In contemporary literary criticism, black humor is a term applied to a large group of American novels beginning in the 1950s. Although the writers of black humor did not intentionally form a school of literary' movement, there is in their novels a common core of satire which is directed against hypocrisy, materialism, racial prejudice,and above all, the dehumanization of the individual by a modem society. In their opinion,their society is full of institutionalized absurdity. Therefore, all of them hold a cynical attitude toward society and the conventional moral values which support that society.This despondency is reflected in their novels, not by angry protest, but by the use of exaggeration as a vehicle for satire. The satire is based on the exposition and exaggeration of the abnormal and the seamy side of both people and society to the point of ridiculousness and absurdity. It is humor out of despair and laughter out of tears.