Laughter and suffering in Violeta Parra's décimas

Abstract

In this essay I take a look at suffering and laughter in Violeta Parra 's Décimas. Both emotions go hand-in-hand in popular Chilean humour. I maintain that Chileans express suffering by and large through laughter. I compare Parra's popular humour with carnivalesque laughter as conceived in Mikhail Bakhtin's book on Rabelais and attempt to establish similarities and differences between them.