The purpose of this paper is to compare two short stories, American writer Annie Proulx`s "People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water" and Korean writer Sung Suk-je`s "Thus Spoke Hwang Man-kuen,” in terms of their use of humor and approach to the theme of pragmatism. Both writers reveal a contradictory social order through laughter and use laughter to attack and disrupt what they perceive as a misguided history of artificial conventions. However, the characteristics of their laughter differ with each rooted deeply in the traditional culture of the respective society. Proulx uses tragic laughter to deconstruct fixed ideas, whereas Sung applies a comic approach. The differing ideas held by the two societies on the matter of pragmatism appear to control the way of life for characters in the two works. Proulx`s character Ras is taunted and ostracized by people in his town because his ideas and behavior are abstract and idealistic rather than practical, whereas Sung`s character Hwang Man-kuen is mocked and ignored because his talents are merely practical, without possessing the “gentility” of Confucian ideas. (Hannam University)