Category: Irony

The black death is set upon the city of Thebes, as the people look towards their righteous king, Oedipus for hope and resolution. Oedipus is seen as a hero to the people, but has not identified with himself: ‘I grieve for these, my people, far more than I fear for my own life’ (Sophocles 163). Oedipus’s self-thoughts and heroic beliefs are shaped and challenged. He is unaware of his hamartia, as he is oblivious to his true self. His selfishness is his downfall, as he presumes too much of his understanding of the world as: ‘He is the plague, the heart of our corruption’ (Sophocles 172). He solemnly swears that he will find the murderer of Laius as he feels there is: ‘Nothing to fear, even if he must denounce himself’ (Sophocles 171). As of yet, Oedipus feels no such pain, he has not escaped his birth, as the truth is hidden from him in the darkness.

Oedipus’s willingness to find the murderer of Laius is reflected in the presence of the blind seer, Tiresias. Oedipus’s hubris is demonstrated as he confronts the blind seer, for saying he was the murderer of Laius: ‘You, scum of the earth, you’d enrage a heart of stone!’ (Sophocles 178). Tiresias holds the key to Oedipus’s future and immortality, and refuses to abide by Oedipus’s commands: ‘The truth with all its power lives inside me’ (Sophocles 179). Oedipus thinks he is cleverer than Tiresias, who speaks for the Gods. Oedipus’s pride and good fortune have been defied by the Gods for mocking Tiresias’s blindness. His wife, Jocasta believes that this potential prophecy is a farce as: ‘nothing human can penetrate the future’ (Sophocles 201). Jocasta knows the truth of Oedipus’s fate, as she attempts to isolate his worries, as he wants to know the truth from a Shephard: ‘I am afraid Jocasta: I’ve got to see him’ (Sophocles 204). This emphasises that the noble and courageous king that once was, is now no more.

As the oracle comes to pass for Oedipus, he comes to terms with his peripetia and anagnorisis, that he would kill his father, Laius, and marry his mother, Jocasta. He has been: ‘cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands!’ (Sophocles 232). The death of Jocasta: ‘By her hand’, forces Oedipus to blind himself as punishment. He laments and weeps as: ‘He rips off her brooches, the long gold pins’ and ‘digs them into the sockets of his eyes’ (Sophocles 236 and 237). This emphasized Oedipus’s belief that by clearing his name, he would be free from his torment and destructive nature. He is now implicated for his crimes and there is no light for him anymore: ‘Blind in the darkness-blind!’ (Sophocles 237). The soliloquy: ‘hide me somewhere, kill me, hurl me into the sea where you can never look on me again’ reveals Oedipus’s true desires and psychological state of what he wants to happen for his wrongdoings as he wishes to be exiled (Sophocles 244).

The pathos of Oedipus is significant in the denouement of the play. There is pity and empathy for him, as we see him for the first, and last time as a family man, towards his two daughters, Antigone and Ismene: ‘I fathered you in the soul that gave me life’ (Sophocles 248). The character of Creon, whom Oedipus believed had the desire to take his place as king, grants Oedipus’s exile: ‘You’ll get your wish at once’ (Sophocles 250). With that said, the tragedy of Oedipus’s exile could signify the power and authority of Creon as he now has full control over the city of Thebes: ‘No more: here your power ends. None of your power follows you through life’ (Sophocles 250). The reader is left with a resolution, but not a satisfiable one, as the dramatic irony of this play demonstrates despair for the reader and predicts the outcome of Oedipus’s fate: ‘Count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last’ (Sophocles 251).

As we know, in his early work on The Concept of Irony, Sren Kierkegaard examined the subject of irony in depth. Many of the issues raised in this work, such as defining the subject of cognition and subjective self-knowledge, will be addressed in Kierkegaard’s following works. References to George W. F. Hegel’s thesis also distinguishes this early work.

Kierkegaard contrasts irony as an ‘attitude’ and ‘pure’ irony as a ‘thought object.’

Pure irony, according to Kierkegaard, is similar to romantic irony in that it is encased in subjectivity, offered only to the subject-ironist, and only regarded in its execution.

Irony as a ‘position,’ on the other hand, is irony understood as a specific position taken in action.

This kind of irony is more akin to Socratic irony and the ironic attitude in general, i.e. the consistent attitude taken and exhibited externally (“position,” Socratic attitude as irony). This separation corresponds to the distinction between theoretical, introspective irony and practical irony, i.e. sequential, performative, and ‘dramatic’ irony.

