The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia Encyclopedia World Factbook Columbia Gazetteer American Heritage Coll. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony.
Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic farce.
The novels of such writers as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth contain elements of black humor. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore .