Understanding the "Tickle my Funny Bone" Humor in Hooper's Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs

in According to Robert Hopkins in his essay, Simon Suggs: A Burlesque Campaign Biography, Hooper's work is a burlesque of campaign biographics. The biography of Simon Suggs is a great work of satire and becomes itself a functional part of the humor. Yet those who want to look at it as a direct reference to Jackson, will find that sections 7-9 become functional only when it is recognized as a direct burlesque of political biographies of Andrew Jackson. However that may be, politics is always accompanied by humor, or more specifically Southern humor, in Simon Suggs. Southern humor developed, according to Walter Blair in his essay, "Traditions in Southern Humor," in accordance with nineteenth century British theories about humor which placed wit and satire upon a lower level than characterization and geniality. Southern humor is almost used as a stage upon which Hooper presents his own understanding of the politics of nineteenth century, and this, however, was solely for the purposes of entertaintment.