Irony, according to Kierkegaard, is a process of ‘splitting into parts’ the object of cognition, perception, logical judgement, and subjective and private opinion. Why does Kierkegaard place such a high emphasis on this varied approach to the object of cognition that is provided by irony?

The immanent cosmos of the mundane, according to Kierkegaard, is a particular whole subjected to humanity’s actions and volition – their imperfect state, partial knowledge, and erroneous choices that lead to individual errors in existence, which are often equated to trial and examination.

Because of the individual character of existence, as well as the separate essence of each of us, we always refer to our own subjective reality and individual rationales despite our cognition and self-cognition being incomplete and deceptive.

It should be noted that the work The Concept of Irony was inspired not only by Immanuel Kant’s theses, but also by Hegel’s discussions in The Phenomenology of Spirit, in which Hegel contrasted the phenomenality of the subject and their mental representations – ( the substantiality of being and objective things.

Kierkegaard begins with many of Hegel’s assumptions and theses in his early work: from his notion of the order of the flow of events, which is determining, to distinguishing between the substance of a thing and a phenomenon and the phenomenality of the subject, who is given as a phenomenon to itself

Irony, according to Kierkegaard, is a fragmented reference to a particular segment of reality, beginning and ending with the phenomenal – the mental representation of this fragment of the world. It’s worth noting that Kierkegaard makes a clear distinction between romantic and Socratic irony. Socratic irony is morally defined as being linked with the elenctic technique, whereas Romantic irony is associated with the subject’s constant aesthetic attitude toward oneself and the world.

It is also important to note that irony and an ironic attitude allow us to encounter the subject’s existence in its phenomenality and the object of cognition’s existence in its phenomenality, rather than the complete existence of being. The phenomena is not regarded as one that fully reveals existence, but rather as one that reveals existence only in “openness”, as Martin Heidegger put it.

The phenomena would be epistemologically (after Kant) described in its positivity owing to cognitive accessibility, whereas existence would be marked in its negativity due to a lack of cognitive access to existence in Kierkegaard’s early writings.

Thus, a phenomena appears to be positive, yet its presence is thought to be unreachable. The phenomena, on the other hand, is just a complement to existence in the ontological order, and existence is an absolute positive in its apparent completeness. Kierkegaard would argue in his later writings, such as Philosophical Fragments and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to ‘Philosophical Fragments,’ that this completeness of being – the transcendence of our entire real being – is de facto not given to us intellectually.

Johannes Climacus, the pseudonymous author of Philosophical Crumbs and its Concluding Unscientific Postscript, calls himself a ‘humorist.’ The role of irony and humour borders, between the aesthetic, ethical, and religious existence-spheres is discussed in this work.

Irony and humour are ‘incognitos’ for ethical and religious living, and they play important roles in ethical and religious development. The most famous Soren Kierkegaardian mockery,

at the cost of Hegelianism, is found in the Postscript.

Kierkegaard alters and extends the account of irony he provides in his thesis in the Postscript.

Certain aspects of Kierkegaard’s initial stance are illuminated by Climacus’ positions. Climacus further emphasises and expands on the developmental significance of irony in assisting people in recognising their distinctive moral agency, which, in his opinion, prepares them for ethical living.

Furthermore, Climacus develops an intriguing explanation of irony as an incognito for ethical emotion, which widens the role of irony in ethical living when it is mastered. He also tries to explain his argument that irony is a necessary component of a happy existence, but that it is only available to smart and thoughtful people.

He also tries to explain that his argument that irony is a key part in a successful existence but appears to be limited to thoughtful and clever people does not create an issue of moral luck.

In comparison to Kierkegaard’s account in his previous thesis, some of Climacus’ ideas are a step backwards. Climacus’ pure ironists, for example, appear to be less ironic than Kierkegaard’s, who are marked by their relentless negativity.

Through their withering critical attitude, which seizes on incongruity, Kierkegaard’s ironists ladder their way to liberation from societal roles and inherited languages. Climacus’ ironists, on the other hand, get at their position by clinging to an ‘ethical infinite need’ that overcomes and relativizes all purely social sources of normativity.

Irony comes to them in an unusually top-down manner. Furthermore, Climacus’ ethical perspective is quite strict. He relegates certain types of people who appear to be ethical to a pre-ethical life.

In his thesis, Kierkegaard offers a more Hegelian explanation of ethical existence that is both more organic and generous.

