Demetri Martin

Demetri Martin is easily one of my favorite comedians, and in my opinion one of the funniest around. Other comedians on the top of my list are Jim Gaffigan, Daniel Tosh, and Katt Williams. The one thing I think makes Demetri Martin stand out from the rest is the drawings he uses to aid his standup. The video I chose is a long line of jokes that Martin puts together to accompany his “large pad”. With every one of his ideas, he flips the page to show another depiction to help the audience understand. He is not in any way a great artist, which I think may actually make all of them more humorous. Most of them consist of charts, diagrams, and other ridiculous pictures. If any random scrub off the street came and tried to draw pictures and tell jokes, I do not think it would be successful. So it is not some formula that he discovered that works for anyone; Martin is extremely clever when thinking of material for his standup. All of his jokes are incredibly creative, and his delivery helps his humor. He does not do any extraneous movements, as other comedians do, he simply moves on to the next joke as the audience rolls around. The clip of his performance I chose for class is very short, but the entirety of this special is unbelievably funny. He first brings up the old saying “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”, and brings a complete 180 degree turn to it. Martin does this with many of his jokes. He will take common sayings or parts of life, and turn them into a clever spin like no one else. A lot of people have negative opinions of him because of the god-awful television show he came out with, but I’m sure it has made him some cash, so who can complain? His standup is great, and one of my favorites.

John Pinette....... Water Park

John Pinette uses himself as a model and perfect victim for the puns of his own jokes. Due to his stature, John Pinette is able to make fun of himself for the enjoyment of his audiences. By placing himself in these situations that his audience can relate to, Pinette provides exact images in the minds of his audience. In 'Water Park,' the descriptions used allow the viewers to directly relate to things that happen in everyday life,.... or on your family vacations. Forming his show around the modern day problems of the world, such as obesity, and the frustrations of dieting, Pinette allows himself to become humiliated in front of his audiences, allowing them to laugh at the things one might normally not laugh about in front of others. The providing of his personal views on each matter in which he speaks, allows Pinette to engage his audience by placing certain images into their minds. One might also find Pinette's voice funny. For such a large man, he has a very high pitched voice that tends to reach even higher pitches when he gets excited or goes into a funnier part to a joke. Over all, the use of imagery by words, the ability to put himself in the situations without making the audience uncomfortable, and his actions along with the high pitched voice, Pinette is a very successful comedian in that he provides scenarios in which we can all laugh at.

You've just driven into F*ckville, and she's the Mayor!

To anyone who has seen one of Dane Cook’s performances, I don’t think it’s any big surprise then when deciding on what makes him stand out or comedic, one of the first things you think about are the motions he does with arms, hands, or any other part of his body. He involves his whole body while describing his stories, keeping the audience’s attention for the whole duration of the routine. During one specific routine, women winning 99.9% of all fights, he describes how women have a way with dealing with fights and how they react under certain circumstances. He goes into detail about how they position their hands crossed in front of them, then move them under their chin, place their legs sticking out, and how they have a certain phrase of two they always use. They will always start to agree with the guy they are fighting with in order to prove a point at the end. Dane used his positioning so well that he almost perfectly reenacted what women actually do while getting in fights with their significant other. He used the same girly movements with his hands, the same girly stance with one leg sticking out in front of them, then at the end, positioned his hands under his chin then walked off with a very exact stride. Everyone laughs at him for two reasons mainly: one, because he has pinpointed every single motion and positioning perfectly and hit the nail right on the head, and secondly because everyone has gone through one of these experiences and knows exactly what he’s talking about. He finds a way to connect with the audience and relate to them on a level they understand. He captivates their attention and holds it the entire duration of the routine with his voice impersonations, flamboyant gestures, and ability to relate on a personal level.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AOUl8731Jg&feature=related

What the F@#k...a clean comedian...REALLY?

