El poder desmitificador de la risa en las novelas de Barbara Pym

Abstract

Bakhtin, one of the leading thinkers and literary critics of the twentieth century, always defended the important role of laughter in the novel. For the comic mode nothing is eternal or stable, everything can and must be renewed. The notion of an absolute and indisputable truth is rejected. This explains why one of the main functions of laughter is to mock institutional mystiques and orthodoxies. The aim of this essay is to show that Pym’s novels are not trivial works of art, but irreverent and open-ended texts that destroy the mystique that surrounds the academic world in particular and other professions in general.