Incongruity and Comicality in Woody Allen's prose

essays has peculiar characteristics that could be pointed out here.
In “On Seeing a Tree in Summer”, Allen starts making a praise to the aspect
of a tree in summer, which he considers one of the most remarkable wonders of
nature – “with the possible exception of a moose singing ‘Embraceable You’ in
spats.” (ALLEN, 1991, p. 61) What follows is a sequence of incongruent associations
and digressions which rise from that initial topic; furthermore, as if in a sort of a
stream of consciousness, the essayist presents a series of thoughts which have
little or nothing to do with trees in summer, in such a manner that, at the end of
the essay, Allen is disserting about a lumberjack, a dwarf and Roman numerals:
Once a lumberjack was about to chop down a tree, when he noticed a heart
carved on it, with two names inside. Putting away his axe, he sawed down
the tree instead. The point of that story escapes me, although six months
later the lumberjack was fined for teaching a dwarf Roman numerals.
(ALLEN, 1991, p. 62)
Thoroughly contradicting the reader’s expectations concerning the
conventional purposes of an essay – and particularly those characteristic of
a ‘humanistic essay’, which frequently renders a moral example or an admonition
towards the reader, as attested in Bacon’s or in Montaigne’s compositions on the
genre –, Allen’s essay “On Seeing a Tree in Summer” completely neglects the need
of any ‘moral of the story’ and it lacks a systematic discussion about a specific
subject. In fact, as a parody, Allen’s first essay has no focus at all – a peculiarity
that in normal circumstances would put into question its very classification as an
essay, traditionally understood as a “prose composition with a focused subject of
discussion.” (Gale’s Glossary of Terms)
“On Youth and Age”, by its turn, is by no means alike Bacon’s “Of Youth
and Age”, as it could be imagined at a first moment. While in the latter the author
expounds the most prominent characteristics of the young and of the aged men,
at the same time that he provides historical examples of notable figures and
consequently elaborates an admonition towards virtue, Allen, on the contrary,
mocks the traditional topics or clichés commonly alluded in a reflection about
maturity, age and life. Moreover, in “On Youth and Age”, it is noteworthy that Allen
first introduces a stereotyped formula, such as “the true test of maturity is not how
old a person is but…”, “each time of life has its appropriate rewards, whereas…”
or “the best thing to do is behave in a manner befitting one’s age”, and then
he completely deviates from its original connotation and installs an unexpected
conclusion, as if he were inverting the primary functions related to the employment