WOW!! There is so much stand-up comedy in cyberworld. I came to realize that each comedy act I watched (and there was a bunch) had it's own personal touch. Each comedian had a different approach, different moves and different skit. I learned that the word fuck means so much more than I ever imagined. :) It truly made my head hurt...fuck, shit, damn, hell, fuck, shit, damn, hell etc... I had a difficult time finding a "clean" (and I don't mean showered) female comedian that made me laugh. For this blog I chose Anjelah Johnson. I chose her because she was clean and funny and female. She is native American and Latino mixed. Angela was born in California and raised in a large poor family. She has overcome many obstacles in her life. Anjelah has hit over a million visits to her utube video "nail salon". Johnson had her big break on MADTv where she earned an ALMA award for her performances as Bon Qui Qui. She is currently doing voice overs in cartoons and traveling the globe with her stand-up. Anjelah made me laugh with her comedic skits of everyday real life events.
Anjelah comes out on stage dressed casual and fun. She makes fun of her name, Anjelah Nicole Johnson as not being a traditional Mexican name. She has a great way of poking fun at Mexican family stereotypes...because she can. Anjelah Johnson does her famous nail salon skit. It's a skit that everyone can relate to. Her comedy approach is a double conversation with herself and a bucket full of race stereotypes. She has a wonderful way of making the nail salon bit so real. Her skits are true to everyday life and she didn't have to fuck, shit, damn or hell in the approach. :) It's refreshing to see a female have some respect and virtue in the public eye.
Anjelah Johnson is creative and entertaining. Her comedy style has earned her awards and recognition throughout the world. She continues building her career with clean comedic acts. I enjoyed watching her clips and I even utubed MadTv for "Bon QuiQui".

Her words made me laugh and I hope you enjoy the clip below as much as I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baDJ-ZIvYy0

Jerry Seinfeld

My favorite stand up comedian/actor is Jerry Seinfeld. If you have ever seen his show you find yourself always laughing but you always ask “what is this show about?” In reality his shows aren’t about anything really other than what people encounter in everyday life. In this skit Jerry opens up with him walking around the airport and he buys a sandwich and everyone knows that the food in airports are overpriced but he says “I wonder if the people selling the sandwiches really know how much their selling them for or are they just selling them to sell them?” Then he moves on to where he is sitting on a plane and he is talking about when the pilot of the plane comes over the intercom system explaining the flight and the altitude. When I’m sitting on a plane I always notice that the pilot never seems excited he always seems very monotone, tired, and doesn’t really want to be on that flight. Also, he explains what he is going to do like the passengers actually care but in truth all they care about is that they get to their destination in a safe ordinary fashion. Then Seinfeld says “it is not like I go up to his cockpit and tell him what I’m doing and bothering him.” I think Jerry Seinfeld’s comedy is hilarious because every joke he has is something that you have encountered and you find funny. Also, he has a conversation with himself as if he’s the other person like in the case he is the pilot and changes his voice so its monotone and not very excited. Unlike Katt Williams and Dave Chapelle he is cleaner with his skit which I like more but having the cuss words every now and then is funny but not every other word that comes out.

He Doesn’t Know He’s Just Sayin’

Laughing is an essential facet of everyday life. Stand-up comedians play a big role in giving us many reasons to laugh. In one of Katt Williams’s acts, called “Weed”, he portrays many unique characteristics that make him stand out among other comedians. For one, he is dressed in a suede green jacket, and that has everyone’s attention at the very beginning. The language he uses throughout the whole act is very attention getting because he is not afraid to say a few curse words. I know cursing for comedians is becoming more popular, but I think Katt Williams puts his own pizzazz in it. He begins the act by saying how weed can get your mind of the struggles of everyday life, and how he doesn’t understand that if you are smoking weed then you aren’t doing anything with your life. He makes weed seem like it is the solution to all our problems, when it is a horrible thing you can get addicted to. Next in his act, he talks about how weed isn’t a drug; it is just a plant that grows in the ground. He uses logical humor to his advantage because we all really know that weed is a drug. However, he puts it in terms that we have never thought about. I think this is why he is so hilarious! Then he continues to say that it has some affects when you light it on fire, but then he compares weed to actual drugs. He says you don’t have to mix all baking soda, water, or anything else to weed but you do to other drugs. Then he says that he doesn’t know the recipe; he is just saying. When really he does know the recipe or else he wouldn’t have said that. I think another reason he is so funny is because he says things from actual experience because he knows so much about it. He relates smoking weed very well to the audience. He mentions worrying about the light bill. He says if you just hit the blunt one time, it will take away all the worries because you have 12 candles you have been waiting to burn. Another unique characteristic about him is he uses his hands very well to demonstrate what exactly he is saying. There are many distinctive traits that separate his comic style from others. I think because he is willing to branch out and say some pretty fanatical things that he is very successful in making people laugh. When he makes people laugh, the people don’t really realize at what they are laughing at could be very harmful to someone. He, in a way, puts a distraction on people because many people don’t realize what they are really laughing at. His technique might not be as ethical or moral as Bill Cosby, but that doesn’t take away the fact that it is hysterical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWhUqo9Aivs

