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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.