This thesis examines how Trevor Noah uses humor as a narrative strategy in Born a Crime:
Stories from a South African Childhood, with a particular focus on trauma, racial identity, and
systems of power. The study uses close reading of selected passages and draws on trauma
theory, postcolonial theory, and humor studies, especially the work of Cathy Caruth, Homi K.
Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Salvatore Attardo, and Rod A. Martin. The analysis focuses on how
incongruity is constructed through wording, tone, narrative order, irony, and unexpected
responses. It argues that humor gives Noah a degree of narrative control over how difficult
experiences are presented, while also allowing him to challenge racial classification and
expose the contradictions of apartheid. The analysis further shows how language and
code-switching influence how Noah is socially interpreted and how humor can create
temporary forms of agency. At the same time, the memoir demonstrates the limits of comic
framing. In scenes involving domestic violence and Patricia’s shooting, humor becomes
unstable or disappears before later returning through Patricia’s own response. The thesis
therefore concludes that humor and pain coexist in the memoir without cancelling one
another, and that humor functions as a flexible but limited form of narrative and social agency.
2026. , p. 26