Climacus’ Philosophical Fragments, according to renowned historian Niels Thulstrup in the 1950s, ‘cannot be regarded a really pseudonymous work’ since ‘one will discover barely any discrepancy between this work and [Kierkegaard’s] other private and public ideas and works.’

The fact that Climacus defines himself as a comedian, however, has tremendous interpretative implications, according to more literarily oriented interpreters. The humorist’s unusual attitude must be taken into consideration while assessing the meaning of the text; Climacus’ remarks cannot be understood as if they were Kierkegaard’s.

The persona of Climacus, for example, was handled by Louis Mackey as part of Kierkegaard’s larger aim of undermining fixed, univocal interpretations; Climacus’ digressions and switches in voice and genre actively fight against any straightforward philosophical or theological reading.

Roger Poole agreed that the fractures and supplements in Climacus’ writings undermine meaning to the point that any statement may be identified as Kierkegaard’s.

Maybe nothing Climacus says should be construed as expressing a significant philosophical argument or religious claim.

Michael Weston, who used a different perspective that stressed textual indeterminacy less, saw Climacus’ comedy as a technique used to undermine the presumptions of impersonal abstraction from life’s first-person ethical issues

Michael Strawser, in a similar vein, saw Climacus’ work as an ironic subversion of objective certainties that leads to true enlightenment for the reader provided the reader takes interpretative responsibility for reading Climacus in that way.

Other critics see a self-contradiction in Climacus’ work that makes it impossible to attribute what he says to Kierkegaard.

The ethical and religious are in ‘continuous contact’ with one another, which is significant since both demand an individual’s enthusiasm and inwardness to be focused on precepts that are distinct of them. As a result, Climacus usually refers of these domains as the ‘ethically-religious.’

The pseudonym Johannes Climacus reflects Kierkegaard’s subjective approach to knowing, despite the fact that this Climacus is not a believer. The ladder isn’t supposed to depict the ascension to God, but rather an ascending sequence of logical plateaus, where the logician, as portrayed by Descartes and Hegel in particular, moves from one premise to the next. In spiritual issues, Johannes rejects this technique, believing it absurd to reach the Absolute in any way other than via trust. He’s interested in subjective knowledge and leaps of faith.

Despite the fact that Johannes is not a Christian, he guides the reader to a place where he may make a decision. Subjective beings cannot appropriate objective knowledge, which is the stated purpose of rational thinkers. As a result, Kierkegaard was interested in information that might entice the soul to seek God. However, Johannes argues that he is not a Christian since he has not yet come to know God. The arduous journey to God has been replaced by a highly emotional and subjective approach to truth, in which the believer finds himself before Christ by virtue of the absurd.

To grasp the true meaning of irony, one must start with the actual, existential expression of the spirit of irony, rather than an abstract study of essences. As a result, Socrates demonstrates what irony is inasmuch as he takes the ironic viewpoint and employs irony in his interpersonal connections, as defined by Kierkegaard.

Socratic irony, according to Kierkegaard, is a sign or symptom of the birth of personal existence, of subjectivity. Hegel has been followed here – to a degree. Irony, according to Hegel, is the most severe type of subjectivity.

According to Socratic irony, Socrates possessed an ‘Idea of the Good’, despite the fact that the individual’s relationship to the Good is arbitrarily decided. In other words, the subject is seen as the deciding and determining ‘principle ‘ of what is excellent.

What is merely a ‘negative moment’ for Hegel becomes an amorphous realisation of the value of the subject, of the person, for Kierkegaard. He refuses to let the sarcastic viewpoint be ‘absorbed’ into a rationalistic framework that only recognises the negative aspects of irony and dismisses its importance in the growth of the individual thinker. Kierkegaard is hesitant to have the nihilistic viewpoint regarded carelessly as a simple negative phase in the process of a spiritual dialogue since he lived through it and believes it represented a turning point in his own personal and philosophical growth.

To be sure, the ironic perspective must be conquered, transcended; but, it must also be ‘stated’ and ‘analysed’ in order to show how it may be overcome.

According to Kierkegaard, the central feature of Socrates’ existence was irony. The ironic viewpoint is pessimistic because it contradicts men’s traditional faith in common sense or reason. Many of the bad outcomes of the Platonic debates, we are informed, may be attributed to irony’s annihilating impact.

