Discuss how Lamb blends Pathos and Humour in his essays prescribed for you.

Discuss how Lamb blends Pathos and Humour in his essays prescribed for you.

Pathos and Humour frequently jostle each other in the essays of lamb. There is a curious mingling of these two ingredients in his work. Laughter is quickly followed by tears of sympathy in many of his essays. Sometimes there are alternations of humour and pathos, and sometimes the two elements exist simultaneously in the same passage which has both a comic and pathetic side. While there was a touch of morbidity in Lamb’s nature which inclined him to dwell upon the melancholy aspect of things, he was also endowed with a keen visible faculty which made it impossible for him not to perceive the funny side of things. This mingling of humour and pathos may best be illustrated with reference to those very essays which have been prescribed for us in our syllabus.

Dream children is primarily an essay chacterised by an almost tragic quality, but there are several touches of humour in it. The imaginary children’s reactions to what the author has to tell them are quite amusing. “Here Alice put out one of her dear mother’s looks, too tender to be called upbraiding.” “Here John smiled, as much as to say, “that would be foolish indeed.”  “Here little Alice spread her hands.” “Here John expanded all his eye- brows and tried to look courageous.” All these are touches of homour in an essay which is otherwise highly moving.

In The Superannuated Man, Elia, Lamb's alter-ego, discusses his retirement after 36 years of work in a business, a situation similar to Lamb's own retirement from the East India House. In this essay, pathos and humor are woven together: we laugh and cry at the same time, but perhaps most strongly feel the pathos of Elia's situation in which both work and retirement have their price. .....

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