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How Is Humor Used In Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

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A Humorous Galaxy Ever since the infancy of written language, man has been making jokes to humor one another. The first joke ever written, crafted by an ancient Sumerian dating all the way back to 1900 BC, shows that even the oldest ancestors of mankind thought that potty jokes were pretty neat. Douglas Adams, in his book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, uses his advanced sense of humor to create plenty of opportunities to appreciate humor in the written form. This fictional adventure follows Arthur Dent after he is saved by his alien friend, Ford Prefect, from the destruction of Earth. With the help of humor and sarcasm, Adams portrays his views of society and provides readers the opportunity to realize some of the small flaws that we …show more content…

However, this sort of awkward English mistake is usually only found in verbal form, as it can often be corrected once put into writing. Recognizing this, Adams specifically uses dialogue as a literary device in order to create a humorous situation that exploits this sort of English mistake. As Arthur and Ford sit in an alien space ship awaiting their deaths, Arthur starts to contemplate his life, saying, “‘You know,’ said Arthur, ‘it’s at times like this… that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.’ ‘Why, what did she tell you?’ ‘I don’t know, I didn’t listen’” (Adams 48). Adams uses Ford to show how the average person would react, interpreting what Arthur said to mean “I wish I followed my mother’s advice,” when in reality, Arthur was being quite literal with his words. In this specific example, Adams takes advantage of dialogue in a humorous way that enables him to portray his perception of this somewhat inconspicuous English miscommunication. Dialogue is one of the most commonly used literary devices in a many books, but it is often the best way to create humor between

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