Dane Cook- The Movies

The movies-- Anna Aycock

The stand up performance starts and Dane Cook is talking about going to the movies with a girlfriend. He starts and he makes it sound like such an exciting thing it really is even though everyone has been to the movies thousands of times. The way he jumps around the stage like both the people he is talking about are right there and he plays both parts wonderfully. To make it sound even more exciting he calls it a, “cinematic adventures.” Then he begins to talk about his personal experience at the movies and how he gets so involved in the movies that he begins to talk and to talk a lot. When he does this he is literally making fun of himself and it is hilarious because of how he is picking for at himself. Then he goes back to the story about the two people dating that are going to the movies. He makes it so funny because of the way he talks about how the girl acts and exactly how she stands to answer the question if she wanted any snacks, he also calls them, “treats.” He even literally points out that this is the way girls stand when this happens. He says then these two people go into the movie theater and sit down, all of a sudden this girl now decides that they want something to eat. He puts on another type of personality when he is trying to be the girl. He makes it hilarious in the way he says all what this girl wants, it starts out being extremely specific for example she wants chocolate gold coins, gummy fish, an icy in a bamboo cup so it will not make her hands cold, and just the cheese that comes with the nachos. These are things that are strange all together and it is suppose to be that way to make this girl sound crazy and hilarious all at the same time. She knows exactly what she wants and is going to make this guy get it for her. He goes on and gets what he gets what she wants him to. In the end he starts to talk about the previews which everyone loves. He actually acts out to previews, it is amazing how he can go on about these previews for a good while and he uses his hand like the screen to make it seem like they are right in front of him. When he is doing this they actually zoom in on his hand and it is amazing how fast he is moving his hand and making all these crazy sound effects at the same time. All in all it makes total sense for Dane Cook to be completely hilarious by how he is so spastic on stage and is always making hand motions and noises, he is just plain crazy.

Genevieve Rodriguez

Gabriel Iglesias’ “Drive Thru Voice” skit is really funny because he uses his voice to manipulate the story he is telling. This short is about drive through windows and how he uses different voices to confuse the cashier. First of all, going through a drive through is a common experience so anyone who has been through a drive through can relate to someone getting their order wrong and he is confusing the cashier the second time he goes through because he/she got his order wrong the first time. This is a technique that many stand-up comedians have and they are usually successful using this tactic. He uses the microphone to muffle his voice making it sound like the cashier talking through the speaker. He also changes the pitch of his voice to bring out the point of his story, which is to confuse the cashier. The different voices engage the audience because it is more interesting than just listening to someone talk and impersonate without changing their voice pitch and style. The audience is also engaged by his story because it is very relatable. This is unique because a lot of people can enjoy this kind of comedy and it is not really offensive to anyone unlike comedians who curse a lot and say dirty jokes. Those might be funny but clean jokes can be funny for everyone! I also like his facial expressions. It would not be so funny if when he “pulls up” to the drive through window he does not make that really serious face followed by the really girly voice. His laughter is also very comical whenever he is “talking” to the cashier. I think the irony is what is really funny because of his androgyny in this skit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOQJiZ_g3Ho&feature=related

This is an awesome short that you should watch.... and you should go to

www.explosm.net/comics and check it out. cuz its AWESOME

But click on random. this week they are making depressing ones idk why. excuse the horrible grammar.

