".
"No ones trying to kill you.".
"Then why are they shooting at me?".
"They"re shooting at everyone.".
"And what difference does that make?".
.
The humour in Captain Corelli's Mandolin is intertwined gently into the novel from the start as light-hearted comedy. The initial chapter has Doctor Iannis curing Stammatis's from deafness only to discover that a pea is lodged in his ear. This prompts the doctor to describe to his patient the cause using professional terms to maintain the respect of Iannis's line of work; it is comically pedantic, deliberately obscuring the simple terms: .
""You have an exorbitant auditory impediment", replied the doctor, ever conscious of the necessity for maintaining a certain iatric mystique, and fully aware that " a pea in the ear" was unlikely to earn him any kudos.".
The comical temperament of this chapter is not only the embarrassment for the doctor of finding that the cause was a small vegetable, but his method of removing the impediment with a hammer and fish hook seems absurd and in turn contradicts his earlier actions of maintaining respect for his profession. The following chapter(2) uses single narrative in the monologue of Mussolini. The tone is recognisably different, with satirical humour present in the first line: "Which is my best profile, right or left? Really, do you think so?" The humourous image of a self absorbed dictator is purposely created, and his feline encounter later in the chapter ends up as a bloody mess and an early siesta. Satire is present in the chapter involving Corelli and the mine on the beach(43), with the smug engineer being decapitated shortly after declaring that Corelli was going to be killed. This chapter demonstrates how humour is changed to suit the tone of the situation, from light(the argument with the engineer), to dark(the engineer's ironic death), and returning to light humour again(Corelli being dug out of the trench).