Free The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler Page B

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Man and Animal

In the previous chapter I discussed the bisociation of man and machine;
related to it is the hybrid man-animal. Disney's creatures behave as
if they were human without losing their animal appearance, they live
on the line of intersection of the two planes; so do the cartoonist's
piggy or mousy humans. This double-existence is comic, but only so long
as the confrontation has the effect of a slightly degrading exposure of
one or the other. If sympathy prevails over malice, even poor Donald
Duck's misfortunes cease to be laughable; and as you move over to the
right-hand panel of the triptych, the man-animal undergoes a series
of transformations: from the cloying lyricism of Bambi to the tragedy
of Orwell's Boxer; from the archetypal menace of the werewolf to the
Metamorphosis of Kafka's hero into a filth-devouring cockroach. As for
science, the importance of learning about man by the experimental study
of animal physiology need not be stressed; in psychology it has been
rather overstressed to the point where the salivary reflexes of dogs
came to be regarded as paradigmatic for human behaviour.

Impersonation

The various categories of the comic shade into each other: Disney's
animals acting like humans could as well be classified under the heading
'imitation, impersonation, and disguise'. The impersonator is two
different people at one time. If the result is degrading, the spectator
will laugh. If he is led to sympathize or identify himself with the
impersonated hero, he will experience that state of split-mindedness
known as dramatic illusion or the magic of the stage. Which of the two
possibilities will occur depends of course partly on the actor, but
ultimately a jest's prosperity lies in the ear / Of him that hears it,
never in the tongue / Of him that makes it .[1] The same 'narrative', a
Victorian melodrama or a Chinese opera, acted in both cases in precisely
the same way, will make some spectators giggle, others weep. The same
dramatic devices may serve either a comic or a tragic purpose: Romeo
and Juliet are the victims of absurd coincidences, Oedipus's marriage
to his mother is due to mistaken identity; Rosamund in As You Like
It and Leonora in Fidelio are both disguised as men, yet
in one case the result is drama, in another comedy. The technique of
creating character-types is also shared by both: in the classical form
of tragedy, whether Greek, Indian, or Japanese, characterization is often
achieved by standardized masks; in the comedy, down to Molière,
by the creation of types: the miser, the glutton, the hypocrite, the
cuckold. In the centre panel (where impersonation appears in the form
of empathy, the act of self-projection which enables one to understand
others, see below, pp. 187-8 ) the classification
of character-types has been the aim of incessant efforts -- from the 'four
temperaments' of the Greeks, to Kretschmer, Jung, Sheldon, and so on.

The Child-Adult

Why are puppies droll? Firstly, their helplessness, trustingness,
attachment, and puzzled expression make them more 'human' than grown-up
dogs; in the second place the ferocious growl of the puppy strikes
us as an impersonation of adult behaviour (like the little boy with
stuck-on beard and bowler-hat, pretending to be the family doctor);
thirdly, the puppy's waddling and tumbling makes it a choice victim
of nature's practical jokes; furthermore, its bodily disproportions,
the huge padded paws, wrinkled brow, and Falstaffian belly, give it the
appearance of a caricature; and so on. The delighted laughter which greets
the puppy's antics seems so simple to explain; but when we try to analyse
it we find several interlocking causes; and while the word 'delighted'
indicates a pure emotion, free from the ugly taint of aggressiveness,
the grain of self-satisfied condescension, the conviction of our own
superiority is nevertheless present, even if we are not aware of it.

A simple shift of emphasis will move the bisociation of child and