1At the end of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise (1994), the customers of Khalil’s shop wonder at his sudden gaiety and cheerfulness when he had been so cast-down and miserable before. The narrator lists possible explanations for his behaviour, amongst which features “youthful enthusiasm, misplaced but healthy and pleasing. Might as well laugh now before life knots you up” (234). However, life has already “knotted up” Khalil who, like Yusuf, was taken from his family at a very young age as a compensation for his father’s debts. More broadly, many characters in Paradise face ordeals, hardships and challenging circumstances. And yet, for all the sufferings, humiliations and conflicts depicted in the novel, they are often shown laughing, joking, teasing, mocking, bantering, chuckling, chortling, cackling, jeering, hooting, roaring, pealing, gasping, bursting, heaving or howling with laughter – to list the many verbs that appear in the book. Together with Nigerian scholar Ebenezer Obadare, one may ask: “Why does laughter constantly reverberate in spaces and places where everyone (including those laughing) agrees there is little or nothing to laugh about?” (243).
- 1 In French, the word and its equivalents in West Africa (such as senankuya) have been translated as (...)
- 2 For references to articles by European ethnographers on utani in Tanganyika from the end of the nin (...)
2In East Africa, the practice of laughter can be examined in relation to the concept of utani, a Swahili term which is often translated as “joking relationship” or “joking alliance” and refers to a set of social practices that define and redefine power relations between groups.1 Several scholars still draw from the “colonial library” (Mudimbe 1988, 188) and follow the classic anthropological and essentialist framework of Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown who, in 1940, viewed such relations (involving teasing, banter and verbal abuse) as a means to “reduce tension in situations of potential conflict” and promote cohesion within families, clans or ethnic groups (Lucas 1974, 95).2 In his analysis of utani in Eastern Tanzania, Stephen A. Lucas stressed for his part that this practice varies greatly according to local societies, and that it encompasses both playful banter and a more complex institutionalized “system of ritual interaction” (91) embedded in familial, social, religious and economic patterns in which oppositions, conflicts and hierarchies persist.
3Drawing from the concept of utani in East Africa and from Western theories of laughter, I will try and explain the main functions fulfilled by various modes of laughter in Paradise. I will more particularly question whether laughter is used as a means of excluding the more vulnerable or the Other, bringing to mind the hierarchical divisions of East Africa into separate ethnic and religious groups at the turn of the twentieth century, or if, on the contrary, laughter can be considered as a tool of cohesion, creating a sense of common humanity beyond differences in this multiethnic, multilingual and transcultural society. I am aware that Gurnah’s novel displays more ambiguity than suggested by this schematic binary division but an examination of the different forms of laughter will help trace the complexity of the relationships between communities in Paradise. I will first briefly indicate the different types of laughter that can be found in Paradise before focusing on the hesitation between the inclusionary and exclusionary functions of laughter, relating them to the historical context of the novel which draws attention to various forms of interactions between different cultures and groups.
- 3 American anthropologist James Boyd Christensen adopts a similar view in his analysis of the Luguru (...)
- 4 In anthropology, the structural-functionalist approach emphasizes the functional interrelations of (...)
- 5 Scholars examining joking relationships in West Africa have also advocated for the deconstruction o (...)
- 6 Fouéré writes: “the utani relationships did not abolish the asymmetry of power relations that under (...)
4In his (later contested) 1940 article, British anthropologist Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown argued that joking relationships within and between families or ethnic groups in various parts of Africa are based on “a pretence of hostility and a real friendliness” where “one is by custom permitted, and in some instances required, to tease or make fun of the other, who in turn is required to take no offence” (1940, 195). According to him, such relations are “modes of organizing a definite and stable system of social behaviour” (1940, 200) that help dissipate conflict and maintain cohesion between groups.3 Later scholars such as Stephen A. Lucas who, between 1974 and 1976, edited in Dar-es-Salaam a collection of seven volumes on Utani Relationships in Tanganyika, or Marie-Aude Fouéré who devoted her 2004 PhD thesis and several articles to utani in Tanzania, have shown the flaws of Radcliffe-Brown’s structural-functionalist4 and essentialist view which a number of ethnologists nevertheless still subscribe to nowadays (Fouéré 2006, 989–94).5 Lucas and Fouéré point to differences of practices depending on local context (East Africa being composed of a multiplicity of ethnic groups with diverse customs) and evolving over time, and show that utani can reproduce and reinforce tensions and power asymmetries rather than enhance reciprocity and equality (Lucas 1974, 98, 109; Fouéré 2005, §9, 13–14, 23; Fouéré 2006, 995).6
- 7 As noted by Mary Beard, this tripartite scheme may be oversimplifying what is actually “much messie (...)
