Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
Although the general theme of Sigmund Freud's Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (first published in 1905) is the characteristics and composition of jokes, and their relationship with the unconscious mind, the content of Chapter VI is rather narrower and more specific. Entitled The Relation of Jokes to Dreams and to The Unconscious, Chapter VI deals almost exclusively with Freud's theoretical arguments.
A large section, at the beginning of the chapter, digresses from book's overall theme as Freud provides a summary of the ideas and theories proposed in his previous work, Interpretation of Dreams (1900). This is relevant because of the similarities that are subsequently drawn between jokes (through the joke-work) and dreams (through the dream-work). Freud details the processes that he considers to be involved with both jokes and dreams, namely displacement, condensation (with or without the formation of substitutes), representation by nonsense and by opposite, and indirect representation. He describes these processes and explains their relevance in joke-work and dream-work, and draws several comparisons. However, in addition to these comparisons, the chapter also highlights several important differences, both in the formation and function of jokes and dreams. The most important of these, according to Freud, is their social behavior. Whereas dreams are termed as asocial, due to their unintelligibility...
Additionally, he draws the distinction that dreams and jokes have grown in different regions of mental life. A dream remains a 'wish-fulfillment', permitted to occur for the sake of the need to sleep, while a joke is a 'developed play' that aims to produce pleasure. Freud summarizes their differences as, "Dreams serve predominantly for the avoidance of unpleasure, jokes for the attainment of pleasure" (180)
Arguably, the central issue within Chapter VI of Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious is the "common element in jokes and dreams." Displacement, condensation, and indirect representation, according to the author, are processes that occur in the formation of both jokes and dreams. This comparison is based upon Freud's assertion that the hidden psychological processes that occur, "during the formation of a joke in the first person" (165) are almost identical to the characteristics of the dream-work. By this he means that during joke formation, as in the dream-work, a preconscious thought - of which the individual is unaware - momentarily sinks into the unconscious, before reappearing and being instantly perceived by the conscious. He further supports this theory with his explanation of the process of condensation, and the resultant 'brevity' of…
Works Cited
Billig, Michael. "Freud and the Language of Humour." The Psychologist. 15.9 2002:
Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. Toronto: Hogarth Press
Limited, 1969.
"I'm sure you're alarmed at the big news out of Washington...Hilary Clinton has stopped using her maiden name...What Hillary is she?" Colbert pretends to be outraged, and the presumed liberal listening audiences laughs as the commentator notes not only are: "the other 17 candidates" not "dropping their maiden names" but they are not getting adequate media attention for bad hair days, as has Clinton. Even liberal members of the
" And as to Foxworthy and Engvall using material that certainly would be considered in bad taste in some social environments, Kant writes, "...The judgement of taste is not a cognitive judgement...and hence, also, is not grounded on concepts, nor yet intentionally directed to them." The judgement of taste on the "Blue Collar Comedy Tour" is that which produces laughs, not that which necessarily matches up with the values expounded by
Most Native Americans would demonstrate exceptional tolerance to other religions but their own religious beliefs are based on nature. Even though years of assimilation had initially damaged the cultural roots of Native Americans, there is now a new kind of cultural and social change that we notice in this group. People are working hard to reclaim their cultural identity, which has triggered a gradual process of cultural renewal. This cultural
Clinical Psychology Dissertation - Dream Content as a Therapeutic Approach: Ego Gratification vs. Repressed Feelings An Abstract of a Dissertation Dream Content as a Therapeutic Approach: Ego Gratification vs. Repressed Feelings This study sets out to determine how dreams can be used in a therapeutic environment to discuss feelings from a dream, and how the therapist should engage the patient to discuss them to reveal the relevance of those feelings, in their present,