses (''risata verde'' or ''groen lachen''), and said that grotesque satire, as opposed to ironic satire, is the one that most often arouses this kind of laughter.〔Pardo, Denise (2001) (Interview ) with Daniele Luttazzi, in ''L'Espresso'', February 1st, 2001 quote: 〕〔Daniele Luttazzi (2004) (Interview ), in the Italian edition of ''Rolling Stone'', November 2004. Quote: 〕〔Marmo, Emanuela (2004) (Interview ) with Daniele Luttazzi (March 2004) quote: 〕 In the Weimar era ''Kabaretts'', this genre was particularly common, and according to Luttazzi, Karl Valentin and Karl Kraus were the major masters of it.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gallows humor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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