http://www.explosm.net/comics/1959/

Public Restrooms

Being able to laugh at a stand up comedian is one of the best ways to remove yourself from the everyday grind for a few minutes. To get lost in the world of laughter almost has a medicinal affect. Dane Cook is a stand-up comedian that can most definitely take readers to the point where laughter actually hurts because you are laughing so hard and so much. In a Comedy Central clip Dane Cook does a performance about “Public Restrooms” this is a subject that people naturally tend to snarl those nose because people automatically think how nasty. He uses this common reaction to Public Restrooms to humor his audience. His eccentric movements are the majority of how his performances are so hysterical. He engages the audience by maintaining their attention because you don’t want to miss his energetic and random actions that go along with his jokes. In the public restroom skit one of the first thing that you really start laughing about is the way he talks about why is EVERYTHING wet? Then he acts out a shaggy dog shaking water everywhere, hilarious! He uses his wide range hand motions to help the audience imagine a public restroom where everything is wet. Also funny is his impersonation to someone relaxing as they walk into the restroom as his own response to why do people call it a restroom anyways? He then proceeds to make the audience laugh as he bashes on a common thing seen in public restroom stalls, graffiti, it is hilarious the way he “acts out” someone crapping and carving graffiti. He then makes another hilarious point when he talks about how people write they were there and then someone else crosses out that and puts they are a faget. He then goes on to talk about who comes back to check their graffiti anyways. Good point! Because it is such a common subject because most people have used a public restroom and how dramatic he is acting it out makes Dane Cook able to make hilarious performances on everyday subjects people experience.

YouTube Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl8K9TEBXh4&feature=related

The Movies

In Dane Cook’s vicious cycle, the movie scene is one that everyone can relate too; everyone has experienced the something similar to his description of going to the movies. Around here, everyone can relate to going to look and see what movies are playing online, then the movies become like an adventure more than just going to the movies. The entire time, Dane Cook is moving around or acting out parts, which brings several emotions and triggers the memory in a visual way and in words. Every girl can relate to being asked if you want any snacks, or “treats” as Dane Cook calls them, the response is almost always umm no. Dane’s body movement during this scene is identical to how most girls react when asked that question. He might over emphases on the movement, but it still relates to how we react and how awkward it can appear. Once you get into the theater, there is always that debate over where to sit. The way Dane runs on the stage, gives him like a childish, playful appearance. After getting settled in the seats, this always happens, the sudden urge to want some “treats” take over. As Dane changes his voice to imitate how the girls begin to sound, like a childish mumbling voice. The facial expression he has on his face, the embarrassed, self-conscious one. One of the best parts in the entire movie scene is when he is passing by the people in the rows. He demonstrates how uncomfortable it is to pass by people sitting, no matter who you are, everyone has experienced that feeling at least once. However, my favorite part is the movie previews. For the “one time in all of our life, we get to be a critic,” we all judge how the movie is going to be by this one preview. His movie previews become realistic by creating sound effects, from which the entire crowd can understand it is an action movie and sounds exciting. Everyone does the same thing, deciding whither or not that movie is worth seeing, based on this one preview. Dane Cook gets the crowd evolved by relating the humor to everyday situations that everyone has experienced at least once. He not only brings up familiar memories and feelings, but also demonstrates them on stage. This takes the funniness to an entirely different level.

Brain Ninjas

Dane Cook is arguably the most successful comedian there is at the moment. My favourite stand-up by him is Vicious Circle. It’s a typical Dane Cook show, absolutely ridiculous. His style of comedy is based on stories that can both have the possibility to be true, or total bogus. What makes his comedy so effective though, is the way we could all put ourselves into the shoes of those stories. Often the stories are situations we have all been in, so the audience can relate to what he’s talking about. The way he makes these stories funny and entertaining is by pointing out the obvious and throwing everything we don’t want to admit or be honest about, right on the table and that’s that, no arguing. In the particular section of Vicious Circle that I want to talk about he talks about relationships, and why women win 99.9% of all fights. He claims that women are brain ninjas, and that they strategically say things to make men go crazy in the end. The way he tells this story is by explaining how both men and women react and want to feel. What he says men want in a fight and what women want in a fight and how they want to make the other feel is so spot-on that you just have to laugh. He puts certain feelings into words that you never thought you were feeling before but when you realize that he just put your feelings into words in the funniest way possible, you can’t help but admit it. Of course, the story is a really generalized one and it doesn’t apply to very many subjects of fights in real life, but it’s general enough that it applies to fights in some way. Lots of people will be able to reflect and see themselves in the scenario that Dane Cook talks about and really, you just end up laughing at yourself...

