The story “Dangerous Laughter” starts by following the point of view of one teenager in a town describing the activities that the rest of the youth in the town partake in. In a sense, the story was about the teenagers as a whole and the extent at which they would go to amuse themselves or “feel something.” In my interpretation, I thought of the “laughter, crying, board games,” as a meaning of alcohol or drug substances. During the story, the narrator focuses on one teenager in particular that was a victim to “laughter,” Clara Schuler.
Clara Schuler was described to be the quiet, unnoticed girl in the narrator’s town. When her best friend, Helen Jacoby, brought her along to one of the “underground” laughing parlors, it was then that her reputation grew.
These feats of laughter were immediately recognized as bold and striking, far superior to the performances we had become accustomed to; and Clara Schuler was invited to all the laugh parties, applauded, and talked about admiringly, for she had a gift of reckless laughter we had not seen before. (82)
As Clara’s reputation grew, she was thrusted in the spotlight, and enjoyed every minute of it. In doing so, when the fad to laugh transferred to crying, she was invisible again. In a desperate attempt to regain her title, or crown rather, she made herself seem foolish. Therefore, regrettably she was forgotten again. Her desire to remain the life of the party turned fatal, as she laughed herself to death. During her reign as the supreme laugher, the narrator soon realized that she began to physically transform. The new, exciting phenomenon started to take a toll on her appearance (much like junkies).
I notice that her strenuous new life was beginning to affect her appearance. Now when she came to us her hair fell across her cheeks in long strands, which she would impatiently flick away with the backs of her fingers. She looked thinner, though it was hard to tell; she looked tired; she looked as if she might be coming down with something. Her eyes, no longer hidden under lowered lids, gazed at us restlessly and a little vaguely. Sometimes she gave the impression that she was searching for something she could no longer remember. She looked expectant; a little sad; a little bored. (84)
After laughter, crying became the new fad. However, Clara was not willing to let go of her title. She invited the narrator and others to her house, laughing party, but the guests remained bored and uninterested. It was the narrator that stayed, deeply disturbed by Clara’s efforts to fit in. The incoming notion to this shift and unwillingness to make the change suggests obsession, or addiction, to a detrimental state.
It was at this period, when Clara Schuler became queen of the laugh parlors, that I first began to worry about her. (86)
The narrator begins to see the addiction that surrounds Clara.
No one is allowed to laugh like that, I wanted to say. Stop it right now. She had passed so far beyond herself that there was almost nothing left – nothing but the creature emptying herself of laughter. It was ugly – indecent – it made you want to look away. At the same time she bound me there, for it was as if she were inviting me to follow her to the farthest and most questionable regions of laughter, where laughter no longer bore any relation to earthly things and, sufficient to itself, soared above the world to flourish in the void. There, you were no longer yourself – you were no longer anything. (91)
In addition, the teenagers treated laughing as a secretive, underground activity; like Fight Club. They soon began to sneak out in the middle of the night to join laughing parlors, which were held in a teenager’s house whose mother was barely around.
At first they were organized by slightly older girls, who invited “members” to their houses after dark. In accordance with rules and practices that varied from club to club, the girls were said to produce sustained fits of laughter far more thrilling than anything we had yet discovered. (77)
The narrator then continues, detailing her desire to laugh. In her description, it seems as though she longs for a “fix” or that she is fiend for laughing.
At night, in my hot room, I lay restless and dissatisfied, longing for the release of feverish laughter that alone could soothe me – and through the screen I seemed to hear, along with the crickets, the rattling window-fan next door, and the hum of far-off trucks on the thruway, the sound of laughter bursting faintly in the night, all over our town, like the buzz of a fluorescent lamp in a distant bedroom. (79)
Even as I made my way home, under the maples and lindens of a warm July night, I regretted my cowardice and longed for deeper and more terrible laughter. Then I wondered how I could push my way through the hours that separated me from my next descent into the darkness of my body, where laughter lay like lava, waiting for a fissure to form that would release like liquid fire. (79)
In conclusion, it seems as though the “quiet” girl in the story found her spotlight, unfortunately when her fifteen minutes of fame were over, her desire to be life of the party turned fatal. Her overwhelming desire to belong turned to addiction, leaving her an addict, followed by an early death.