Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious

Sigmund Freud’s book called, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, psychoanalyzes jokes and humor. There are three main parts to his book, the analytic part, the synthetic part, and the oretic part. Freud explains, “A joke is a judgement which produces a comic contrast; it has already played a silent part in caricature, but only in judgement does it attain its peculiar form and the free sphere of its unfolding.” (Freud) He then goes on to explain pleasure and how it relates to the unconscious. Freud also said, “Other more or less interrelated ideas which have been brought up as defining or describing jokes are: ‘a contrast of ideas’, ‘sense in nonsense’, bewilderment and illumination’.” (Freud) He is explaining that a joke is a link between two ideas that contrast each other in some way. This contrast is what gives the joke its humor. I related this back to anti-jokes. Even though they appear to be harsh and unnecessary, his theory explains what makes them tick and why they are considered funny.

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