5To start with, one needs to stress that the term utani does not appear in Paradise. The types of laughter deployed in the novel are varied and therefore should not be systematically viewed through that prism, especially as the novel is a literary and fictional work of art and not an anthropological survey. However, the concept, in all its diversity and complexity, can be useful to examine several forms of laughter in Paradise, in dialogue with Western theories which traditionally stress three main functions of laughter (superiority, relief from restraint, and incongruity), which are not to be seen as strictly separate.7 The “superiority theory” of laughter was postulated by Thomas Hobbes, who argued that “the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others” (1840, vol. IV, 46). We find ourselves laughing at inferiority and vulnerability and, by implication, at difference so that laughter as derision or mockery is based on the exclusion of an individual or a group (Ilott 2015, 135). In his analysis of utani, Lucas shows that in a number of cases, utani “implies an exercise of power of one person or one group over another in a given situation”; as some relationships are not based on equality of status and reciprocity, “one participant may verbally abuse or insult another without his or her being able to reply in kind” (1974, 98).
- 8 Stephan F. Miescher and Lisa A. Lindsay define masculinity as “a cluster of norms, values, and beha (...)
- 9 However, during the Lille conference on 9 October 2025, Ida Hadjivayanis pointed out that the fact (...)
- 10 Yusuf is the son of an Mswahili (Hadjivayanis uses this “fluid term” to refer to people who are “or (...)
- 11 During the Lille conference, Hadjivayanis remarked that Hamid’s daughter’s question “why do we have (...)
6In the world of Paradise, where different forms of masculinity coexist, laughter is directed at men whose status is repeatedly challenged both physically and socially.8 Some characters are laughed at and mocked more particularly because of their position at the bottom of the social ladder, as is the case of Yusuf and Khalil, who have both been indentured to the Omani merchant Aziz as pawned individuals or “rehani” (Gurnah 2004, 47) to pay off their fathers’ debts. Their young age and lack of social status encourage other characters to make fun of them. Thus, we learn that “[t]he customers laughed at everything Khalil did” (29) and they specifically mock his “heavy accent” (50) in Kiswahili. Even if Khalil speaks the language fluently, his native tongue is Arabic and he is ostracized for not belonging to the native Swahili community: “They teased him endlessly about his accent, imitating him and then heaving with laughter” (29–30).9 Mockery is also often directed at the young and innocent Yusuf who comes from “the wild lands” (22)10 and whom Khalil calls “kipumbu” (“little testicle,” 25), “maluun” (“accursed one,” 27) and “kifa urongo” (“living death,” 22) because he is “so small and feeble” (22). According to Ida Hadjivayanis, who translated Paradise into Kiswahili, the words in Kiswahili “resonate well and offer humour, specifically, since they are meant to tease” (36). This raises the question of reception as readers will react differently to scenes of laughter or teasing depending on their positionality. Thus, Khalil’s nicknames for Yusuf may be viewed as an example of the practice of utani (in the sense of playful teasing) and considered harmless in a Swahili context, while readers from other backgrounds may judge them demeaning.11
- 12 On Yusuf’s personal and social vulnerability and how it is performed in Paradise, see Courtois (202 (...)
7Whatever the reader’s reaction, in Paradise, Yusuf’s vulnerable physical, sexual, social, economic and cultural status makes him the object of recurrent taunting by Khalil, his customers, the old men on the terrace as well as by Hamid and his friends.12 When the latter gather, Yusuf sits aside “as fitted his age and station” and is “the butt of their jokes” (Gurnah 2004, 104). Superior laughter is likewise what befalls Kisimamajongoo, a boy also nicknamed “kifa urongo” who runs errands for Khalil and whose “hard-bitten air [is] a grotesque parody, making everybody laugh, for he [is] shrunken and unwell, dressed in rags, and [is] often beaten in the streets by other boys” (36). The conjunction “for” suggests that it is his physical and social vulnerability which makes people laugh at him and this, in effect, partly excludes him from the community. In his seminal book on laughter, Henri Bergson argues that “[o]ur laughter is always the laughter of a group” and that it “always implies a kind of secret freemasonry, or even complicity, with other laughers, real or imaginary” (1911, 6). For him, laughter has a social and corrective function which binds a community but this binding is performed at the expense of an Other or outsider. In Cheeky Fictions. Laughter and the Postcolonial, Susanne Reichl and Mark Stein introduce the concept of “communities of laughter” and note that just as “laughter that is shared by in-group members wields cohesive powers,” “[t]he laughter at someone outside the community strengthens the ties within” (2005, 13).
