"The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure" – Sigmund Freud

Gallows humor could be incomprehensible to most people and I’m not being a snooty one at that if I say so. And gallows humor is not about being indifferent to extreme situations while one is being led to the gallows or the firing squad. The last words of Oscar Wilde were, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death; one or the other of us has got to go.” Now most people would hint at the eccentricity of the sentence itself or at the lack of comprehension. However to someone else, it would mean that it defined Wilde’s equanimity or acceptance to his fate. The Ballad of Reading Gaol revealed the sensitive side of Wilde and his matter-of-fact yet not nonchalant attitude and understanding of human behavior.

However when one discusses gallows humor, the first literary name that comes to mind is Kurt Vonnegut. He was known for his raw humor and he saw pain, carnage, and the destruction of Dresden. His life as a soldier and a Prisoner of War (Pow) influenced his writings. He was captured at the Battle of the Bulge and taken as a PoW. Thus emerged his timeless work, Slaughterhouse Five and he described how Dresden was bombed and the PoWs were made to bury corpses while the German locals pelted stones at them. The protagonist of this novel, Billy Pilgrim is fatalistic and detached and we are introduced to a world of gallows humor and a vision of Dresden fallen to rubbles. His says, “That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.” He is the mouthpiece of Vonnegut’s thoughts and humor.

War struck Vonnegut and his narration in the Slaughterhouse Five shows how he became disoriented with the environment. The pain and suffering had hit him hard and although they did not numb his senses, they left him disoriented for good. He travels back and forth in time and his entire attitude is fatalistic. This novel is also titled as ‘Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too Much], Who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors de Combat, as a Prisoner of War, Witnessed the Fire Bombing of Dresden, Germany, ‘The Florence of the Elbe,’ a Long Time Ago, and Survived to Tell the Tale. This Is a Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of the Planet Tralfamadore, Where the Flying Saucers Come From. Peace’.