مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري

Abstract :

The fundamental aim of this study is to put forward what humour is and the perception of humour in German literature in connection with Freud’s views about humour. It has been fashionable to define humour as an epigram. Such definitions of humour enable us to approach it from one perspective and reveal its just one aspect. Critics agree on the function of humour. It functions as something that facilitates to bear the ills of the difficulties in life and protects the self and completeness of the individual. Alfred Döblin, in his “Babylonische Wandrung” foreshadowing Döblin’s own exile in the forthcoming years, portrays a displaced and punished god, whom the author calls Konrad and who partly implies Marduk. Döblin deals with the process of humanization of this god wandering on earth from one city after another. In effect, god Konrad suffering from the punishment owing to the ills of his own governing and the harms that he gave to human beings in the world has his own tragedy. This study draws attention to the fact that the humorous situation in the novel is constituted by on the one hand the narrator’s putting the god in comic situations via irony and ridicule and on the other hand, Konrad has an inner battle against all the happenings to overcome his tragic situation. The study also touches upon the fact that Alfred Döblin extends the techniques in the modernist novel employed in his novel similar to today’spostmodern narrative techniques.