ABSTRACT
Lenny Bruce was born Leonard Albert Schneider, the son of immigrant Jewish parents, Mickey and Saddie Schneider, who were divorced when Bruce was eight years old. For most of his childhood Bruce lived with his mother, but his father visited him often, bringing him gifts and acting as disciplinarian. In later life Bruce remained close to his mother but was estranged from his father, toward whom he felt considerable bitterness. Bruce was very attentive to words: their sonorous qualities, their connotations and denotations, their uses and abuses. Many of Bruce's comic routines center on his examination of linguistic qualities. For instance, in his most famous routine, "Religions Incorporated", Bruce applies the language of Madison Avenue advertising and sales to religious evangelism and self-promotion. In other situations Bruce exploited words for their shock value, ultimately revealing how we inappropriately deem words offensive or obscene while we accept the behavior they describe.