Irony has the ability to make the person to whom it is addressed feel self-conscious. It brings an apparently abstract topic down to a human level, implying that there is a world of truth beyond what is commonly acknowledged. One of Socrates’ goals (in employing irony) was to jolt mankind out of their moral and intellectual stupor. Irony is employed to liberate mankind from the sway of broad or abstract concepts that appear to communicate knowledge but actually conceal ignorance.

An assertion of the actual subject, the individual who refuses to submit to conventional opinion, who doubts ostensible ‘knowledge,’ who refuses to be explained away by a speculative dialectic, is what the ironic viewpoint entails. Socrates, an ironist, says that the vast majority of man’s knowledge is only the presumption of knowing. Socrates’ queries have a negative effect, which is intended. Socrates appeared to assume that destroying comfortable assurance would lead to self-conscious contemplation, to a knowledge of what they don’t know, to what they aren’t.A philosophical self-consciousness, a philosophical anthropology, is served by irony. Kierkegaard’s sarcasm helped to’ mask’ his personal devotion to Christianity. If Socrates wondered how he might become a man, Kierkegaard wondered how he could become a Christian.

Philosophical Fragments, written under the pseudonym ‘Johannes Climacus,’ is an important component of his philosophical and theological explication, explaining the conceptual distinction between Greek and religious philosophy.

Soren Kierkegaard used Johannes Climacus to explain his ideas about how the concept of self fits into faith’s vast eternity.

In Philosophical Fragments, he starts with Greek Platonic philosophy, delving into the ramifications of moving beyond the Socratic knowledge of truth received via recall to the Christian experience of truth received through grace.

Climacus explains in the context of Socrates and human cognition in the opening of Chapter III, The Absolute Paradox. This chapter reveals Kierkegaard’s existential beliefs, religious prejudices, and writing style so I will form my essay around answering whether or not his Absolute Paradox (AP) is successful in demonstrating ideas about the problems of a purely rational life.

According to logic, the infinite cannot be reduced to a finite state.

Faith in Christ, on the other hand, necessitates belief in the infinite becoming limited. In the world of reason, the AP is a contradiction.

Climacus argues that human beings have the capacity to comprehend and transcend anything beyond their own reasoning and that this process is the basis of all thinking.

This innate conviction permits humans to overlook the fact that some things, such as God and Christianity, are beyond human comprehension. Every person, though, continues to assume that they can grasp it.

Those who were present at the time when God assumed the incarnation of Christ were unable to comprehend him. Even the most common Christian is unable to grasp Christ.

His rationalism prevents him from even conceiving. He’s approaching AP from a fork in the road. He is driven away from AP by reason. So the only way to get to AP is through a ‘moment of trust,’ as Kierkegaard calls it.

The ‘moment of faith’ necessitates a huge leap of faith based on divine personal change, but how does all of this make sense when you set up this difficulty in the hopes of making the ‘moment of faith’ a qualitative choice?

Only if, according to Kierkegaard, the ‘moment of faith’ is a contradiction and a marvel in and of itself, like the AP. The supernatural conditioners are the driving force behind it all.

Unlike Hegelianism, a philosophical theory that devalued Christianity by fostering logical reason in order to comprehend God’s ‘modern’ existence, Kierkegaard felt God transcended human reasoning.

He felt that to be a “follower” of a faith one must have made the decision to follow that faith. Being born into faith doesn’t mean you’re a follower. He did hold however that people who decide to be religious through reason, miss the point of what it means to have faith. Trying to give a satisfactory answer to God’s existence and nature through reason is nigh impossible and will only result in objective uncertainty, not clarity. In the face of this objective uncertainty, Kierkegaard thinks we might as well choose subjectively.

Like a great painting or great piece of music, one can know what paint was used, what music theory went into a piece, but can one say that they fully understood the piece, that they fully know the truth of its worth? Kierkegaard says no, truth, and the formulation of a truth must have some involvement from the person. Becoming a follower is something that can’t be given second-hand, that would be a contradiction; the idea of being born into being a follower against your will is a contradiction so important that many of Kierkegaard’s ideas on individuality can be understood in terms of this.

Nobody can take a leap to faith for you.

Socrates believed that the truth was self-actualization, which was something that everyone already had inside them but that only a good teacher could help them discover and resurface as an actualised being. The Greek tradition was diametrically opposed to God. Kierkegaard sympathised with the Greeks, also trying to answer the call to authenticity but through a Christian lens.

The one-time teacher, Jesus Christ, was the truth for him and that everybody is born with innate ideas about God. Between Socrates and Kierkegaard, there is a distinction between reforming and changing. The Greeks thought that the truth helped a person to grow into a better version of his or herself, but Climacus spoke about how the truth fully re-created a person.