8The second theory of laughter, famously put forward by Sigmund Freud in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905), is the “relief or release theory” according to which “the energy that is relieved and discharged in laughter provides pleasure” (Critchley 3). This is exemplified in Paradise by scenes in which characters make harmless jokes and gently tease without intending to exclude, taking part in banter, defined by Geoffrey N. Leech as “an offensive way of being friendly (mock-impoliteness)” (1983, 144). According to Leech, the “underpoliteness” manifested in banter has the “effect of establishing or maintaining a bond of familiarity” (144). One thinks of the attitude of the porters who are regularly “shouting cheerful abuse at each other” (Gurnah 2004, 35), “exploding into sudden flurries of laughter” (55), or “roar[ing] and cack[ling] with laughter” (54) when the truck driver Bachus, half-Greek and half-Indian, issues “an unstoppable stream of obscenities” (53), the porters taunting him with insults and “crude insinuations” to keep his “foul mouth” going (54). As stressed by Leech, banter creates a sense of familiarity: “the more intimate the relationship, the less important it is to be polite. Hence, lack of politeness in itself can become a sign of intimacy” (1983, 144). Thus, Bachus can tell the porters in “a mild voice” that he can “pick up the perfume of rotting cocks” and would “love nothing better than to sit here and stroke [their] anuses all day” but asks them if they can “put a bit of shoulder into it and stop sniffing each other’s shit” (Gurnah 2004, 54). This scene is an example of bawdy humour where the driver’s “mild voice” and seeming gentleness (“I’d love nothing better,” “stroke”) contrasts with the provocative imagery of his utterances and the porters’ exuberant reactions suggested by the succession of hyperbolic verbs (shouting, exploding, roaring, cackling). In Bachus’s speech, the references to senses (smell, touch), intimate body parts, excrement and sexual interaction place the body at the forefront while the antithesis of “perfume” and “rotting cocks” comically associates a refined smell to the body’s decay.
- 13 The guards, also called retainers, are presented in the novel as “Wasomali and Wanyamwezi” who “spo (...)
9Though an outsider, Bachus willingly takes part in the sexual and scatological banter within an all-male community without taking offence at the porters’ insults so that, as in some forms of utani (but not the majority), what is performed is a “reciprocally enacted” joking relationship based on equality (Lucas 1974, 98). Later on, when a storm breaks and porters and guards are faced with chaos, they continue to “chatter[…] cheerfully, occasionally breaking out into their howls of mockery at each other or a shouted exchange of abuse” (Gurnah 2004, 113). While Bachus’s obscenities were transcribed (54), the porters’ words of abuse are not, probably because the jocular interaction between the men matters more than the words themselves, as they are not taken seriously by any of the participants. The mockery and abuse alluded to here differ from that directed at Khalil and Yusuf as the porters are not portrayed in the novel as embedded in rigid hierarchical structures of power between themselves and no mention is made of religious or ethnic differences.13
10While, in the release theory of laughter, joking amounts to a “momentary overcoming of inhibitions” (Ilott 2015, 138), the incongruity theory relies on discrepancy or disjunction, and is seen as “a response to the illogical or the unexpected” (Beard 2014, 38). In the words of John Morreal in his monograph Taking Laughter Seriously, we have come to expect certain patterns in the world and “[w]e laugh when we experience something that doesn’t fit into these patterns” (1983, 16). This type of laughter (which can sometimes overlap into the relief theory) has been related to Bakhtin’s notion of carnival with its “overturned hierarchies, celebration, and the suspension of rules and social conventions,” when “boundaries between the sacred and profane are (temporarily) removed and institutions lose power” (Ilott 2015, 136). However, as noted by Sarah Ilott, while the suspension of rules can be temporary, “the psychological effects are more enduring, as once something has been degraded through laughter it somewhat loses its semblance of power” (137). This loss of power or authority is what befalls the Muslim caravan overseer Mohammed Abdalla after his dancing provokes “the hilarity of the men” (Gurnah 2004, 135) and is then parodied and mocked by the African chief courtier and translator Nyundo in what is called a “satirical display” (135), an expression which underlines the theatricality of the scene. The foreman’s “graceful stoop” is exaggerated by Nyundo “so that it look[s] obscene” (135) and the mighty overseer who had, until now, been associated with “the imagery of masculinity and power” (Houlden 2013, 92), is laughed at for what is stereotypically perceived as his loss of masculine status. Abdalla’s standing “at the edges of the light” (Gurnah 2004, 135) while everyone laughs at Nyundo’s satirical performance suggests that he is ostracized from the community of men.
