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Humour and Status Reversal in Greek Shadow Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Loring M. Danforth
Loring M. Danforth*
Affiliation:
Princeton, New Jersey
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Extract

Traditional plays of the Greek shadow theatre deal with the adventures of Karaghiozis, a poor Greek who is the embodiment of πovηρία (cunning, slyness). Plays of the comic type, and more specifically, plays in which Karaghiozis assumes a position requiring certain skills, have a standard narrative structure or plot which can be summarized as follows : A wealthy Turkish pasha or vizier, looking for a person to perform a job which requires certain skills, meets Hadziavatis, the subservient town crier, and asks for his help in finding such a person. Hadziavatis agrees at once, sets off, and invariably meets Karaghiozis, who, upon learning of the position the Turk is trying to fill, immediately claims to possess the prerequisite skills. Widi much humour and cleverness Karaghiozis convinces first Hadziavatis and then the Turk that he can in fact perform the job. Karaghiozis then appears on stage as the skilled person widi the appropriate costume or equipment (cook’s hat, doctor’s bag, secretary’s writing implements, etc.). He is transformed from a poor uneducated man of low status into a skilled educated man of high status. In that position he deceives several stock characters, such as Omorphonios, Dionysios and Stavrakas, until his deceit is finally exposed and he is chased off stage.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 2 , 1976 , pp. 99 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1976

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References

1. For the customary tripartite classification of Greek shadow theatre plays into comic plays, historic or heroic plays, and plays inspired by traditional folktales, see Biris, K., Nea Estia, II (1952), 35 Google Scholar, and Ioannou, G., I (Athens, 1971), p. ξζ Google Scholar. For a discussion of the prpblems raised by this classification see Danfordi, L., Greek Shadow Theatre: A Metasocial Commentary (unpublished Master’s Thesis, Princeton University, Department of Anthropology, 1974), pp. 14–85 Google Scholar.

2. Plays of this type include ‘Karaghiozis the Secretary’, ‘Karaghiozis the Spiritualist’, ‘Karaghiozis the Baker’, ‘Karaghiozis the Doctor’, ‘Karaghiozis the Prime Minister for Two Hours’, etc.

3. Douglas, Mary, ‘The Social Control of Cognition: Some Factors in Joke Perception’, Man, III (1968), 366 Google Scholar.

4. Ioannou, op. cit., pp. 81, 103-16.

5. For a more detailed discussion of these concepts see Campbell, J., Honour, Family and Patronage (London, 1964), pp. 863–316 Google Scholar, and Peristiany, J., ed., Honour and Shame (London, 1965)Google Scholar.

6. Pitt-Rivers, J., ‘Honour and Social Status’, in Peristiany, op. cit., p. 23 Google Scholar.

7. Pitt-Rivers, op. cit., pp. 21-2.

8. Campbell, op. cit., p. 304.

9. Ibid., p. 273.

10. Ibid., p. 306.

11. Pitt-Rivers, op. cit., p. 38.

12. Ioannou, op. cit., pp. 4, 90, and Michopoulos, P., (Athens, 1972), p. 147 Google Scholar.

13. Ioannou, op. cit., p. 102.

14. Turner, V., The Ritual Process (Chicago, 1969), p. 203 Google Scholar.

15. Ibid., pp. 167-8.

16. Gluckman, M., Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa (Glenco, Illinois, 1960), pp. 112, 118 Google Scholar.

17. Crumrine, N. R., ‘Capakoba, The Mayo Easter Ceremonial Impersonator: Explanations of Ritual Clowning’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, VIII (1969), 1–22 Google Scholar.

18. Ioannou, op. cit., p. 133.

19. Ibid., p. 122.

20. Ibid., pp. 74, 75, 79, 80.

21. Turner, V., The Forest of Symbols (Ithaca, N.Y., 1967), p. 105 Google Scholar.

22. Crumrine, op. cit., p. 21. Important psychological mechanisms which underline this process of learning by dissociation and which lead to deeper insights into this type of behaviour have been examined by Berlyne, D. in his studies of conflict, arousal and exploration: ‘Curiosity and Exploration’, Science, CLIII (1966), 25–33 Google Scholar, and ‘Conflict and Arousal’, Scientific American, CCXV (1966), 82-7. He proposes the term ‘collative stimulus properties’ for those properties which can be generally described as novel, surprising, complex or puzzling. When such stimuli are perceived, they give rise to conceptual conflict and cognitive dissonance, which in turn produce a state of arousal, heightened attentiveness and increased motivation. This leads to a desire to acquire information which will eliminate the conceptual conflict caused initially by the collative stimulus properties. The kind of learning which is initiated by such stimuli ‘can give rise not only to particularly rapid and lasting acquisition of knowledge but also, above all, to knowledge in which ideas are fruitfully pieced togedier in coherent structures’ (‘Conflict and Arousal’, p. 84).