It's about 10 mins but so worth it!!!!! Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z468B8vV6XU

Everyday I'm Hustlin'

Wezly Barnard

Katt Williams opens his act with his favorite song as he walks out with his swagger. He takes off his coat and acknowledges the cheering audience. He refers to his song, “The Hustle,” as being “his shit!” This song makes him so excited that he has to ask the DJ to turn it off. He uses this unique technique throughout the show which makes it comical. He acts like he doesn’t want to hear it when he actually really enjoys when it is played. He is able to relate to the audience by explaining that when any person any where hears their own favorite song, it changes their mood for the better almost immediately. He does this by portraying real life situations that people experience every day by actually acting it out. This enables the audience to connect with Katt’s message causing them to find it comical. The first situation presented is an impression of a librarian at work. This job is known to be boring and quiet. Katt Williams pokes fun at this idea by playing his favorite song and pretends to grab books off the shelf and flip through books to the beat of the song. In the second situation Katt explains that “If you were to get to heaven” and hear this song, “you would know there was about to be a party up in heaven!” The humor in this example works because it breaks what we traditionally think of as heaven. The last three examples are the most funny because they are the easiest to relate to. Katt describes grocery shopping, having sex, and working to this hip hop song. These are things that most of us do on a regular basis, so watching Katt Williams portray these situations was extremely comical. Katt Williams is a successful comedian in this clip because he is expressive and can easily engage the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLDitGAUrno

Blog: Stand-up Comedy

Dear All,

Go forth and select your own favorite (relatively short) stand-up routine, sketch, or commercial.  Feel free to include a link to the sketch!  Choose another clip form Katt Williams, George Carlin, Eddie Izzard, Dane Cook, Bill Cosby, Maragret Cho, or other favorites (people who are interesting that come to mind are Sarah Silverman, Robin Williams, Bob Sagot, Gallagher -- he's the watermelon guy -- Jerry Seinfield, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Ellen DeGeneres).  Answer one of the questions below:

1.  Discuss one aspect or detail of your stand-up comedian's performance and how it makes him or her comic.  How does it engage the audience?  What makes it unique as a method for causing laughter?

2.  Compare two stand-up comedians' uses of a comic technique.  How does it set them apart, how does it reflect their talents or approaches to comedy?  For example, both Eddie Izzard and Bill Cosby rely on facial gestures to mark moments of absurdity or comic frustration in their sketches.  But Eddie's facial gestures are funny in part because he is wearing SO much make-up.  What could you say about their faces?

Midget's Are Mean-Hunter Warren

Mark Twain's "Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut" uses humor in order to suggest, playfully, that not all forms of guilt are natural and healthy. As we laugh at the narrator killing his pester-some conscience and going on an insane rampage, we realize that a conscience is actually good for making people behave. Why does Mark Twain turn this message into a joke? `

In the beginning of the story Mark Twain saw a conscience as something that could be overlooked and pushed to the side when the situation arose. As a result, Twain was always bothered about his smoking problem by his aunt, but when people were bothered by his addiction he would just act as though nothing was really wrong with his actions and continue on with what he was doing. One day Twain's conscience knocks on his front door as a moldy dwarf in physical form. After letting him into the house and speaking with him, he finds out the truth of why this little man has come to see him. I find it ironic that Twain feels as though his conscience can be pushed to the side. However, when his conscience actually shows up he tries everything he can to push him to the side, but is still unable to do it. He has to kill his conscience in order to get him out of the house and out of his life. He tries to physically hurt the little dwarf, but he is unable to ward him away until nearly the end of the story. I also found it funny that Twain thought he was more powerful than his conscience, but it was obvious that his conscience was much more powerful that him. I feel as though Mark Twain turns this message into a joke because he realizes that he is very wrong in believing that a conscience can be just pushed to the side in time of guilt. In the end of the story he kills off his conscience which leaves him to do whatever he pleases to do without any ounce of guilt running through his veins. It shows that his conscience really did have a sense of ultimate power over himself. At the end of the story we learn that without a conscience you are more prone to do bad things and feel no remorse. Overall I feel as though Twain dumbly learns that a conscience keeps you in check rather than something you can just override. Because his conscience was on the verge of death, he was not able to completely ward off hurting other people, but his shriveling conscience did keep him from killing others as he did in the end. When his conscience is dead and he rampages on others, it is easily shown that a conscience Is a very important aspect to controlling ones behavior. In the beginning Twain saw this as something that was not important, which ironically shows Twain's ignorance though a physical form. Every bad act he committed put him one step closer to killing off his conscience and living a troubled life!

