In many people’s opinions, humor is what makes the world go round. If one is having a bad day, a simple comment that evokes some sort of humor can turn the bad day around faster than the snap of a finger. There are times though where it takes a little longer than the snap of a finger for the person having a bad day to get the joke but that is beside the point. In rare occasions, stereotypes can be transformed into jokes. Dave Barry does just that in his article Lost in the Kitchen and turns the stereotype that men don’t belong in the kitchen into a joke evoking humor and keeping the audience clinging onto every word written.
Barry tells the audience the story of a few Thanksgivings back that he and his wife spent with their friends: Gene and Arlene. Before Barry jumps into the story, he does make an important point that is somewhat crucial to the situation. Barry writes about how men are, putting it bluntly, scum when it comes to kitchen work and proceeds to say that Thanksgiving night is the slowest night when it comes to having sex. Now for the story. It’s a typical Thanksgiving in America. The women are in the kitchen cooking up the turkey, the kids are messing around, and the men are watching football and not giving a crap about what the kids are doing even though it was their assignment to make sure they aren’t causing shenanigans. Every once in a great while, the men ask the women what they can do to help in the kitchen. But as Barry says in the article Lost in the Kitchen, “…most men make themselves as useful around the kitchen as ill-trained Labrador Retrievers.” This previous statement is true. I have personally seen my dad try to do kitchen work like cooking and trust me, it’s not pretty.
This article is thoroughly enjoyable and the main reason for this is because of the humor Barry uses. A few strategies he uses are hyperboles, allusion, and understatement. The good thing about all of these strategies is that they all make the reader or audience laugh.
Barry does an excellent job illustrating hyperbole when he talks about deciding on whether or not to go into the kitchen and help. He says, “I would no more enter the kitchen than I would attempt to park a nuclear aircraft.” This is a crazy exaggeration albeit true. Most men wouldn’t want to attempt to park a nuclear aircraft in fear that it would explode killing thousands, maybe even millions. Just like that, most men would want to enter the kitchen when women are at work, especially when it comes to cooking a big meal like Thanksgiving dinner. This portion of the article made readers literally laugh out loud showing that Barry did a profound job of intertwining hyperbole’s and humor.
Allusions are another good way to draw in the audience and in this case, make the audience laugh and nod their heads. A prime example is whenever Barry talks about the Detroit Lions. Barry says, “On the floor, three small children and a dog who long ago had her brain eaten by fleas are running as fast as they can directly into things, trying to injure themselves. On the television, the Detroit Lions are doing pretty much the same thing.” Every true Michigander knows the Lions and their style of football of which Barry hit the nail on the head with that description. Barry also says, “But there is a famous law of physics that goes: ‘You cannot watch small children and the Detroit Lions at the same time, and let’s face it, the Detroit Lions are more interesting’” Speaking from a family whose tradition is to watch the Lions get wrecked MOST of the time on Thanksgiving, I know both the previous statements to be true. Barry alludes to the Lions in order to reach both their fans and those who live in Michigan. He uses this allusion to evoke humor in fans and almost forces the audience to use prior knowledge when it comes to remembering how the Lions are.
When it comes to humor, there are three types of it. There is full on laughing till the point of crying, humor that isn’t so humorous, and humor that has to be thought about to get. Euphemisms usually fall under the third category. In Lost in the Kitchen, Barry states, “I also realize that there are some males out there, with hyphenated last names, who have advanced much farther than Gene and I have,” This is a euphemism at its finest. This specific example of euphemism falls under the third example of humor that has to be thought about. The underlying humorous almost insult goes toward all the men whose wives wear the pants in the marriage. When reading this, one may not get it, but once it’s understood, one can see that Barry uses euphemisms to his advantage to make the reader critically think, use some prior knowledge, and above all, laugh.
Rhetoric and humor are two very important pieces to the puzzle when it comes to literature. A good writer uses as many rhetorical devices to appeal to a much larger audience. The more rhetorical devices he or she uses, the higher the amount of people who can somehow relate to the writer’s experience. Dave Barry uses many rhetorical devices to convey the feeling and emotion of humor to his audience. Using hyperboles, allusions, and euphemisms to convey humor, Barry gets down to the point, appeals to the audience, and keeps the reader coming back for more grins and giggles.
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