For Kierkegaard, truth is everlasting and without precedent. When it comes to eternal existence, the truth is not a single revelation that is useless or has no meaning.

Climacus’ absolute paradox in this sense is that man is completely distinct from God and truth. Jesus was a man conceived without sin and continued to not sin. This was what made him divine.

The understanding of human guilt and the leap of faith that humans take when they begin to believe something that cannot be explained logically are the foundations of the absolute paradox.

This is only the beginning of the contradiction, as the learner becomes the ‘untruth,’ the antithesis of God and the embodiment of sin.

Climacus sees the Moment of the arrival of Jesus to redeem humankind from sin. Someone can grasp that Jesus is God and Savior after they recognise they are sinful and different from Jesus, which is something that cannot be stated intellectually..

Jesus disguised himself as a carpenter in order to connect with people and spread the Christian message after all.

Climacus cited another example of the King disguised in peasant garb to illustrate his point. Many folk and fairy tales use this notion of nobility in disguise to get the main characters to accept what the strong are saying.

According to Climacus, man is a servant, especially to God, and Jesus manifested as God in human form so that man may relate to him and attain the “gift” that is divine knowledge.

Kierkegaard valued the meaning of life and the individual’s search for his position in the complex web of religion. He wrote on how the individual is unimportant, but that humans want to be valuable, which they can only do through trust in God.

In this way, religion is somewhat illogical, as it is a departure from reason. Humans may be capable of both faith and rationality, but they are unable to combine both into the same concept.

His postmodernist ideas are represented here because he rejects the necessity of the time to question the irrational because it was considered Hegelian “modernism” to question what cannot be explained.

For me he is sometimes hard to follow. In an early chapter he emphasises the role of the teacher-savior, then in a lter one, he returns to the “contemporary disciple.”

The Absolute Paradox is discussed by Climacus, who then connects it to the “Moment”. In this book, his thoughts are all interconnected and part of the same overall argument. His thought pattern is a little perplexing and difficult to follow, because, like faith, it is a non-concrete concept that is difficult to understand.

This is why some people read this text as quite ironic.

For Kierkegaard, the idea of the AP isn’t to explain God’s existence, but to comprehend that faith is a concept that can’t be dismissed as useless.

What I think he is saying is that you ultimately can’t live your life solely on the basis of reason, a point that Kant made also. Some ethical positions in life cannot be reduced to purely rational considerations.

If I were to see an old woman on the street who’s about to be hit by a bus, my pure rational instinct might be to not do anything to save my own skin.

But, regardless of what reason would say, my passion (which is what he is appealing to) could be to save that person and put my life on the line.

If you’re Nelson Mandela, pure reason could tell you not to resist Apartheid again since it may put you in prison for 27 years with a shattered family and personal life. However, your devotion may push you to take a risk and make a sacrifice for the sake of your countrymen.

Pure reason could tell you not to demonstrate against the Nazis if you’re Dietrich Bonhoeffer, since you’re against a totalitarian state that may execute you. However, your heart tells you that you must defend the innocent, which may necessitate taking a leap of faith that may even mean laying down your life for others.

This reasoning only applies if you accept the assumption that the actions of Mandela and Bonhoeffer aren’t rational – that pure reason would lead you to think that your own life is worth more than the lives of countless others.

But it could depend on what Kiekegaard means by reason.

Self-interested ethics does not always imply reason. For Kiekegaard, ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ are only instruments to help you achieve your goals, whether it’s preventing an elderly person from being struck by a bus or saving your own skin. Passion and reasoning are not mutually exclusive for Kiekegaard. Passion is the polar opposite of indifference. Reasoning and logic may be useful tools for guiding passion to grow and spread.

Kierkegaard is ultimately responding to Hegel , who said that history is following a rational path that inevitably leads to a fully rational state of things. He too also disliked organised Christianity, which he believes dictates rigid and dogmatic lifestyles.

I agree with a lot of Kierkegaard’s points. Reason cannot be an aim in itself; else, existence would be meaningless. For instance, I eat to live, work to live, work to earn money, and use money to eat. Because there is no ultimate goal, it doesn’t matter if I die today or never.

However, if I accomplish something that has no rational reason but gives my life significance in my own thinking, such as making art, my life will have served a purpose, and everything else supporting my life will become justifiable.

