Arto Paasilinna is the most widely translated Finnish author, famous for his humorous novels. The thesis explores the author's presenting concrete social problems in his works with the help of humour. It deals in detail with the theoretical characteristics of humour in general. Within this discussion it throws light on the concepts of irony, sarcasm, satire and black humour. It tries to find out how useful humour as a means of social critique can be. Further on it focuses on the humour, used by Paasilinna in his novels The Year of the Hare and A Charming Mass Suicide. It explores three topics in detail, dealt with in both novels – Finland and its political system, suicide and alcoholism. Each of the individual topics presents information on the realistic situation in Finland. The discussion also includes examples from the novels. All three topics can be connected with the social state in Slovenia, which makes both works even more interesting and educative.
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