Comparison And Contrast: Ring Lardener Vs. P.J. O'Rourke

Humor is the most versatile form of entertainment in existence. The style of presentation and the subject being presented blend together to create amusement out of what would otherwise bore or scream inappropriateness. Therefore, it serves logic that a humor author has his or her own unique "flavor" and approach to creating humor; the case of Ring Lardener and P.J. O'Rourke is no different. Ring Lardener authored the story Ex Parte, while P.J. O'Rourke did the piece Fake French in Nine (Neuf) Easy Lessons. Both use wildly different subjects and style to produce the same effect--hilarity. Within these differences, however, hides a similarity that goes unnoticed even though it lies in plain sight.

Lardener's Ex Parte is a first person narrative recounting the cause of a ruined marriage. The humor, however, does not reveal itself until near the end of the tale. O'Rourke's Fake French in Nine (Neuf) Easy Lessons, by contrast, reveals the source of comedy within the first sentence: "one way to say nothing while impressing people who aren't listening is to speak Fake French" (O'Rourke, page 155). Implying that the rest of the article will be about how to speak this Fake French, O'Rourke makes obvious the fact that the entire point of the article is simply to amuse oneself when in droll company.

While Fake French is a process analysis essay explaining the pseudo-language, O'Rourke openly states that any French word a person is aware of can mean anything one wishes it to mean because "we're not really trying to speak French, so who cares?" (O'Rourke, page 155). The image of a person randomly spewing forth meaningless jabber, in an attempt to sound intelligent, is undeniably entertaining. On the other hand, in comparison to the straightforward humor of the "language lessons", Lardener's story recounts the woes of a husband that simply doesn't understand his wife's material taste. Intending to surprise his wife with stylish and new furniture in their new home, he accidentally winds up causing their mutual separation. The irony, and humor, lies in her fascination and attraction to the "Early American" theme, equivalent to a modern "rural" theme; she longs for a farm-style barn with old and broken furniture and considers the new furniture in their new home to be absolutely "hideous" (Lardener, page 55). The husband's reaction upon learning of this desire, which only fuels the humor, is to destroy the house in an attempt to make it "early". Naturally, imagining a frustrated person taking an axe to a new piece of furniture, especially for the sake of fashion, would cause a person to laugh hysterically. O'Rourke chose to use slight satire to give the reader an absurd imagine while Lardener chose to use irony; though both resulted in the same effect, laughter, their methods are nonetheless noticeably different.

The language of both stories,