Social Uses
It is argued that gallows humor often occurs in societies whose inhabitants have limited means of expressing discontent, yet in which significant discontent is experienced. In these instances gallows humor can provide an outlet for airing subjects which people may feel is safer than open dialogue.
In her ethnography "Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday life in Brazil" (1993), anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes describes the use of gallows humor by the inhabitants of an impoverished shantytown in northeastern Brazil.
Read more about this topic: Gallows Humor
Famous quotes containing the word social:
“... to most mortals there is a stupidity which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable—else, indeed, what would become of social bonds?”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The infant’s first social achievement, then, is his willingness to let the mother out of sight without undue anxiety or rage, because she has become an inner certainty as well as an outer predictability.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)