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Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious


(1) Sigmund Freuds Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious [1905] proposes a psychological account of why we make jokes, and why they cause us pleasure. He sees them as one of the ways in which we allow repressed topics and feelings to be given indirect expression; and he sees the pleasure that we express in laughter as a form of relief at being able to overcome repression. (In other works by Freud, he discusses dreams and slips of the tongue, or so-called Freudian slips, as similar ways in which repression can be indirectly overcome.) For Freud, this explains why so many jokes have a sexual or an aggressive or indeed a sexually aggressive -- content, since these are the instincts that we are least willing to admit to directly. The following discussion focuses on Freuds idea of the purpose behind hostile jokes: Though as children we are still endowed with a powerful inherited disposition to hostility, we are later taught by a higher personal civilization that it is an unworthy thing to use abusive language; and even where fighting has in itself remained permissible, the number of things which may not be employed as methods of fighting has extraordinarily increased. Since we have been obliged to renounce the expression of hostility by deeds -- held back by the passionless third person, in whose interest it is that personal security shall be preserved -- we have just as in the case of sexual aggressiveness, developed a new technique of invective, which aims at enlisting this third person against our enemy. By making our enemy small, inferior, despicable or comic, we achieve in a roundabout way the enjoyment of overcoming him -- to which the third person, who has made no efforts, bears witness by his laughter. We are now prepared to realize the part played by jokes in hostile aggressiveness. A joke will allow us to exploit something ridiculous in our enemy which we could not, on account of obstacles in the way, bring forward openly or consciously; once again, then, the joke will evade restrictions and open sources of pleasure that have become inaccessible The prevention of invective or of insulting rejoinders by external circumstances is such a common case that tendentious jokes are especially favoured in order to make aggressiveness or criticism possible against persons in exalted positions who claim to exercise authority. The joke then represents a rebellion against that authority, a

liberation from its pressure. The charm of caricatures lies in this same factor: we laugh at them even if they are unsuccessful simply because we count rebellion against authority as a merit. At this point in the discussion, Freud recognises a problem in his theory, which is that quite often the individuals we laugh at in jokes arent important people at all. As an example, he reconsiders Jewish jokes about Schadchen or traditional marriage-brokers, who are very lowly figures in the community but who strike at something more important, as he puts it, namely the serious institution of marriage upon which their work is based, and the serious underlying questions of sexual attraction and sexual relations. An earlier example of a Schadchen joke goes as follows: The bridegroom was most disagreeably surprised when the bride was introduced to him, and drew the broker on one side and whispered his remonstrances: Why have you brought me here? he asked reproachfully. Shes ugly and old, she squints and has bad teeth and bleary eyes You neednt lower your voice, interrupted the broker, shes deaf as well. [pp.103f.] Freuds argument continues: If we bear in mind the fact that tendentious jokes are so highly suitable for attacks on the great, the dignified and the mighty, who are protected by internal inhibitions and external circumstances from direct disparagement, we shall be obliged to take a special view of certain groups of jokes which seem to be concerned with inferior and powerless people. [Does] what we have learnt of the nature of tendentious jokes on the one hand and on the other hand our great enjoyment of these stories fit in with the paltriness of the people whom these jokes seem to laugh at? Are they worthy opponents of the jokes? Is it not rather the case that the jokes only put forward marriage-brokers in order to strike at something more important? [They] are the better jokes because they are in a position to conceal not only what they have to say but also the fact that they have something forbidden to say The whole of the ridicule now falls upon the parents who think this swindle is justified in order to get their daughter a husband, upon the pitiable condition of girls who let themselves be married upon such terms, and upon the disgracefulness of marriage contracted on such a basis The popular mind knows the sacredness of marriages after they have been

contracted is grievously affected by the thought of what happened at the time when they were arranged. [Sigmund Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Penguin Freud Library, vol.6, pp.147-51] (2) A psychiatrist joke: A man goes to see a psychiatrist, saying hes worried about being obsessed with sex. The psychiatrist decides to try a Rorschach inkblot test. He shows the patient the first inkblot and the patient says it looks like a couple making love on the beach. When he shows him the second, the patient says it looks like a couple making love under the shower. With the third, he says it looks like a couple making love in the park. At the end of the test the psychiatrist looks over his notes, and says, Well yes, you do seem to have a strong preoccupation with sex. The patient replies, You can talk. Youre the one with all the dirty pictures.

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