The cultural and language barriers between the two parties result in an entirely different telling of this most famous of English plays, with her audience left puzzling over Westerners' inability to understand their own literature.
Thus, the essay is often used by students of anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory as a means of understanding how perspective affects perception and expectation.
Return to Laughter, which she wrote under the name Elenore Smith Bowen, remains a well-reviewed work,[2] and it is based on Bohannan's fieldwork in Nigeria.
Bohannan used a pseudonym for this book, presumably because she felt its popular tone and autobiographical format were inappropriate for her professional reputation.
Bohannan was also part of a small school of women whose studies in anthropology were initially rejected because of their holistic (and sometimes personal) approach and style.