The Joke and Its Relation To the Unconscious (Penguin Modern Classics)

Why do we laugh? The answer, argued Freud in this groundbreaking study of humor, is that jokes, like dreams, satisfy our unconscious desires. The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious explains how jokes provide immense pleasure by releasing us from our inhibitions and allowing us to express sexual, aggressive, playful, or cynical instincts that would otherwise remain hidden. In elaborating this theory, Freud brings together a rich collection of puns, witticisms, one-liners, and anecdotes, which, many of which throw a vivid light on the society of early twentieth-century Vienna. Jokes, as Freud shows, are a method of giving ourselves away. "Building on the crucial insight that jokes use many of the same mechanisms he had already discovered in dreams, Freud developed one of the richest and most comprehensive theories of humour that has ever been produced. Jokes, he argues, provide immense pleasure by allowing us to express many of our deepest sexual, aggressive and cynical thoughts and feelings which would otherwise remain repressed. In elaborating this central thesis, he brings together a dazzling set of puns, anecdotes, snappyone-liners, spoonerisms and beloved stories of Jewish beggars and marriage-brokers. Many remain highly amusing, while others throw a vivid light on the lost world of early twentieth-century Vienna."--Provided by publisher Contents Introduction (John Carey) Translator's Preface (Joyce Crick) The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious A Analytic Part I Introduction II The Technique of the Joke III The Tendencies of the Joke B Synthetic Part IV The Mechanism of Pleasure and the Psychological Origins of the Joke v The Motives for Jokes - The Joke as Social Process C Theoretical Part VI The Relation of the Joke to Dreams and to the Unconscious VII The Joke and the Varieties of the Comic Jokes offer immense pleasure by allowing us to express many of our deepest sexual, aggressive and cynical thoughts and feelings which would otherwise remain repressed. This book brings together a set of puns, anecdotes, snappy one-liners, spoonerisms and beloved stories of Jewish beggars and marriage-brokers. Observations of the Viennese psychoanalyst on curious plays on words that occur in dreams, and the unconscious sources of pleasure in jokes, wit, and humor.