Laughing At What We Shouldn’t: Pierre, Democracy, Incest

Abstract: This essay situates Herman Melville’s Pierre; or, the Ambiguities within a lineage of dirty jokes involving incest and its taboos. In tracking this trajectory, I articulate the persistent presence of gendered violence that appears alongside these jokes as well as how this comic archive illuminates the social and psychic structures that reinforce gender normativity. Situating Pierre alongside jokes such as “The Aristocrats,” then, I analyze bad, off-kilter, and dirty jokes to understand the limits of American democracy’s tolerance. By rereading Pierre alongside the work of theorists such as Hortense Spillers, Judith Butler, and Lee Edelman as well as folklorists such as Gershon Legman, I analyze, first, of Melville’s use of humor and, second, his depictions of gender conformity and attempts to deviate from it. By understanding Melville’s queer afterlives as documenting an archive of sexualized and gendered violence, we can see how the disciplinary constraints on our historical imaginary exist in continuity with efforts to punish any attempt to depart from, fantasize about, or even laugh at all but the most normative life.