conscience=little person inside of you:)

Mary Twain turns the message of “a conscience is actually good for making people behave” into a joke. He does this because he does not believe that the conscience is the main thing that controls everything you do. He makes the joke that whenever his grandmother comes over and starts to yell at him about the smoking, his conscience gets very groggy, tired, and then falls asleep. I guess he is saying that his conscience does not care at all about his grandmother or he is saying he does not care at all when someone tells him how bad it is for him and for him to stop smoking .
When he makes a joke of this message, he is doing so because he does not believe that the conscience can control the actions of a person. He believes that it is a little person inside of you that you can ignore and can just put away whenever you want to. The way he puts it in the story, a person can control his conscience, the conscience does not control the person. He is frightened though when his “little person” of a conscience freaks out when something he has done bad is thought to be extremely bad. Normally the actions he does feel bad about are very minuscule and would not mean anything to a person if they were not the person who actually committed the action. He is frightened at the beginning of the story because the little person of a conscience tells him that he has cheated the woman out of food when it was there and he also told the lady that the chef was not in the kitchen when he was right on the other side of the wall in the kitchen. When the conscience tells him this, it frightens him because he was the only person who knew that the woman asked for food and that the chef was there.

Who wears the pants?

After the first read of Fanny Fern’s “A Law more Nice than Just”, it is a bit tough to see the controversy of the article. However that is using the standards that we have in today’s society. A woman wearing men’s clothing would not be considered normal today, but it would not cause much of a stir in conversation. But at the time it was written, it could not have been a more risky article to write. This was exactly the type of ideas people expected from Fern; a cynical, taboo view of life. In her time, women were expected to both dress and act in a certain way. Not only was it expected, but it was considered illegal to do otherwise. Women simply needed knowledge of household duties, and not much else. At the end of the day, the wife should anxiously await the arrival of her husband. In reading Fern’s writing, it is clear that she does not agree with this standard of living. She even implies that the husbands do not want their wives leaving home because they are out causing mischief; wives would catch them during “all these little emergencies”. Fern suggests that if a woman was dressed as a man, she could sneak around and keep a more solid eye on a man. In this era, simply reading this idea would leave the average man in an uncomfortable state. Fern continues to describe the process of getting a suit fitted for her to try out this experiment. She then heads out with Mr. Fern on her leisurely stroll on a “dark” night, with no man to cater to her. She describes this experience as very liberating, because she is allowed to act as she pleases. Fern feels satisfaction in knowing she is going against the grain of society, and ignoring what is considered the norm for female behavior. It may not seem like such a large stride now, but the controversial Fern shows in this article that women had some different views on how they should be treated in that culture.

Making a Stand

Fanny Fern’s, "A Law More Nice Than Just", was written when it was the woman’s job to stay at home all day and clean house. Fanny Fern was the type of woman that wanted to be active and not cooped up in a house all day. I can easily understand where she is coming from because if I put myself in her situation I would be exactly like she is. When she decides that she is tired of waiting around on her husband to get home from wherever he goes, she wants to live a life in the man’s shoes. Her decision to do this would have most likely been accepted in the modern age because our world has changed quite a bit since then. It was illegal for women to dress as men, but Fanny didn’t care. She was tired of feeling unequal.

