Laughter Really is the Best Medicine



A less-than-breathtaking shot of the dirty water of the Shannon River,
"the river that kills," according to Frank McCourt



            Before we left for a two week break from English, I wondered what I should ever write about.  Since I went to Ireland with my family, an old writing partner of mine suggested that I think back to the good old days of AP English 11 and Frank McCourt’s novel, Angela’s Ashes.  I brought the well-worn book along with me on my trip, looking for ways to contrast modern-day Ireland with McCourt’s childhood view of the island.  Unfortunately (actually maybe not), my family did not include Limerick in our stay because it has a less than fabulous reputation.  My brother’s Irish roommate called it “Stab City,” so we happily avoided McCourt’s childhood home.  Aside from taking some pictures of the Shannon River, or as McCourt called it “the river that kills,” I didn’t make my original goal to see the sights through McCourt’s eyes.  However, my life did come full circle with every literary piece I had.  My backpack carried three books: Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher, Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey.  Somehow, I found a strong common thread between all three, the stars aligned I swear.  Fisher claims her life motto as “if my life wasn’t funny, it would just be true, and that is unacceptable” (Fisher 17).  She takes her life’s huge issues in stride and laughs them off, and I so respect her for that.  This theme also came into play in Angela’s Ashes as I flipped through my old notes and the flagged pages of my selected character, Uncle Pa Keating.  I found profuse notes on how he similarly turned frowns upside-down, so to speak.  McCourt’s troubled life needed the healthy dose of humor that Pa Keating offered, for example McCourt recalls that “the minute a politician or a Pope starts his blather Uncle Pa thinks of him wiping his arse” (McCourt 246).  And finally Kesey relays that identical message of the importance of humor when McMurphy makes fun of himself in the face of adversity and even fear of his life undergoing the multitude of electroshock treatments: “Red McMurphy the ten-thousand-watt psychopath” (Kesey 290).  In all three instances, humor stands out as the obvious way to overcome pain and other problems.  After all, Kesey employs laughter as the patients’ main fighting force against the Combine.  Humor overpowers all.

Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winning novel Angela's Ashes details his childhood in Limerick, Ireland