The penis
By Hanif Kureishi

This essay will focus on how Hanif Kureishi uses humor and different points of view to portray his image of the human relationship to and appreciation of objects and likewise.

Hanif Kureishi makes use of two of the three theories that has been set around humor. Hanif Kureishi uses ‘the relief theory’ and ‘the incongruity theory’.
The relief theory is based around the fact that the reader is going to have a set of taboos or subjects that they do not like to talk about or discuss. Some of these taboos are often things as pornography, genitalia and sex in general, all of which we see in the story. Talking about or being confronted with these taboos will often cause an individual to feel ashamed or nervous. So by confronting the reader with his or her taboos Hanif Kureishi is forcing the reader to deal with his or her shame and/or nervousness and the most common way of doing so is by laughing. Hanif Kureishi implements this in the text by creating a main character, in this case Doug, whom is an “actor” in the industry of pornography, and by writing very obviously about Doug’s work experiences, doings and deeds. And of course there is the huge walking and talking penis…
Should it be the case that pornography, genitalia nor sex is not included in the readers list of taboos Hanif Kureishi also makes use of the incongruity theory. The incongruity theory is base aroung the fact that the reader has an assumption about how the world is and works, about what is right and what is wrong and about what is realistic and what is not. So when confronted with a text or any other form of media which contradicts this vision of reality the reader will find it amusing and most likely laugh about the poor realism of it. Hanif Kureishi’s main way of doing so is by implementing the loss of a penis that then tries to make up a life for itself. Two quotes to support this from the text are as follows:
“It wasn’t until he passed the mirror on the way to the shower, and looked at himself for the first time that day that he realized his penis was missing. The whole thing had gone, penis, scrotum, even his pubic hair.”
Any person with a common sense would find it kind of odd and a bit amusing that he only noticed it when he walked by the mirror and no the second that he woke up. Another incongruity with what the reader would perceive as the realistic world is the fact the Doug feels no physical pain in spite of losing his genitalia. The second quote is as follows:
“Bewildered, he was standing outside on the street when across the road, he saw his penis coming out of a coffee shop accompanied by a couple of young women. The penis tall, erect and wearing dark glasses and a fine black jacket was smiling”
This one quite obviously fits the incongruity theory because of the immense contradiction it has to the “real” world. Nowhere in time or history would a walking, talking and clothed penis fit into the realistic world.
.

Throughout his story Hanif Kureishi has chosen to make use of two different points of view. He uses the point of view of the character Alfie and the point of view of the character Doug. The fact that Hanif Kureishi makes use of two different points of view adds a nice diversity to the story. Hanif Kureishi shows both sides of the coin so to say, which just contributes even more to making the story amusing. The reader gets to see what it is like being on both sides of the penis so to speak. From Alfie’s point of view the reader sees what it is like to encounter an ownerless penis, in a bit of an extreme way though. Alfie finds the penis in his pocket after a night out, and then goes on to show how one point of view of this penis could be.
“’wait a minute. I’ll tell you what I did.’ He pulled his jacket from where he had left it, over the back of a chair. He would examine his wallet and see how much money he had spent, wether he had any cocaone left, or if he had collected phone numbers, business cards or taxi receipts that might jog his memory. He was fumbling in his inside pocket when he found strange. He pulled it out. ‘What is that?’ his wife said. She came closer. ‘It’s a penis’”

“A few minutes later, to his surprise, he was walking down the street with a penis in his pocket. His instinct was to drop it in a dustbin and go straight to work”
This contributes the incongruity theory and initially just paves the way for a pretty bizarre story, but by switching over to Doug’s point of view the reader gets the chance to make sense of this so far bizarre story.
From Doug’s point of view the reader gets to see a desperate man without his penis running around town trying to find it again and make friends with it again. This by itself sounds just as wired as Alfie waking up to a penis in the pocket of his jacket, but because of the change of the point of view during the story Hanif Kureishi manages to create a harmony between the two points of view. This change in point of view is the reason that the story actually is amusing, had it not been there it would just have been two completely separated and bizarre stories, one about a guy with a penis too much and one about another guy with a penis too little.

But what is Hanif Kureishi trying to show the reader with all this humor and the different kind of points of view? Hanif Kureishi is trying to show the reader that, we as humans, sometimes take things, their meaning and effect on our lives for granted. He does that by showing us a case of a man, Doug, who loses his penis which prior to this “just” was his penis, but after spending just a short period of time realizes that it was not “just” a penis, but it was indeed what created his identity and made him who he was, helped him make it through the day, it was what people recognized him for. For Doug it was his penis, this might not be the case for everyone, in fact it is probably safe to assume that it is not, but for other people it might be a hobby, a job or something similar.

So in conclusion Hanif Kureishi uses humor to reach out to his readers and try to show them how easy it is to take something for granted, even the smallest and most insignificant ones. He shows his reader that what might seem insignificant to them could may just be what creates their entire identity. All this he is only able to do because of the use of multiple different points of view. By using different points of view to show all the different sides of the story, to show how you can feel lost without that one little ting, and how some people will be able to forget you also just because of the one little thing!

--------------------------------------------
[ 1 ]. Page 81, line 10-13
[ 2 ]. Page 82, line 7-10
[ 3 ]. Page 79, line 18-26
[ 4 ]. Page 80, line 13-15
[ 5 ]. Page 81, line 1