perceive
the tickling as a mock attack, a caress in a mildly aggressive
disguise. This explains why people laugh only when tickled by others
but not when they tickle themselves. (The question why this should be
so was once put to a BBC Brains Trust which, after some humming, hawing,
and giggling, decided that it was one of the insoluble mysteries of human
nature.) Not only must there be a second person to do the tickling, but
her expression and attitude must be mock-aggressive -- as mothers and
nurses instinctively know. Battle cries like 'peekaboo' and 'bow-wow'
pay guaranteed dividends, like the comedian's imitation of the lion's
roar. As in every attack, the element of surprise plays an important part:
the expert tickler's tactics never let the victim guess when and where
the next pressure or pincer movement will occur. Experiments in tickling
on babies under one year old showed that babies laughed fifteen times
more often when tickled by their mothers than when they were tickled
by strangers. For naturally the mock-attack will make the baby laugh
only if it knows that it is a mock-attack; and with strangers one never
knows. Even with its own mother there is an ever-so-slight feeling of
uncertainty and apprehension, the expression of which alternates with
laughter in the baby's behaviour; and it is precisely this element
of apprehension between two tickles which is relieved in the laughter
accompanying the squirm. The rule of the game is 'let me be just a little
frightened so that I can enjoy the relief'.
Thus the mechanism is essentially the same as in comic impersonation: the
tickler impersonates an aggressor, but is simultaneously known not to be
one. It is probably the first situation encountered in life which makes
the infant live on two planes at once, the first delectable experience in
bisociation -- a foretaste of pleasures to come at the pantomime show,
of becoming a willing victim to the illusions of the stage, of being
tickled by the horror-thriller.
In adolescence, erotic elements enter into the game, and tickling assumes
the role of a sexual mock-attack -- acknowledged with giggles which betray
their origin in infantile apprehensions. Some homosexuals claim to be
extremely ticklish and display a tendency to squirming and wriggling as
an expression of mock-fright. But these are secondary developments which
partly illuminate, partly confuse the original pattern -- the tickled
child's laughter is a discharge of apprehensions recognized as unfounded
by the intellect.
The Clown
Most of the comic techniques I have discussed can be found in the
repertory of the circus clown -- the classic incarnation of the coarser
type of humour. His face is a richly exaggerated caricature of stupidity,
sometimes with an infectious grimace of laughter painted on it; in each
piece of his apparel, form battles against function; each of his movements
is a parody of grace. He is the victim and perpetrator of preposterous
practical jokes; he is both human and inert matter, for to survive all
the slaps, whacks, and cracks, his skull must be made of ebony. He is
the image in the distorting mirror, the clumsy impersonator of acrobats,
ballet dancers, and fairies: Caliban imitating Ariel. He is a collection
of deformities, bodily and functional; he stumbles over obstacles and
words; he is timid, gauche, eccentric, and absent-minded. Above all,
he is the man of gigantic efforts and diminutive accomplishments: the
midwife who aids the mountain to deliver the mouse.
The clown's domain is the coarse, rich, overt type of humour: he leaves
nothing to be guessed, he piles it on. A good deal of the enjoyment he
causes is a mild gloating, the discharge of sadistic, sexual, scatalogical
impulses by way of the purifying channels of laughter. One means of
producing and prolonging this effect is repetition . The clown
and the clowning kind of music-hall comedian will tell, or act out, a
long-drawn narrative in which the same type of flash, the same
the tickling as a mock attack, a caress in a mildly aggressive
disguise. This explains why people laugh only when tickled by others
but not when they tickle themselves. (The question why this should be
so was once put to a BBC Brains Trust which, after some humming, hawing,
and giggling, decided that it was one of the insoluble mysteries of human
nature.) Not only must there be a second person to do the tickling, but
her expression and attitude must be mock-aggressive -- as mothers and
nurses instinctively know. Battle cries like 'peekaboo' and 'bow-wow'
pay guaranteed dividends, like the comedian's imitation of the lion's
roar. As in every attack, the element of surprise plays an important part:
the expert tickler's tactics never let the victim guess when and where
the next pressure or pincer movement will occur. Experiments in tickling
on babies under one year old showed that babies laughed fifteen times
more often when tickled by their mothers than when they were tickled
by strangers. For naturally the mock-attack will make the baby laugh
only if it knows that it is a mock-attack; and with strangers one never
knows. Even with its own mother there is an ever-so-slight feeling of
uncertainty and apprehension, the expression of which alternates with
laughter in the baby's behaviour; and it is precisely this element
of apprehension between two tickles which is relieved in the laughter
accompanying the squirm. The rule of the game is 'let me be just a little
frightened so that I can enjoy the relief'.
Thus the mechanism is essentially the same as in comic impersonation: the
tickler impersonates an aggressor, but is simultaneously known not to be
one. It is probably the first situation encountered in life which makes
the infant live on two planes at once, the first delectable experience in
bisociation -- a foretaste of pleasures to come at the pantomime show,
of becoming a willing victim to the illusions of the stage, of being
tickled by the horror-thriller.
In adolescence, erotic elements enter into the game, and tickling assumes
the role of a sexual mock-attack -- acknowledged with giggles which betray
their origin in infantile apprehensions. Some homosexuals claim to be
extremely ticklish and display a tendency to squirming and wriggling as
an expression of mock-fright. But these are secondary developments which
partly illuminate, partly confuse the original pattern -- the tickled
child's laughter is a discharge of apprehensions recognized as unfounded
by the intellect.
The Clown
Most of the comic techniques I have discussed can be found in the
repertory of the circus clown -- the classic incarnation of the coarser
type of humour. His face is a richly exaggerated caricature of stupidity,
sometimes with an infectious grimace of laughter painted on it; in each
piece of his apparel, form battles against function; each of his movements
is a parody of grace. He is the victim and perpetrator of preposterous
practical jokes; he is both human and inert matter, for to survive all
the slaps, whacks, and cracks, his skull must be made of ebony. He is
the image in the distorting mirror, the clumsy impersonator of acrobats,
ballet dancers, and fairies: Caliban imitating Ariel. He is a collection
of deformities, bodily and functional; he stumbles over obstacles and
words; he is timid, gauche, eccentric, and absent-minded. Above all,
he is the man of gigantic efforts and diminutive accomplishments: the
midwife who aids the mountain to deliver the mouse.
The clown's domain is the coarse, rich, overt type of humour: he leaves
nothing to be guessed, he piles it on. A good deal of the enjoyment he
causes is a mild gloating, the discharge of sadistic, sexual, scatalogical
impulses by way of the purifying channels of laughter. One means of
producing and prolonging this effect is repetition . The clown
and the clowning kind of music-hall comedian will tell, or act out, a
long-drawn narrative in which the same type of flash, the same
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