‘means of the melancholy irony, which did not consist in any single utterance on the part of Johannes Climacus but in his whole life. . . . Johannes does what we are told to do–he actually doubts everything–he suffers through all the pain of doing that, becomes cunning, and almost acquires a bad conscience. When he has gone as far in that direction as he can go and wants to come back, he cannot do so. . . . Now he despairs, his life is wasted, his youth is spent in these deliberations. Life does not acquire any meaning for him, and all this is the fault of philosophy.’

I read this as Climacus spending his whole life caught up in deliberating between choices that he had. Ultimately never choosing any and in doing so, rid his life of any passion, and his character of any development.

The melancholic nature of his writing shines here, with each word expressing sentiments we all feel at times such as doubt.

Doubt in whether or not we made the right choice or doubt in ourselves and our potential. These feelings are what many feel when asked if they have lived an accomplished life.

“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it: Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.”

The irony of the absolute paradox is not lost on Kierkegaard like many think.

He was well aware that his logic is circular and paradoxical in of itself.

Kierkegaard begins with the assumption that God exists, then proceeds on to God’s characteristics. The proof of God’s existence comes from the idea that he exists. Kierkegaard recognises that this is deceptive circular reasoning, but he rejects both the description and the idea that logic is superior to faith. He dismisses everything in favour of blind faith.

The value of reason in leading a good life has significantly dwindled for me after reading The Philosophical Fragments. I can speak only for myself when I say, through the use of his Absolute Paradox, I have been convinced by much of what Kirkegaard says about reason and how it can be a detriment. I am still in a puzzle as to whether or not he succeeded in converting me to take a leap of faith into religion, however he still definitely succeeded in helping me realise that sometimes life has no absolute meaning or reason.

We must paradoxically, pun intended, create our own and in doing so should create amongst others with a mind empty of regret and full of humour.

Introduction to Trevor Noah’s Life and Background

Trevor Noah was born in South Africa in 1984 during the last few years of Apartheid to a black South African mother and a white European father. Trevor is “Born a Crime” because under Apartheid ruling interracial relationships are not allowed. In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah tells the story of growing up in South Africa as the marginalized group under Apartheid. He shows all of the racism, violence and crime that comes with colonization. Trevor shows how he and his mother Patricia Noah tackle their difficult situation by using humour, language, and faith.

During Apartheid there was a lot of racial segregation as the Apartheid law separated South Africa’s white minority and non-white majority. However, the segregation went beyond just the two cultures as even withing the non-white majority there were two major opposing groups, the Xhosa and the Zulu. Both the Xhosa and the Zulu were of the same race so they were separated by language rather than ethnicity or skin colour “The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate, is what it was. You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all” (Noah 1). Trevor’s mother was of the Xhosa group, she was also a very religious woman using religion to cope with the oppression she was facing. This was very common during Apartheid for many black South Africans, the white minority pushed religion onto the blacks which ended up creating positive hybridity as the blacks used religion to help endure their tough situation “The white man was quite stern with the native. “You need to pray to Jesus,” he said. “Jesus will save you.” To which the native replied, “Well, we do need to be saved—saved from you, but that’s beside the point. So let’s give this Jesus thing a shot.” (Noah 6). Patricia would drag Andrew and Noah to 3 different churches every Sunday, White Church, Mixed Church, and Black Church. On one particular Sunday when their car had broken down they were stranded and couldn’t find any minibusses so they decided to hitchhike, just as a car stopped to help them out and they got in, a minibus swerves in front of the car and an angry Zulu man with a club jumps out threatening the driver for stealing his customers as this is his block. Once in the bus, the Zulu driver scolds Noah’s mother for entering a strangers car saying she perfectly fits the stereotype of Xhosa women as being promiscuous and unfaithful and saying that she is going to learn her lesson, with the driver refusing to stop Patricia decides to push Trevor out of the bus and jumps out after him with Andrew.

The way Trevor and his mother reacted to the situation proves how common something like that was but it also shows how dedicated his mother is to her faith as these sorts of encounters don’t stop her from going to church. After they call the police to pick them up and give them a ride home Trevor jokes saying to his mother “Look, Mom. I know you love Jesus, but maybe next week you could ask him to meet us at our house” (Noah 17) the two of them break out in laughter despite being covered in blood and dirt, their use of humour allows them to forget everything that just happened and to look ahead into the future. Being a mixed child Trevor experienced a lot of racial segregation himself and had a hard time fitting in, even at home. Whenever Trevor and his cousins get into trouble his grandmother will beat everyone but him as she doesn’t know how to hit a white child, he will always get off easy when he gets in trouble except for when it involves his mom.

