Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

classified jokes and humour and described the features that make us laugh, similar to
some of those mentioned above. However, he also reflected on the relationship between
humour and the unconscious.
For Freud the most relevant content in the joke is the pleasure it produces, 40 and
although he was focusing on jokes, the same pleasure can be obtained in any act of
humour under the right conditions. Jokes are a socially acceptable way to gain
pleasure. 41 He compares dreams and jokes: ‘el sueño se encamina predominantemente al
ahorro de displacer, y el chiste, a la consecución de placer’. 42 So, while dreaming helps
us avoid distress, jokes give us comfort and relief. Freud suggests that three people
might participate in a social comic act: one who, through the act of humour, ‘develops’
what was unseen or unmentioned (such as someone’s fault), the person that the joke is
referring to, and the one who witnesses the act and gets pleasure from it. The second
participant is not always necessary if the joke does not target the fault of someone or
something. 43 However, we will examine all three Freudian participants since our case
studies would be labelled under his terminology as hostile or tendentious.
Adults live with stressful demands in a world with a specific moral code;
laughing is a release mechanism. Because society represses some of our impulses,
laughing is a social and psychological relaxation. According to Purdie, in an act of
humour we recognise the forbidden as permitted, a ‘marked Symbolic transgression, as
well as permitted Imaginary play’. 44 Humour is a defence mechanism or safety valve
for our own fears and repressions, because those situations, topics, or facts which we are
not allowed to mention in our daily lives are aired through humour and are temporarily
40
Freud, El chiste y su relación… p. 27.
41
Ibid., p. 180.
42
Ibid., p. 181.
43
Ibid., pp. 181-182.
44
Purdie, Comedy: the Mastery… p. 43.
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