- 14 In the opening scene of the novel focalized through the young Yusuf, the German man on the railway (...)
11Ebenezer Obadare considers jokes as “iconic tools in the hands of society’s subalterns, used to caricature those in power, subvert authority, and, in some instances, empower themselves” (2009, 245). However, apart from the scene with Mohammed Abdalla, one rarely finds in Paradise what Mary Beard calls the “liberating, anti-totalitarian” type of laughter which is used as “a weapon against oppressive authority” (2014, 30). In Gurnah’s novel, laughter is usually directed at either subaltern or equal characters and rarely at those in power. No one laughs at the exploitative merchant Aziz (except Chatu’s group as will be seen below), at the fierce tribal chief Chatu, or at the “snarl[ing]” (Gurnah 2004, 2) German colonials. Europeans are rarely seen in the novel and although they are portrayed satirically, seeming absurd and sometimes degraded to the status of animals or deformed figures,14 they are not directly laughed at because, like the Africans of the interior, they remain enigmatic and unknown and partly for that reason, are feared.
- 15 Another example of incongruity is when the mendicant Mohammed talks of the torture he was submitted (...)
12On the other hand, some situations in which “there is little or nothing to laugh about” (Obadare 2009, 243) are conducive to incongruous laughter. Perhaps as a form of defense mechanism, some characters laugh when one might have expected feelings of sorrow, indignation or empathy for suffering individuals. For instance, when Yusuf’s father is about to give up his son as “rehani” to Uncle Aziz, he “chuckle[s],” “laugh[s],” “grin[s],” and “smile[s]” (Gurnah 2004, 16), partly to reassure Yusuf and himself, but also probably out of despair at losing his son.15 The pain and suffering of others also generate incongruous hilarity, a reaction that can be related to the superiority theory. When Khalil slaps Yusuf on the cheek, the old men on the terrace “laugh[…] at that, chortling and rocking and giving each other knowing looks” (23). Likewise, when some of the men in the caravan get severely sick, “their fellows […] smile[…] ruefully over their shrieks of pain rather than falling silent” (134). Later on, when the African guide Nyundo gets ruthlessly flogged by the caravan overseer, “[t]he men laugh […] and sh[ake] their heads, embarrassed at their levity but finding the guide’s pain irresistible.” (153) The men’s incongruous reactions to the pain of others may destabilize the reader and create discomfort, and one may wonder whether they are a sign of sadism, cruelty, perversity or indifference, or a way of shielding themselves from the scenes. Bergson famously argued that laughter “has no greater foe than emotion” (1911, 4) and that it demands an “absence of feeling” (4; original emphasis), “a momentary anesthesia of the heart” (5). Although this exclusion of affects has been contested, it might be this emotional distance which makes the porters laugh at suffering men. Another possible interpretation is that the men are laughing at their companions’ loss of physical masculine power, thereby excluding them from the virile community. In Masculinities, Australian sociologist R. W. Connell argues that the body is “inescapable in the construction of masculinity” (1995, 56). When cultural discourses and practices construct an image of the male body as strong and fit, the spectacle of its vulnerability undermines dominant models of masculinity and can provoke reactions of laughter.
13If we relate the different types of laughter found in Paradise to the historical situation depicted in the novel, set at a time when different ethnic and religious communities lived and interacted in East Africa, we may wonder whether these instances of laughter testify to the prevalence of a relatively harmonious coexistence between these communities or if, on the contrary, they confirm age-old underlying tensions.
- 16 The name Kalasinga was adopted by East Africans to refer to Sikhs. It was inspired by a man called (...)
- 17 Connell has posited a hierarchy of masculinities which yield different forms of masculine privilege (...)
- 18 “janab” is an Arabic term of respect that means “Sir”.