Racial Segregation and the Power of Language

Trevor sees himself as a black kid as he most closely identifies with his black family in Soweto, being a mixed child allows him to get a sense of what it’s like to be on both sides. Trevor doesn’t realize all of this is a racial thing until he is older as he thinks he is just famous because all the kids call him “white man” and use him as a landmark for directions. The kids are just as oblivious to racism as Trevor is, although they refer to him based on his skin colour it doesn’t mean anything to them as they just aren’t used to seeing white people “As a kid I understood that people were different colors, but in my head white and black and brown were like types of chocolate. Dad was the white chocolate, mom was the dark chocolate, and I was the milk chocolate. But we were all just chocolate. I didn’t know any of it related to “race.” I didn’t know what race was. My mother never referred to my dad as white or to me as mixed. So when the other kids in Soweto called me “white,” even though I was light brown, I just thought they had their colors mixed up, like they hadn’t learned them properly. “Ah, yes, my friend. You’ve confused aqua with turquoise. I can see how you made that mistake. You’re not the first.” (Noah 54). To bridge the racial gap Trevor learns English, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, and German. Whenever he is on the street and someone asks where he is from he responds in the same language and accent, like when a group of Zulus talked about planning to “get this white guy” he turned around and proposed in Zulu that they all mug someone together which in return caused the Zulu guys to apologize saying they thought he was something else.

This shows how much more powerful language is than someone’s skin colour, despite the Zulu guys making a judgment on who he was based on his skin colour he was able to completely change their perception by speaking their language or a language that is not associated with white people, he is able to trick even the Xhosa’s rival group into thinking he is one of them as he has no distinguishable race. In the sixth grade near the end of apartheid, Trevor moves to a government school, where he gets placed in advanced classes that are predominantly white “I was eleven years old, and it was like I was seeing my country for the first time. In the townships you don’t see segregation, because everyone is black. In the white world, any time my mother took me to a white church, we were the only black people there, and my mom didn’t separate herself from anyone. She didn’t care. She’d go right up and sit with the white people. And at Maryvale, the kids were mixed up and hanging out together. Before that day, I had never seen people being together and yet not together, occupying the same space yet choosing not to associate with each other in any way. In an instant I could see and feel how the boundaries were drawn. Groups moved in color patterns across the yard, up the stairs, down the hall. It was insane. I looked over at the white kids I’d met that morning. Ten minutes earlier I’d thought I was at a school where they were a majority. Now I realized how few of them there actually were compared to everyone else”. He asks his counselor to switch over to the B classes where all the black students were, however, she said that the black kids would hold him back and that it would impact the opportunities that he will have open for him for the rest of his life. Trevor is adamant though and decides he would rather be held back with people he liked then move ahead with people he didn’t know, all the black kids accept him despite seeing him as white because he speaks their language, again showing how powerful language can be.

These were Trevor’s first encounters with racism and racial segregation, as he grew older he started to understand what was going on and was able to make sense of it all. Going through all the hardships made him the person that he is today, I believe being under apartheid had a positive effect on Trevor Noah in the long run as he is now a successful comedian who is a host on the Daily Show and has even published this book, he is able to use his witty sense of humour to tell stories about his past that are heart-wrenching but also still funny at the same time. During apartheid ruling, Trevor has not only experienced racism but has also seen his fair share of violence which has also had a huge factor in shaping the person he is today.

Violence and Discipline: A Personal Experience

Growing up in South Africa it wasn’t too uncommon to see husbands physically abusing their wives or parents hitting their children as a form of discipline, this is something Trevor had to experience quite a lot during his childhood.“I know you see me as some crazy old bitch nagging at you,” she said, “but you forget the reason I ride you so hard and give you so much shit is because I love you. Everything I have ever done I’ve done from a place of love. The world will punish you even worse if I don’t punish you. The world doesn’t love you. If the police get you, the police don’t love you. When I beat you, I’m trying to save you. When they beat you, they’re trying to kill you.” (Noah 243) Trevor was more afraid of his mother than the law itself, Patricia was very big into physical discipline but she claimed that she always did it out of love. His mother’s beatings were the only real violence he knew until he grew older and started to get bullied a lot due to his skin colour, he had kids throw mulberries at him and people steal his bike, he was used to the bullying so everything was fine until Abel came along.

