Joy: You Love Babies, but They're Still Annoying

What are your definitions of the emotions of ‘joy’ and ‘pleasure’? Too many, they are one and the same, with joy perhaps being a more intense version of the latter. Zadie Smith would disagree. In her piece “Joy”, Zadie Smith dives into the differences between the feelings joy and pleasure. Using contrast and anecdotes, Zadie Smith communicates that joy is not intense pleasure, in fact, it is something else entirely.

Zadie Smith seeks to communicate that joy is not the same thing as pleasure by contrasting the definitions of the two ideas. Zadie Smith defines pleasure as “the small things that go a long way” (p. 1). These are the everyday details that bring us happiness. She explains that “pleasure brings no harm to anyone…and can always be replaced” (p. 7). However, she says that “Joy…gives not much pleasure at all” (p. 3). Her explanation for this is that joy is in fact, not extreme happiness, “but rather that strange mixture of terror, pain, and delight” (p. 3). The precursor to joy is always a “great struggle” (p. 6). This differentiates it from pleasure in that pleasure often comes with no struggle at all. In this way Smith makes clear that the idea of joy as a form of intense pleasure is incorrect.

Zadie Smith uses an anecdote for pleasure to show us that joy is not intense pleasure. In “Joy”, Zadie Smith describes the pleasure in eating a “pineapple popsicle” (p. 3). Through this, she explains that pleasure is in the little happiness’s of life. We can find pleasure very easily. Joy, on the other hand, is a huge feeling quite unlike pleasure. Through her anecdote about a pineapple popsicle, Zadie Smith shows that we can feel pleasure from small things. This knowledge helps us contrast the ideas of joy and pleasure and realize that they are very different.

Zadie Smith uses an anecdote to communicate that joy is not intense pleasure. Zadie Smith communicates this through her line, "Occasionally the child, too, is a pleasure, though mostly she is a joy, which means in fact she gives us not much pleasure at all, but rather that strange admixture of terror, pain, and delight that I have come to recognize as joy, and now must find some way to live with daily” (p. 6). Through this line, Zadie Smith shows that having children is not a pleasure, even though it can make you happy.A child brings you a huge feeling of joy, but it doesn’t usually bringyou the feeling of pleasure. The ‘joy’ ofa childwill bring you hurt, because pleasurehas “no place next to the furious argument about who cleaned the house or picked up the child” (p. 6).Thus, Zadie Smith communicates that joy is not an intense form of pleasure.

In conclusion, Zadie Smith wants to tell us that joy is found in the big things, and pleasure is found in small things. She defines the two ideas to allow us to understand the vast differences between the two. Besides that, she uses anecdotes to differentiate the ideas and bring us understanding. The idea that joy and pleasure are different ideas is an interesting idea. However, it is not incredibly important in a postmodern person’s life. Though Zadie Smith’s reasoning is sound, the differentiating of joy and pleasure brings nothing into a person’s life other than knowledge.

-B. Lit. Group Six

#Postmodern