14In a book chapter on Paradise, Nina Berman refers to “Gurnah’s attempt to communicate the intercultural, multilingual, and multireligious cultural universe of Swahili culture” (2024, 56). He does so, among other literary modalities, through scenes of laughter that testify to the regular interactions of people of different religions and languages. As in practices of utani, such scenes can take place within one’s own family and community but also beyond these circles. Thus, when the Sikh mechanic Harbans Singh (whom everyone calls Kalasinga)16 tells ludicrous stories of his sexual adventures, his Muslim friend Hamid Suleiman is unable to resist exuberant laughter: “Hamid hooted and howled with laughter, holding his ribs and panting for air when he was overcome,” “writhing in comic agony” (Gurnah 2004, 86). This “bodily eruption” (Douglas 1971, 389) underlines the embodied and visceral nature of laughter which cannot be controlled. The alliteration in [h] (“Hamid hooted,” “howled,” “holding”) seems to mimic the man’s very panting for air while the verbs “hooted” and “howled” suggest an animalistic reaction in which pleasure is mixed with discomfort. The oxymoron “comic agony” complicates simple interpretations of humour as being lighthearted and benign. As noted by Dianne Schwerdt, “Kalasinga’s comic tales of his encounters with women […] unify the group” (1997, 96). Although Kalasinga’s emphasis is “on the ridiculous” (Gurnah 2004, 86) as he portrays himself in farcical situations (a woman who takes him home turns out to be a man; an old lady he negotiates with happens to be the prostitute he had paid for; sexual intercourse with a married woman is interrupted by the arrival of her cuckolded husband), the tales that prove irresistible to his male audience are meant to put forward his specific form of dominant masculinity17 and his unbridled sexuality as “the rampant janab single-mindedly in search of action” (86).18
- 19 The context is comic here but as suggested by Todd W. Reeser in Masculinities in Theory, “a narrati (...)
15In addition to such exuberant scenes, the Muslim shopkeeper and the Sikh mechanic constantly tease each other and enjoy cheerful bantering: “They thrust and parried at each other with relish, taking pleasure in the bickering.” (74) Even when exchanging offensive and scatological jokes that mock the other’s religion and sound taunting and disrespectful, the two men are careful not to go too far so as to preserve a friendship which they repeatedly insist upon: “If you weren’t my brother from so many years,” Kalasinga warns Hamid while the latter, laughing delightedly at the Sikh’s reaction, remarks: “we’re old friends” (75). The interactions between the two men may be related to what Radcliffe-Brown called a relationship of “permitted disrespect” (1940, 196) in which any “serious hostility is prevented by the playful antagonism of teasing” (1940, 197), which is one form of utani. In this particular instance, Hamid had just teased the long-haired Punjabi mechanic by saying: “I hear that kalasingas have long hairs growing out of their arses. I heard a story of a kalasinga who plucked one of those out and tied up someone who was annoying him” (Gurnah 2004, 75). Through this cartoonish and exaggerated image based on hearsay (“I hear that,” “I heard a story”), Hamid makes outrageous fun of his friend, who nearly loses his temper, but he also indirectly admits to the Sikhs’ masculine strength.19 Later on, peaceful conversation is restored and Yusuf can enjoy the “friendly silence” (79), a hypallage which stresses the geniality of the two men. Likewise, when the two friends engage in heated discussions about the history of Islam in Africa or their respective conceptions of Paradise, their perspectives differ and while such conversations may not, as Emad Mirmotahari contends, reveal “the capacity of the novel to osmose these worldviews” (31; my emphasis), they nevertheless suggest the possible coexistence of various viewpoints. In terms of reception, and as mentioned earlier, depending on their positionality, readers may react differently to the humour in Hamid and Kalasinga’s exchanges which, according to Hadjivayanis, may be unmistakable to “a global English-reading audience” but could hurt “the sensitivities” of the Kiswahili-reading audience (36).
16One may nevertheless argue that several scenes in Paradise point to the possibility of a harmonious coexistence of and cheerful connection between different male ethnic, social and religious groups in East Africa, when they are able to laugh “with” rather than “at” each other. In their introduction to Critical Perspectives on Abdulrazak Gurnah, Tina Steiner and Maria Olaussen point to the “inter-cultural and inter-linguistic spaces” of “alternative social encounters” depicted in Gurnah’s novels that trace “a complex history of transregional and transnational movements and connections” (2024, 2) while Steiner has more specifically examined the “role of relation” in Gurnah’s fiction (2010). Focusing on Paradise, Berman stresses that “[t]he boundaries between Swahili, Arab, Indian, and African communities are fluid, and much of the novel describes intimate interaction between members of various ethnic and religious communities” (2024, 55), which includes laughter.