When she told her husband that she was going to dress up as a man and go out with him, he was in shock that she said that. As she began putting on the clothes, he began to laugh. She said of him, “Tailors must be a stingy set, I remarked, to be so sparing of their cloth, as I struggled into a pair of their handiwork, undeterred by the vociferous laughter of the wretch who had solemnly vowed to “cherish me” through all my tribulations.” This is very humorous to me because he is laughing at her while she is getting dressed as a man, and she is complaining saying he is supposed to “cherish her” as a man. Then it goes on to say, “Still no reply from Mr. Fern, who lay on the floor, faintly ejaculating, between his fits of laughter, ‘Oh, my! by Jove—oh! by Jupiter!’.” I think Mr. Fern is laughing at her because he thinks she will stop, when in fact this drives her to dress as a man even more. As they began to walk she lead, and he drug behind her. Thinking to herself, “Oh, Fanny! Oh, my! but none of these things moved me, and if I don’t have nicely-fitting suit of my own to wear rainy evenings, it is because---well, there are difficulties in the way.” I thought this was really funny because she refers to her female parts as difficulties, which is understandable when she is trying to fit in men’s clothing. At the very end of the story she states, “I’ve as good a right to preserve the healthy body God gave me, as if I were not a woman.” When she says this, she is talking about keeping her parts and still being able to dress as a man. I respect Fanny Fern very much in this story because she is tired of putting up with the men getting to do whatever they please while she sits at home. I think she takes a great stand about how women are really taken advantage of when she decides to go out with her husband dressed as a man!

question 3

In the article “A Law More Nice Than Just,” Fannie Fern writes about how she thinks it is wrong that woman are not allowed to wear pants, she shows this in the way she puts a humorous spin on this situation. She believes it to be liberating to have the joy to wear pants. It is actually illegal to wear pants if you are a woman. She thinks this law is ridiculous, and an awful law. She knows that if she goes around in pants there will be people shocked by it. She says that even if people do talk about it then they should go ahead because she does not care. She talks about how awful it is after a few days of rain to go out with a large petticoat on. She puts a twist of humor on the story when she goes and puts on her husband’s suit. She then realizes that her husband’s clothing does not fit as she thought it would. She put on the suit that was too big for her and finishes the outfit with a hat to cover her hair up with. As she walks down the street she realizes that by dressing this way she cannot be helped in the same way she is use to. For instance she starts to hold the hand of her husband which I am sure looked a little strange for that time since two men would be holding each other’s hand. Also her husband cannot help her over all the puddles on the ground since she has to act masculine. I can only imagine what all of this looked like, I am sure it was a sight to see. Under all the humor that she uses to make this story funny she wants the reader of her article to understand that woman and just as good as men were. Her husband thinks she is completely absurd for her to dress like this but he does not stop her. She makes a serious issue into something that is intensely funny.

Without a concience

Wezly Barnard

A conscience does help people to behave. Without a conscience people would do things that are seen as bad or wrong and not have to worry about the consequences. It’s the feeling of guilt that helps people realize right from wrong. If people never felt guilty about anything, then the world would be in more chaos that it is now. Mark Twain turns this message into a joke by portraying the image of his conscience. “Straight away the door opened, and a shriveled, shabby dwarf entered.” Twain continues to create a perfect picture of his conscience and describes the actions that take place when his conscience is in the house. “He was not more than two feet high.” “Every feature and inch of him was a trifle out of shape.” Tension builds up between Twain and his conscience. He starts to feel extremely frustrated with the actions of his conscience. “He stepped along with a chipper air, and flung himself into a dolls chair in a very free and easy way, without waiting to be asked. This is ironic as he realizes that this is similar to the way he acts around people, “it seemed to me that this whole performance was very like an exaggeration of conduct that I myself had sometimes been guilty in my intercourse with familiar friends.” Mark Twain continues to struggle with his conscience and wants with all his might to get rid it. The more he tries to kill his conscience the more his conscience reminds him of the things he has done wrong and should feel guilty about. “You turned the tramp away from your door this morning.” Twains conscience helps him realize how he lied to the tramp and he feels guilty about it. Twain does not like the feeling of guilt and how right his conscience is in all aspects of his life. The story continues back and forth between the two characters and the battle finally ends when Mark Twain gets hold of his conscience and get rid of him. Twain then continues to do things that are wrong and even kills people. This illustrates how important our conscience is in life and the bad things people would end up doing without feeling guilty.