Surviving the Darkness of Life with Humour: A study of Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question

Abstract

The Jewish community is hailed for its unique comic sensibility. Their sense of humour is defined
by its ability to laugh despite tragedy and misery. In a hostile world, humour has given them courage
to survive and face the biggest hardships of life. For Booker Prize winning British novelist Howard
Jacobson, humour is an important medium of expressing his inner thoughts and pouring his heart
out. His writings have always celebrated comedy. Breaking the barriers between serious writing
and humour, he has time and again reiterated that literature should rise above sadness and celebrate
life. This research paper will focus on his novel The Finkler Question and analyse it as an
intellectual comedy that deals with the issue of identity crisis among Jews and the threat of antiSemitism in the contemporary world through humour.