17The novel also points to a relative evolution in the way outsiders or vulnerable people are treated. Thus, while Yusuf is initially mocked for being “feeble” and coming “from the wild lands” where they “only have cassava and weeds to eat” (Gurnah 2004, 22), his relation to laughter evolves in the novel. After his first journey to the interior, he admits that “he had felt surprisingly at ease in the outcast company of the porters, and had thrilled to their endless stories and uncouth jokes” (63); during the second journey, he notes that the porters “still teased him but with increasing friendliness” (134). Similarly, for all his inferior social status and his being constantly laughed at by his customers, Khalil feels comfortable with them and the old men on the terrace as noted by the narrative voice: “Khalil was happiest behind his shop counter, bantering with the customers in his heavy accent. […] He laughed at their teasing and mockery of him with as much pleasure as they did” (50). The customers tease Khalil but they nevertheless have accepted him as part of their local society and he can therefore share the convivial spirit even when they make fun of him: “The customers made him repeat words and phrases that they expected him to have trouble with, and Khalil repeated them as carelessly as he could, and then joined in the laughter, his eyes blazing with joy” (30). The superlative adjective “happiest,” the correlative comparative “as much pleasure as” and the hyperbolic expression “blazing with joy” underline Khalil’s keenness on being a full participant in the relational scene, “join[ing] in the laughter,” but may also suggest a forced and overdone attitude. The scenes correspond to the type of “convivial humour” analysed by Steiner, which is “leaning towards equality because it seeks to establish common ground, to affirm relation” (2021, 126).
18However, Yusuf himself realizes that the bantering and cheerfulness of such characters as Khalil and Kalasinga operate as a defensive performance: “[Yusuf] thought of [Khalil’s] ceaseless banter with the customers, and his impossible cheerfulness, and knew that it only disguized hidden wounds. Like Kalasinga, a thousand miles from home. Like all of them, […] infested by longing and comforted by visions of lost wholeness” (Gurnah 2004, 175). The young man is perceptive enough to read beneath the surface of a contrived jocularity and understand that the (self-)deceptive façade is a smokescreen which masks the psychic toll of displacement and the persistent grief of being severed from one’s land and family. In the words of David Callahan, characters are “covering over or compensating for a lost wholeness” (2000, 66) and some of them do so through laughter. In the quotation above, the anaphora of the preposition “Like” and the noun phrase “all of them” reveal a community of wounded men affected by experiences of loss which they keep secret.
19As noted by Marie Gillespie in her examination of laughter, “those who share a joke belong to a community, however temporary, of people alike enough in outlook and feeling to be joined in sharing a joke” (qtd. in Ilott 2015, 136). Laughter can thus redraw boundaries of inclusion and exclusion to reach beyond ethnic, religious, social and linguistic lines. However, as mentioned by Ilott, “no matter how momentarily unifying a joking exchange can be, we should not pretend that […] the exploitation of stereotypes is unproblematic” (136). These stereotypes can indeed provoke the exclusion of the mocked individual or group who become the victims of processes of othering.
20Stereotypes abound in Paradise when one community mocks another by means of what Callahan calls “vigorous abuse and counter-abuse” which often pertains to “skin colour, religion and communities” (62). This is in keeping with the language of utani which is “rich with highly insulting, abusive, aggressive terminology” (Lucas 1974, 99). As noted by Sharae Deckard, in Paradise, the different groups often fail to understand each other because they “approach the Other through the haze of their own preconceptions” and “defensive projections” (2010, 110). For example, Hamid taunts his Sikh friend by telling him that all Indians are the same, “all banyans and cheats and liars” (Gurnah 2004, 74),20 while Kalasinga (who comes from Punjab and despises the Gujarati, whom he calls “goat-shit banyans,” “scum,” and “insects,” 74) barks and snarls in front of his Muslim friend and is “pleased with his joke, chortling and slapping his thigh,” because he believes that Muslim people are all afraid of dogs (79) and probably knows that in Islamic thought, dogs are commonly treated as ritually impure. He calls Muslims “stupid natives” and “ignorant Allah-wallahs” (84) when arguing that they do not understand what the Koran says in Arabic. Conversely, Kalasinga’s long hair and turban often lead to mockery; Yusuf remembers “the porters’ laughter at his turban and his woven beard” (114) while Hamid calls his friend “hairy kafir” (75, 79), “hairy banyan” (79), “hairy dog” (85) and refers to his “hairy arse” (85, 102). In Islamic tradition, excessive body hair (armpit hair, pubic hair, moustaches) is traditionally removed as part of ritual cleanliness;21 the repetition of the epithet “hairy” therefore points to Kalasinga’s impurity by Hamid’s standards. The two men’s attitudes echo utani practices when stereotypes (Indians being all cheats, Muslims all afraid of dogs, Sikhs all hairy) are formulated to “typify a given ethnic group,” i.e., consider it as homogeneous (Fouéré 2005, §27). Utani thus “functions as a way of categorising the other” and reinforces stereotypes (Fouéré 2005, §35).
