Incongruity of Humor in Candide and Monty Python and the Holy Grail

INCONGRUITY OF HUMOR IN CANDIDE AND MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

Have you ever wondered where the irregular comedy from “Saturday Night Live” and other humorous shows have come from? Well, Voltaire’s Candide is the origin. The events that take place in the novel would not qualify as humorous in reality, but the author uses certain effects to make it that way. The incongruity of humor shown in Monty Python and the Holy Grail is also derived from Candide in tone, expectation, and place.

The two works are similar in using incongruity of tone. Monty Python has a lighthearted tone, while events in the movie are unpleasant. When the Knights of the Round Table find the monster inside the cave, the scene quickly changes to a cartoon. The characters as well as the monster are cartoon characters. The knights’ rescue occur when the animator has a heart attack. Realistically, this event might have been unpleasant, but the cartoon provides a lighthearted tone when the characters approach impending danger. In Candide, the characters face many dismal hardships, but the author presents the story optimistically. Pangloss bases his teachings on the idea that everything happens for the best of all possible worlds. In reality, he is put in multiple dreadful situations. He gets a sexually transmitted disease, is nearly hanged, and is cut open while still alive. Yet none of this adversity changes his mind about the optimism in the world. Both Candide and Monty Python and the Holy Grail use light tones to convey grim events.

Monty Python and Candide also show incongruity of expectation. The knights in Monty Python arrive at a cave anticipating to fight a deadly monster. When the monster comes out of the cave, they see that it is only a little white rabbit. A knight approaches the rabbit and it responds by biting off his head. In the novel, Candide sees monkeys chasing after screaming, naked women. Thinking that he is doing the women a favor, he kills the monkeys and the women begin to cry. The monkeys are the women’s lovers. In reality, neither of these events would be expected. Rabbits are not killers nor can monkeys