Good Omens

by

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Good Omens makes teaching easy.

Humor and Absurdity Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Good and Evil Theme Icon
Human Nature Theme Icon
Destiny vs. Free Will Theme Icon
Humor and Absurdity Theme Icon
Friendship  Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Good Omens, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Humor and Absurdity Theme Icon

Despite the fact that Good Omens is about the possible end of the world, it’s nevertheless a humorous book. This is by design—in the book’s supplemental materials, Neil Gaiman says that while he and coauthor Terry Pratchett were writing Good Omens, “The main objective was to make the other one laugh.” By writing such a funny story about death and the end of the world, Gaiman and Pratchett show that it’s possible to find humor in every situation, especially when it comes to the absurdity of the modern world. And for that matter, life is richer and more enjoyable when one takes this outlook.

One of the most important purposes of humor in the book is to make seemingly evil or unlikeable characters more sympathetic to readers—and in doing so, show that there’s humor to be found in everything, even in beings who are supposedly evil. Crowley is one of the clearest examples of this. Though he’s a demon—and therefore, supposedly evil—he’s sympathetic and likeable, in part because most everything he thinks and does is funny. He’s caught up in embracing the mortal world and a pleasure-driven lifestyle, which at once subverts traditional portrayals of demons in art and literature and humorously critiques modern culture and materialism. For instance, Crowley purchases expensive items, seeks out the best restaurants and bars, and owns a vintage Bentley. Indeed, even other demons who are far eviler than Crowley seem to lose their fearsome edge because of how funny they are. The Dukes of Hell Ligur and Hastur, for instance, have a more rudimentary understanding of the modern world—so Ligur’s private jokes about the modern world would clearly fall flat with other characters if he were to voice them. As such, this turns them into jokes for the reader at Ligur’s expense. A demon from Hell seems far less frightening when he has such a poor understanding of how cellphones work—and it’s these little things that the novel encourages readers to see as funny.

In addition to the idea that any person (or mythical being) can be humorous, the novel also proposes that the modern world that the reader is familiar with (that is, England of the 1980s and 90s) is inherently funny and absurd. Throughout the novel, there are running gags about ansaphones (early answering machines) and telemarketers. While answering machines and telemarketers may seem like unavoidable facts of modern life, the novel encourages readers to recognize the absurdity of these things. Why, the novel asks, would a person dedicate their life to making cold calls that are almost guaranteed to annoy people, trying to sell goods or services that nobody wants? Similarly, Good Omens repeatedly touches on the idea that modern transportation is wildly ineffective. The novel encourages readers to consider whether roads and cars are really so great, given that traffic jams are a constant fact of life—and given that police (who are portrayed as stuffy and pretentious) lie in wait to dole out fines and citations to drivers. The modern world, the novel suggests, may seem normal to people who are used to living in it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fundamentally absurd. Things don’t work the way they perhaps should—and this is all the more reason to look for the humor in every situation rather than taking things too seriously.

Indeed, in a broader sense, one of Good Omens’s major takeaways is that looking for humor is essential—and fun. Even though Good Omens offers a lot to think about in terms of good and evil, destiny, and even Christian theology, it exists first and foremost as a book intended to make people laugh—this can be a reader’s sole reason for picking it up. Given the book’s humorous tone, and Gaiman’s own admission that his and Pratchett’s goal was to make each other laugh while writing it, Good Omens seems to imply that the value of a story or situation doesn’t always lie in its deeper meaning. It’s equally important for people to enjoy life and the things that make it fun and exciting, including reading. Indeed, this is what makes the less savory parts of life—like traffic or telemarketers—worth putting up with in the first place.

Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…

Humor and Absurdity ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Humor and Absurdity appears in each chapter of Good Omens. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
chapter length:
Get the entire Good Omens LitChart as a printable PDF.
Good Omens PDF

Humor and Absurdity Quotes in Good Omens

Below you will find the important quotes in Good Omens related to the theme of Humor and Absurdity.
Eleven Years Ago Quotes

“I tied up every portable telephone system in Central London for forty-five minutes at lunchtime,” he said.

There was silence, except for the distant swishing of cars.

[...]

What could he tell them? That twenty thousand people got bloody furious? That you could hear the arteries clanging shut all across the city? And that then they went back and took it out on their secretaries or traffic wardens or whatever, and they took it out on other people? In all kinds of vindictive little ways which, and here was the good bit, they thought up themselves.

Related Characters: Crowley/Crawly (speaker), Hastur, Ligur
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:

As they drove past an astonished traffic warden his notebook spontaneously combusted, to Crowley’s amazement.

“I’m pretty certain I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.

Aziraphale blushed.

“That was me,” he said. “I had always thought that your people invented them.”