21Such examples confirm, as has been shown by many critics, that one should not draw an idyllic portrait of a peaceful and respectful coexistence of different communities in precolonial East Africa as tensions and conflicts clearly exist in a society that is already marked by dynamics of domination and transnational exchanges, and is placed on the threshold of European colonization. In Gurnah’s novel Admiring Silence, the narrator dispels the vision of a harmonious cohabitation: “We liked to think of ourselves as a moderate and mild people. Arab African Indian Comorian: we lived alongside each other, quarrelled and sometimes intermarried. […] In reality, we were nowhere near we, but us in separate yards, locked in our historical ghettoes, self-forgiving and seething with intolerances, with racisms, and with resentments” (1996, 66–67). While the lack of commas separating the words “Arab African Indian Comorian” seemingly mirrors the fluidity between identities, the second part of the quotation erects borders through a succession of typographical pauses that formally embody the very meaning of separation between groups. The powerful image of being “locked in […] ghettoes” and the concluding ternary succession of negative attitudes (“with intolerances, with racisms, and with resentments”) contradict the initial naive portrait of benign interactions.
- 22 The Swahili Muslims who explicitly express their contempt for the Africans of the interior are Yusu (...)
- 23 Mohammed Abdalla considers the traders “an aristocracy” (Bardolph 1997, 80). He tells Yusuf that “[ (...)
22As noted by Ilott, there exists a “reactionary and conservative” type of laughter which entails “ridiculing cultural outsiders to preserve the status quo” (2015, 134) – an attitude that can be placed within the superiority theory. This preservation of the status quo is what Fouéré identifies in the practice of utani where jokes about the cultural, social or religious specificities of ethnic groups confirm one’s differences with them (2005, §33). Lucas likewise argues that utani “serves to reinforce the established structure” (1974, 109) and thus the domination of one group over another. J. U. Jacobs rightly underlines that Paradise is marked by an “extensive language of othering” that reveals a “deep-seated contempt for the culture of the other” (2009, 85) while Elizabeth Maslen stresses that otherness is constructed as “a necessary means of self-construction and self-affirmation” (1996, 55). Thus, in Gurnah’s novel, the Swahili Muslims22 insist on distinguishing themselves from the Indigenous Africans of the interior whom they call “ignorant savages” (Gurnah 2004, 144), “[w]ashenzi who have no faith in God and who worship spirits and demons which live in trees and rocks” (6), “worshippers of rocks and trees” (100). The Muslims and coastal people present themselves as “civilized” (13, 94) and place themselves in a position of superiority in relation to the people of the interior, whom they demean and consider with contempt, but whom they also fear (and therefore do not directly laugh at).23
23However, reversals can also take place, for example when the Muslim traders come to the village of the tribal chief Chatu and it is Chatu and his people who laugh at the travellers, probably because they feel superior and in a position of power. This laughter seems constant: the deputation of elders who meet the Muslim traders are “accompanied by a huge laughing crowd of townspeople” (153). When Chatu converses with Yusuf who looks “foolish and frightened,” the chief laughs “softly” and then “delightedly” (157). Later that night, the trader’s merchandise is stolen by “laughing men and women” while “jeering and jubilant men” circle the travellers “gleefully,” “mocking them with their antics” (158). Significantly, the practice of utani can include the stealing of objects or food (Lucas 1974, 93; Fouéré 2005, §5). In Paradise, the morning after the theft, the townspeople come to look at the captives, “laughing and throwing stones at them,” while the courtyard is “full of people, jubilant with smiles” when the Muslim traders come to meet Chatu (Gurnah 2004, 159). A reversal has thus taken place between those with the power to laugh and demean (the Muslim traders), and those that were the butt of their contempt (the Africans of the interior). This points to the fragility of each community’s standing and to the volatility of laughter. As noted by Jacobs, “assumptions of superiority […] permeate all the social groups in the novel” so that any community can be “both an object and an agent of othering” (2009, 85).