Abel was Patricia’s then-boyfriend, he was a very charming and handsome car mechanic and Trevor described him as a very likable man. Eventually, once Patricia and Abel get married, they discover he is a controlling alcoholic as he prevents Trevor and his mother from having any contact with Trevor’s dad. The first time Trevor ever witnesses Abel’s temper is when he tells them about the kids that threw the mulberries at him, Abel made Trevor take him to the boys where Abel beat their leader with a stick and made him apologize. After Patricia makes Abel stop smoking weed he becomes more of an alcoholic, drinking at work and driving home drunk, during one encounter when Abel hits Patricia a few times she goes to the police station to report it however the police just tell her to calm down and that stuff like this just happens and it’s not Abel’s fault. Over time Abel got worse and worse and even started abusing Trevor “I grew up in a world of violence, but I myself was never violent at all. Yes, I played pranks, set fires, and broke windows, but I never attacked people. I never hit anyone. I was never angry. I just didn’t see myself that way.

My mother had exposed me to a different world than the one she grew up in. She bought me the books she never got to read. She took me to the schools that she never got to go to. I immersed myself in those worlds and I came back looking at the world a different way. I saw that not all families are violent. I saw the futility of violence, the cycle that just repeats itself, the damage that’s inflicted on people that they in turn inflict on others. More than anything, I saw that relationships are not sustained by violence but by love. Love is a creative act. When you love someone you create a new world for them. My mother did that for me, and with the progress I made and the things I learned, I came back and created a new world and a new understanding for her. After that, she never raised her hand to her children again. Unfortunately, by the time she stopped, Abel had started.” (Noah 262). All of the violence inflicted by Abel goes unnoticed as him and the police are good friends and they ignore any charges filed against him. The police deal with crime in the same way they do any sort of physical abuse or violence, by just pretending nothing ever happened.

Crime, Justice, and the Flaws of the System

There is a lot of crime in a country that is divided into many groups, especially when the police themselves are picking sides. In Soweto where Trevor grew up, there was a high poverty rate resulting in a lot of crime, a lot of crime that went unnoticed that was. There was no real sense of justice, during Trevor’s first encounter with the police they tried to get him to bribe them, most of them had chosen sides based on their ethnicity and acted on their best interests instead, resulting in chaos. “In society, we do horrible things to one another because we don’t see the person it affects. We don’t see their face. We don’t see them as people. Which was the whole reason the hood was built in the first place, to keep the victims of apartheid out of sight and out of mind. Because if white people ever saw black people as human, they would see that slavery is unconscionable.

We live in a world where we don’t see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we don’t live with them. It would be much harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one another’s pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.” (Noah 221-222). The only way the township was intact was because the people dealt with any problems within “The township polices itself as well. If someone’s caught stealing, the township deals with them. If someone’s caught breaking into a house, the township deals with them. If you’re caught raping a woman, pray to God the police find you before the township does. If a woman is being hit, people don’t get involved.

There are too many questions with a beating. What’s the fight about? Who’s responsible? Who started it? But rape is rape. Theft is theft. You’have desecrated the community.” (Noah 219). Nobody was really referred to as a criminal as everyone just had crime in their life, they were born into it like a curse that they couldn’t escape from. Years later after apartheid has ended and Patricia is remarried, she comes home from church to find an angry Abel with a gun, he threatens to shoot everyone and Patricia steps in front taking a bullet in the leg and then later, one in the head. Miraculously she survives however Abel manages to get bail and is free within a month because none of the previous charges went through so he has a clean criminal record. This shows how deeply flawed South Africa’s criminal justice system continues to be even after apartheid, showing how big the effects of apartheid were.

Humor, Faith, and Resilience: A Conclusion

Despite all that Trevor and his mother went through they still manage to stay positive, they use humour, faith, and language to get them out of any tough situation. No matter what just happened they always manage to look on the bright side “ My child, you must look on the bright side.”What? What are you talking about, ‘the bright side’? Mom, you were shot in the face. There is no bright side.” “Of course there is. Now you’re officially the best-looking person in the family.” She broke out in a huge smile and started laughing. Through my tears, I started laughing, too.” (Noah 281). Trevor was seen as the “other” whilst growing up in a country that was being decolonized, the whole world was pretty much against him yet he persevered and worked hard and was able to make it where he was today.

Works Cited and Frequently Asked Questions

1. Noah, Trevor. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. Spiegel & Grau, an Imprint of Random House, 2019.