You're Ugly, Too

Number three in the questions after the story "You're Ugly, Too" by Lorrie Moore kind of stuck out to me. The question is "This story makes extensive use of jokes. Discuss  the importance of jokes to the characterization of Zoe and to the jokes as  a whole." Throughout the course of the story, Zoe makes a variety of jokes, including some that are funny and some that are not. For example, when she is talking to her little sister about her wedding, she says "I'm not married? Oh, my God. I forgot to get married" (Moore, 355). At this moment, I think she makes a joke because she does now how to cope with her younger sister getting married before in any other way. I think that she makes so many jokes because that is the only way that she knows how to communicate with others. I also think that she does not know the difference between  jokes and sarcasm. A lot of her "jokes" are just sarcastic comments that she makes that I think she legitimately thinks are funny jokes. I think this impacts the meaning of the story as a whole in the fact that Zoe is seen different by society, than she sees herself. She may think that she is funny, but other people do not perceive her as a funny person. She thinks of herself differently than others perceive her.