At times The Accidental Tourist presents itself as a gentle comedy. This is demonstrated by the humor of the characters: the ineffectual Macon and the cheeky Muriel, Edward the neurotic dog, the eccentric Leary and Julian the playboy who woos Rose the old-fashioned romantic. There is the entertaining value of situations like Macon's method of washing clothes, the impenetrable "vaccination" and the disastrous thanks given to the turkey. Anne Tyler sees the joke in human behavior and presents it in a way that allows the audience to engage and laugh at the characters. But there is much more to the novel than just jokes. Beneath the surface, it is an often sad book. Most of the characters seem lost, searching for something that eludes them, be it memories of happiness or the desire to belong. In Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler describes the opinions each character has on the world. At the center of attention throughout the novel is Macon's vision, based on the need for control, on the fear of change, on the distrust of others. According to him the world is worse than alien, it is dangerous. Her destabilizing childhood experiences, her calling, the trauma of Ethan's death conspire to justify her struggle from the world. As Sarah so poignantly said, when she confesses that she believes that “people are fundamentally evil,” what makes it intolerable is that she always believed that anyway. Sarah, once an optimist turned cynical due to the brutal murder of her only son, has crossed the line. they form the company of those who love life with those who fear it. Perhaps his vision, so sadly tainted by experience, touches us even more than Macon's. Unlike him, she is a character who never makes you laugh. There are no humorous obsessions, no irritating habits that take us away from his sad and all-too-relatable loss of faith. We are directed to Muriel's worldview by the logic of the story. Macon and Sarah's opinions can't help them. Macon falls into something akin to a nervous breakdown before being saved by Muriel. Sarah seems to have managed to escape, but at the end of the novel she is a pale shadow of a woman, fearful, clinging to the memory of her husband, an empty person. While Macon regains his senses listening to Sarah's perfect grammar, after listening to Muriel's broken English. The Learys are no better, behind all the crazy habits, alphabetized boxes and indecipherable holiday game lies Tyler's astute argument that these people have some of what we've been missing.