“Did you? We thought they were yours.”

Related Characters: Aziraphale (speaker), Crowley/Crawly (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Bentley
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Wednesday Quotes

“I’ll call him Dog,” said his master, positively. “It saves a lot of trouble, a name like that.”

The hell-hound paused. Deep in its diabolical canine brain it knew that something was wrong, but it was nothing if not obedient and its great sudden love of its master overcame all misgivings. Who was to say what size it should be, anyway?

It trotted down the slope to meet its destiny.

Strange, though. It had always wanted to jump up at people but, now, it realized that against all expectation it wanted to wag its tail at the same time.

Related Characters: Adam Young/The Antichrist (speaker), Agnes Nutter, Wensleydale, Pepper, Brian
Related Symbols: Dog (The Hell-Hound)
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Friday Quotes

“I thought the churches...” Newt began.

“Pah!” said Shadwell. [...] “Churches? What good did they ever do? They’m just as bad. Same line o’ business, nearly. You can’t trust them to stamp out the Evil One, ‘cos if they did, they’d be out o’ that line o’ business. If yer goin’ up against a tiger, ye don’t want fellow travelers whose idea of huntin’ is tae throw meat at it. Nay, lad. It’s up to us. Against the darkness.”

Related Characters: Newton “Newt” Pulsifer (speaker), Mr. Shadwell (speaker)
Page Number: 165
Explanation and Analysis:
Saturday Quotes

“Tye yt well,” she said to the astonished witchfinder. And then, as the villagers sidled toward the pyre, she raised her handsome head in the firelight and said, “Gather ye ryte close, goode people. Come close untyl the fire near scorch ye, for I charge ye that alle must see how thee last true wytch in England dies. For wytch I am, for soe I am judgéd, yette I knoe not what my true Cryme may be. And therefore let myne death be a messuage to the worlde. Gather ye ryte close, I saye, and marke well the fate of alle who meddle with such as theye do notte understande.”

And, apparently, she smiled and looked up at the sky over the village and added, “That goes for you as welle, yowe daft old foole.”

Related Characters: Agnes Nutter (speaker), Newton “Newt” Pulsifer, Mr. Shadwell, God
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:

“You don’t have to be so lit’ral about everything,” he said. “That’s the trouble these days. Grass materialism. ‘S people like you who go round choppin’ down rain forests and makin’ holes in the ozone layer. There’s a great big hole in the ozone layer ‘cos of grass materialism people like you.”

Related Characters: Adam Young/The Antichrist (speaker), Wensleydale, Pepper, Brian
Related Symbols: Dog (The Hell-Hound)
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

Dog slunk along with his tail between his legs, whining.

This wasn’t right, he was thinking. Just when I was getting the hang of rats. Just when I’d nearly sorted out that bloody German Shepherd across the road. Now He’s going to end it all and I’ll back with the ole glowin’ eyes and chasin’ lost souls. What’s the sense in that? They don’t fight back, and there’s no taste to ‘em...

Related Characters: Adam Young/The Antichrist (speaker), Wensleydale, Pepper, Brian
Related Symbols: Dog (The Hell-Hound)
Page Number: 211
Explanation and Analysis:

And then it was Pigbog’s turn.

“I, uh...I think I’ll be them answer phones. They’re pretty bad,” he said.

“You can’t be ansaphones. What kind of a Biker of the Repocalypse is ansaphones? That’s stupid, that is.”

“S’not!” said Pigbog, nettled. “It’s like War, and Famine, and that. It’s a problem of life, isn’t it? Answer phones. I hate bloody answer phones.”

“I hate ansaphones, too,” said Cruelty to Animals.

Related Characters: Pigbog (speaker), Death, War/Red/Scarlett, Famine/Black/Sable, Pollution/White , Greaser, Big Ted, Skuzz
Page Number: 261
Explanation and Analysis:

But, to look on the bright side, all this only went to prove that evil contains the seeds of its own destruction. Right now, across the country, people who would otherwise have been made just that little bit more tense and angry by being summoned from a nice bath, or having their names mispronounced at them, were instead feeling quite untroubled and at peace with the world. As a result of Hastur’s action a wave of low-grade goodness started to spread exponentially through the population, and millions of people who ultimately would have suffered minor bruises of the soul did not in fact do so. So that was all right.

Related Characters: Crowley/Crawly, Hastur
Page Number: 283
Explanation and Analysis:
Sunday Quotes

He couldn’t see why people made such a fuss about people eating their silly old fruit anyway, but life would be a lot less fun if they didn’t. And there never was an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.

Related Characters: Adam Young/The Antichrist
Related Symbols: Dog (The Hell-Hound)
Page Number: 369
Explanation and Analysis: