"Putting Back The Voices That Were Left Out" : the Functions of Humour in Andrea Levy's The Long Song

This thesis will focus itself on the functions Of Andrea Levy's humour in her latest novel "The Long Song" (2010). The story, told by a fictional character named July, recounts her life on the Jamaican plantation of Amity, just before and after the abolition of slavery. Because not many books about slavery, or movies for all that, are able to make us laugh as Levy's "The Long Song" does, I indeed chose to further analyse the aspect of humour in the book. My aim will be to show that humour fulfills four specific functions: 1) It gives slaves back their humanity, by starting to depict them as fellow human beings instead of just a bunch of victims 2) It actually creates a sense of awe for all the slaves who, despite living under terrible conditions, still managed to keep their heads up and fight as much as they could. 3) It also makes people realize that slavery was a society in the true sense, not some sort of morality play, with white people as villains on one side, and black people as victims on the other side. It is belief systems such as racism and prejudice that allowed slavery to happen, and it is, to Levy, important to remember in order to move away from white guilt. 4) It makes us wonder about our attitude towards memory and makes us think about the reasons why we choose to forget or remember a part of our past. Eventually, these four effects of humour on the readers are intended to make them reconsider their memory of slavery and make them realize that it still has its implications on the present. Racism is still ever present in Britain. Many black British citizens such as Levy had indeed suffered discrimination and rejection from their fellow lighter-skinned citizens. To Levy, telling the story of British slavery in Jamaica then will allow a more inclusive sense of national identity and will, hopefully, make readers realize that Britishness does not necessarily mean whiteness.