Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious Review

Freud did not see jokes as minor nonsense and insignificance. He saw them as deeper messages delivered to us from our unconscious. He saw them as telling the secrets about ourselves to ourselves and the world that we do not necessarily want to tell. He saw them as acts of aggression and as acts of self- defense. In fact Freud is one of the few theorists of jokes and laughter that the world has had. In my opinion while Freud's understanding of jokes is not exhaustive and all- comprehensive it does illuminate much about a certain kind of humor. And it does teach us something about ourselves which we had not really noticed before Freud taught it to us. Freud himself is of course a source of endless jokes today , but it is not wrong to say that at least some of these jokes should be about his great genius and ability to see and say where others before him did not.

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious Feature

• ISBN13: 9780393001457
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Freud argues that the "joke-work" is intimately related to the "dream-work" which he had analyzed in detail in his Interpretation of Dreams, and that jokes (like all forms of humor) attest to the fundamental orderliness of the human mind. While in this book Freud tells some good stories with his customary verve and economy, its point is wholly serious.