24One social group occupies a place apart in Paradise: women. According to Schwerdt, women and male slaves are “the most marginalized members” in Paradise (1997, 92–93) and are “virtually excluded” from access to power (91). Because Gurnah does not delve into private (feminine) spaces, women are rarely seen in the novel and rarely shown laughing, except in situations when sexual teasing is being performed, often at the expense of the handsome but vulnerable Yusuf. As Jacqueline Bardolph remarks, “love or lust can give rise to malicious mockery, women being as bawdy as men in their jeering” (1997, 81). Thus, Khalil’s female customers are shown “laughing delightedly at [Yusuf’s] little courtesies and his good looks” (Gurnah 2004, 30) while exuberant Ma Ajuza fulfils a comic function in her restless bodily pursuit of Yusuf, which makes him the butt of teasing among men (31, 41) but also confirms his vulnerability. Likewise, Hamid’s wife Maimuna laughingly suggests that Yusuf become her new husband (67, 68) while the women in Chatu’s village tease Yusuf, “hoot[ing] with laughter” when flirting with him (167) and “laughing at the comedy” when they see him grin at the young girl Bati (168). While such manifestations might seem harmless and may even suggest a form of agency on the part of the women who are otherwise deprived of any, they nevertheless place Yusuf in a vulnerable position as an object of sexual desire, which is also how he stands in relation to the Mistress and the foreman Mohammed Abdalla. According to Schwerdt, these women (and the foreman) are “predators who prey on Yusuf, undermining his manhood” (1997, 99) because he does not have the initiative and is instead the object of their desire. The overseer Simba Mwene makes a joke of it when talking to Yusuf about Abdalla: “‘You’ve found yourself a husband, pretty one!’ Simba Mwene said, laughter rolling out of him” (Gurnah 2004, 117). Far from being benign, laughter provokes discomfort because of the underlying menace of sexual assault as Yusuf is feminized through the social and corporal position he is assigned to (he is likened to a wife and being called “pretty”) and his masculinity is challenged. By blurring the contours of gender roles in Paradise, Gurnah deconstructs the norms of masculinity prevalent in the society he depicts and encourages the reader to envisage a plurality of masculinities.
- 24 “Les relations d’utani n’ont pas fait cesser l’asymétrie des rapports de pouvoir sur laquelle elles (...)
25Laughter in Paradise is related to questions of power and vulnerability. It sometimes testifies to interactions beyond one’s ethnic, social, linguistic and religious community, as best exemplified by Hamid and Kalasinga, but most of the time it is the laughter of one group at or against a more vulnerable individual or community that does not belong to that group. As in the practice of utani examined by Lucas and Fouéré, what prevails is seemingly less a sense of convivial reciprocity than a re-affirmation of group boundaries and inequality (Lucas 1974, 108). As mentioned by Fouéré, “utani relationships did not put an end to the asymmetry of power relations on which they were based. On the contrary, they allowed these unequal relationships to be reproduced by maintaining the groups in their respective positions” (2004, 182; my translation).24 The examination of laughter in Paradise has also shown that it is closely related to gender, the mainly masculine world of the novel being characterized by male-male verbal interaction where insults count as cultural and linguistic capital. Several scenes of laughter reinforce a dominant model of masculinity (when playful sexual banter takes place in an all-male environment on an equal basis or when the mockery is directed at a more vulnerable individual) and conversely challenge the masculine status of the butts of jokes. While characters frequently laugh in Paradise, one may wonder if this is also the case of the reader. Paradise is not a comical book and apart from some of Bacchus’s, Hamid’s and Kalasinga’s jokes, not many situations are conducive to readerly laughter, though, as mentioned earlier, one would need to take into account the reception of East African readers who might laugh at specific situations Western readers would not identify as comic. Despite these differences, I would argue that what predominates for the reader who is in the position of a witness is a sense of discomfort and unease, one which neither totally includes nor totally excludes them from the fictional world that has been created.
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