Laughter Without Joy: Between Gaza’s Reality and Beckett’s Stage

 

Laughter Without Joy:

Between Gaza’s Reality and Beckett’s Stage

By Husam Maarouf

Translated by Meriem Essaoudy

The Irish author Samuel Beckett introduced the world to a special form of absurdity and fatigue—a dark vision of existence. In Beckett’s world, the body does not move toward a goal but rather toward another phase of pain and loss. Like a tree that does not know where it grows, it loses its branches until, finally, it stands as a weak skeleton, feeling its loneliness.

In the city of Gaza and its ongoing struggle with war, destruction is neither staged nor imagined. Homes and buildings shatter under the cruelty of bombardment and the echoes of explosions. And though pain seems to have gathered in one place, some people laugh. Isn’t it strange for someone to laugh in Gaza? Here, laughter is not because destruction is amusing or enjoyable—it is a moment of nakedness before the self, a full exposure. One has no choice but to laugh.

A Slip

When the bombing struck near our house, my brother-in-law lost his balance. He tried to escape but slipped, falling like a clown in a comic scene—except he wore no costume, only sheer terror. And even though the entire situation was pure horror, he burst out laughing. He laughed at his body that had betrayed him, at the image of himself crumbling from fear. As if the fall suddenly uncovered the body’s hidden comedy in this existence.

A moment later, we were all laughing—a collective laughter, as if we had tripped during a picnic. But this laughter doesn’t belong to picnics. It is a distorted sound, like the music of a damaged cassette tape. This laughter is stripped of joy, carrying every remaining ounce of energy that might otherwise have turned to weeping.

As Beckett shows in his play Endgame, the body is nothing but a puppet. A puppet that is tired of moving, yet can do nothing but move.

In Gaza, this puppet laughs while falling apart—laughs at their inevitable and continuous collapse. Here, people rush to craft serious comedy out of elements that were never meant to be activated. It’s that moment when we repeat ourselves before mirrors, surrounded by horrific reflections, seeking a way out—but in vain.

Laughter, in this case, is an internal dialogue—a way to confirm being alive. It is a new method of self-interpretation in times of scarcity—of life itself. That laughter is absurd, chaotic, and primitive. It does not mean one has rediscovered joy or safety. It is a reaction to death, like the breathing of a person in a coma.

And, like in Beckett’s world, laughter saves no one from death, although at least gives death a slightly bitter taste. And who can soften death with just a sip of water?

The Cart of Grief

When the soul laughs in Gaza, it is not out of optimism or hope for light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, it mocks the roads themselves—since here, every road is surrounded by death. In times of war, everything human is shattered, and everything natural is crushed. But when the moment of irony comes, perhaps we face a new definition of misery and a different form of human ruin.

In a scene that seems simple but holds a strange symbolism, two women from Gaza—once elegant, in their pasts—get on a donkey cart. No fuel, no cars, no civilization. They sit on the cart as if on the stage of farce. And instead of weeping, they burst into laughter. The laughter isn’t about something funny—it is a deep expression of humility. Laughter at the loss of dignity, the collapse of former glory, the descent from luxurious neighborhoods to dusty roads. From spotless clothes to rags beyond cleaning. Laughter scattered in front of a mirror that suddenly reflects how much your features have changed—and all you can do is laugh so you don’t fall apart.

Beckett writes, somewhere: Laughter can’t save us, but it releases the soul from its misery into an unknown space.

And that’s what happens in Gaza. Laughter doesn’t free the soul from misery, but it lets it float above. The moment of laughter here is a rare encounter where the exhausted body meets the broken soul, conspiring to create a fleeting spark of life. Laughter is the only bridge between the torn-up inside and the out-of-control outside.

It is not a coincidence that Gazans’ laughter resembles that of Beckett’s characters. In Waiting for Godot, Vladimir and Estragon laugh not because something is funny, but because waiting is unbearable—and the world’s meaninglessness forces them to find an alternative tone to rage: laughter.

“Let’s laugh so we don’t cry,” Estragon says—almost as if speaking on behalf of the people of Gaza.

Here, laughter is an internal decision—to protect your soul from becoming nothing but ash. It is not denial of misery, but an expression of it through a medium that oppression cannot silence.

Photo Album

A Gazan citizen said:

“I stood before the rubble of my home, not knowing what I was looking for. I found a small hole that had been made by the shells. I stepped through it into a nearly destroyed room and found a photo album. I sat on the rubble, flipping through the pictures—my wedding photo, my firstborn, our holidays, family memories. I laughed when I saw my younger self dancing inside this house that no longer exists.”

When he woke to his surroundings, everything tore at the meaning of existence. So he dropped that smile, as if caught up in a scandal.

That laughter was neither sarcasm nor happiness. It was a desperate attempt to reclaim the self in the face of annihilation. The moment of laughter in front of the photo album was a confrontation between the past and the void—between intimacy and ruin. Here, laughter becomes a way to regain existential balance, a reminder that once, there was something worth longing for, even if it is now ashes.

Just as in Beckettian theater, people lose track of time, get lost in non-events, and turn to past memories to justify their existence. Exactly like in Happy Days, where the character Winnie sinks bit by bit into the ground but keeps talking about her memories, laughing at little things—as if pushing the past into the present to prevent total collapse.

Beckett writes: “Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back.”

Irony

By Beckett’s logic, there is no heroism, no happy endings, no salvation. But there is laughter—as if it’s the only remaining part of humanity while everything else collapses into absurdity. Just like in Gaza, where homes are bombed, trees uprooted, electricity and water cut off, and dignity erased—little remains to defend except this fragile capacity to laugh.

As if laughter itself is a kind of resistance—an objection to what is happening. A philosophy of turning laughter into a weapon, even if it fires into the void.

In an incident narrated by a Gazan, aid was parachuted onto his rooftop. People gathered and entered the building to collect food—but what happened was that they looted everything: furniture, appliances, daily memories—even the aid boxes themselves. The man said:

“I laughed, despite everything. What kind of farce is this?”

His laughter wasn’t a celebration but a ritual of permissible madness—a dark irony emerging from a reality that no longer distinguishes between survival and downfall. His laughter was like that of Zorba, who danced at his son’s grave, trying to reclaim some tool to defy Death.

It also resembles the laughter of Beckett’s characters, when they speak of their coming death with dry humor, or mock their recurring misery: “When you’re in the shit up to your neck, there’s nothing left to do but sing.”

In Gaza, singing might be impossible—but laughter is within reach, like a scream that says: “I am still aware of what’s happening. That’s why I laugh.” Laughter here is not just an expression of contradiction—it is a conscious act of rejecting total collapse.

“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it’s the most comical thing in the world.”
—Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Husam Maarouf is a poet from Gaza. He’s published two poetry collections, Death Smells Like Glass and The Barber Loyal To His Dead Clients and the novel Ram’s Chisel. Read more of his work at Passages through Genocide.

Meriem Essaoudy is an online English teacher, currently pursuing a degree in English Studies and Translation at Hassan I University, Morocco. She is also a Spring 2025 intern with ArabLit.