The Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and A Tale of Two Campuses by David Lodge

This paper examines the language of prose concerning the use of humour. In order to do this, I will compare The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses by David Lodge. In my paper I examined the question how the authors use their senses of humour to make their novels more enjoyable. Furthermore, I will highlight the fact that the books published in different ages express the humour in very different ways. I would like to prove the fact that language is the tool of the author through which they can make us smile and laugh.

In the first part of my paper I will give a short introduction about how the language is applied in novels and what the role of humour is. After that I will examine the two novels concerning their languages. In the third part I will put the emphasis on the differences and the similarities between the two books. Finally I will draw my conclusion.

For answering my questions, in addition to the primary sources, I exploited Goring’s book which provides a useful assessment to understand the complexity of the language of the novels. Moreover, I also applied Marina MacKay’s book in order to explain certain useful terms in connection with my topic. I also applied other articles which are relevant to my topic, such as Jeroen Vandaele’s “Narrative Humor (I): Enter Perspective” in which the author explains what narrative humour is.

1. Introduction

It goes without saying that in prose fiction language is used differently from other genres, for instance poetry. Before discussing the language of prose, we have to define what exactly the prose is. MacKay’s definition about it is the following: “written language akin to normal non-literary speech, usually conform...

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...language very consciously and their techniques makes their books very enjoyable and funny.

Works Cited

Baldick, C. (2001). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Oxford University Press.

Goring, P. (2001). Studying Literature: the Essential Companion . New York: Oxford University Press.

Haddon, M. (2003). The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. London : Vintage.

Lodge, D. (1975). Changing Places: The Tale of Two Campuses. London: Penguin.

MacKay, M. (2011). The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

O'Brien, A. S. (1972). Dobsons Drie Bobbes: A Significant Contribution to the Development of Prose Fiction. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 55-70.

Ross, A. (1998). The Language of Humour. London: Routledge.

Vandaele, J. (2010). Narrative Humor (I): Enter Perspective. Poetics Today, 721-785.