Social behavior through humor in seven works by Alfredo Bryce Echenique.

Abstract

Argos. Revista de Estudios literarios, Lingüística y Creación Literaria. 2026 e0175

 

His article examines the role of humor as a mechanism for representing and critiquing social behavior in seven narrative works by Alfredo Bryce Echenique, a writer associated with the third generation of the Latin American Boom. The central argument proposes that humor in Bryce Echenique’s fiction transcends a purely aesthetic function and operates instead as a social construct that exposes characters’ rigidity, isolation, and maladjustment to collective norms. The main objective of the study is to identify and systematize the various forms of humor present in these works and to explain their relationship to character construction and to the author’s pessimistic view of Latin American reality. Methodologically, the research is based on a comparative textual analysis grounded in Henri Bergson’s theoretical framework, particularly his classification of the comic as developed in Laughter, complemented by insights from psychocriticism and Freudian psychoanalysis. Through this approach, five types of comic expression—forms, movements, situations, language, and character—are analyzed using specific narrative examples. The study concludes that humor in Bryce Echenique functions primarily as a form of self-censorship and emotional evasion rather than as direct social satire. By laughing at their own failures and frustrations, characters mitigate emotional pain and invite reader empathy. Consequently, humor emerges as a fundamental narrative strategy for understanding the ethical, psychological, and social dimensions of Bryce Echenique’s literary universe.