SOURCE: "'Man Thinks; God Laughs': Kundera's 'Nobody Will Laugh,'" in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 29. No. 1, Winter, 1992, pp. 1-10.

Below, Gaughan discusses the purpose of laughter and comedy in "Nobody Will Laugh," especially as they relate to the individual and society.

Comedy and laughter are often important thematic concerns, as well as prominent qualities, of Milan Kundera's novels and stories. At first glance, this seems to be because comedy and laughter are good ways of resisting oppressive codes of conduct and ways of thinking, especially those enforced and imposed by public authorities. But, while comedy and laughter are undoubtedly ways of negating or ameliorating the effects of various kinds of belief, they also do something more. They bring to the surface and make explicit the often hidden and always painful struggle between the equally necessary but mutually exclusive demands of freedom and belief—a struggle that Kundera...