My VIews on the part played by sexuality in the aetiology of the neuroses 7 страница

In the bath-joke the dependence of the joke on its wording (‘Have you taken a bath?’) is unmistakable, and a change in it involves the disappearance of the joke. For in this case the technique is a more complicated one - a combination of double meaning (sub-species f) and displacement. The wording of the question admits a double meaning, and the joke is produced by the answer disregarding the meaning intended by the questioner and catching on to the subsidiary meaning. We are accordingly in a position to find a reduction which allows the double meaning of the wording to persist and yet destroys the joke; we can do this merely by undoing the displacement:

‘Have you taken a bath?’ - ‘What do you think I’ve taken? A bath? What’s that?’ But this is no longer a joke, but a malicious or facetious exaggeration.7

A precisely similar part is played by the double meaning in Heine’s joke about the ‘Golden Calf’. It enables the answer to make a diversion from the suggested train of thought (which is effected in the ‘Salmon Mayonnaise’ joke without any such assistance from the wording). In the reduction Souliés remark and Heine’s reply would perhaps run: ‘The way in which the people here are crowding round the man simply because he’s rich reminds one vividly of the worship of the Golden Calf.’ And Heine: ‘That he should be honoured in this way because of his wealth doesn’t strike me as the worst of it. In what you say you’re not putting enough stress on the fact that because of his wealth people forgive him his stupidity.’ In this way the double meaning would be retained but the displacement joke would be destroyed.

But at this point we must be prepared to meet an objection which will assert that these fine distinctions are seeking to tear apart what belongs together. Does not every double meaning give occasion for a displacement - for a diversion of the train of thought from one meaning to the other? And are we prepared, then, to allow ‘double meaning’ and ‘displacement’ to be set up as representatives of two quite different types of joke-technique? Well, it is true that this relation between double meaning and displacement does exist, but it has nothing to do with our distinguishing the different joke-techniques. In the case of double meaning a joke contains nothing other than a word capable of multiple interpretation, which allows the hearer to find the transition from one thought to another - a transition which, stretching a point, might be equated with a displacement. In the case of a displacement joke, however, the joke it self contains a train of thought in which a displacement of this kind has been accomplished. Here the displacement is part of the work which has created the joke; it is not part of the work necessary for understanding it. If this distinction is not clear to us, we have an unfailing means of bringing it tangibly before our eyes in our attempts at reduction. But there is one merit which we will not deny to this objection. It draws our attention to the necessity of not confusing the psychical processes involved in the construction of the joke (the ‘joke-work’) with the psychical processes involved in taking in the joke (the work of understanding). Our present enquiry is only concerned with the former.¹

¹ For the latter, see later chapters of this book. - A few further words of explanation are perhaps not unnecessary here. Displacement habitually takes place between a remark and a reply which pursues the train of thought in a direction other than that in which it was started by the original remark. The justification for distinguishing displacement from double meaning is most convincingly shown by the examples in which the two are combined - where, that is, the wording of the remark admits of a double meaning which is not intended by the speaker, but which points the way for the reply to make a displacement. (See the examples.)

Are there other examples of the displacement technique? They are not easy to find. A straightforward instance is afforded by the following joke, which moreover is not characterized by the appearance of logic which was so much overstressed in our model case:

‘A horse-dealer was recommending a saddle-horse to a customer. "If you take this horse and get on it at four in the morning you’ll be at Pressburg by half-past six." - "What should I be doing in Pressburg at half-past six in the morning?"'

Here the displacement leaps to the eye. The dealer obviously mentions the early hour of arriving at the provincial town simply in order to demonstrate the horse’s capacity by an example. The customer disregards the animal’s capacity, which he does not question, and merely enters into the data of the example that has been chosen. The reduction of this joke is accordingly easy to give.

Greater difficulties are presented by another example the technique of which is most obscure, but which can nevertheless be solved as double meaning combined with displacement. The joke describes the prevarication of a ‘Schadchen’ (a Jewish marriage-broker), and is thus one of a group with which we shall often be concerned.

‘The Schadchen had assured the suitor that the girl’s father was no longer living. After the betrothal it emerged that the father was still alive and was serving a prison sentence. The suitor protested to the Schadchen, who replied: "Well, what did I tell you? You surely don’t call that living?"'

The double meaning lies in the word ‘living’, and the displacement consists in the Schadchen shifting the meaning of the word from its ordinary sense, as a contrast to ‘dead’, to the sense which it has in the phrase ‘that’s not living’. In doing so he explains his former pronouncement retrospectively as having had a double meaning, though any such multiple meaning was decidedly remote in this particular case. So far the technique would seem similar to that in the ‘Golden Calf’ joke and the bath-joke. But here there is another factor to be considered which by its prominence interferes with our understanding of the technique. It might be described as a ‘characterizing’ joke: it seeks by an example to illustrate a marriage-broker’s characteristic mixture of mendacious impudence and readiness of repartee. We shall find that this is only the outer shell, the façade, of the joke; its meaning - that is to say, its purpose - is something different. And we must postpone the attempt at a reduction of it.¹

After these complicated examples, which have been so hard to analyse, it will be with satisfaction that we are able to turn once more to an example which can be recognized as a perfectly straightforward and transparent sample of a displacement joke:

‘A Schnorrer [someone who is reluctant to part with his own money] approached a wealthy baron with a request for the grant of some assistance for his journey to Ostend. The doctors, he said, had recommended him sea-bathing to restore his health. "Very well", said the rich man, "I’II give you something towards it. But must you go precisely to Ostend, which is the most expensive of all sea-bathing resorts?" - "Herr Baron", was the reproachful reply, "I consider nothing too expensive for my health."' This is no doubt a correct point of view, but not correct for a petitioner. The answer is given from the point of view of a rich man. The Schnorrer behaves as though it was his own money that he was to sacrifice for his health, as though the money and the health were the concern of the same person.

¹ See Chapter III below.9 Let us start once more from that highly instructive example ‘Salmon Mayonnaise’. It, too, presented us with a façade, in which a striking parade of logical thinking was exhibited; and we learnt from analysing it that this logic was used to conceal a piece of faulty reasoning - namely, a displacement of the train of thought. This may serve to remind us, if only by means of a contrasting connection, of other jokes which, quite the other way, undisguisedly exhibit a piece of nonsense or stupidity. We shall be curious to learn what may be the technique of such jokes.

I will begin with the most forcible and at the same time the plainest example of the whole group. Once again it is a Jewish joke:

‘Itzig had been declared fit for service in the artillery. He was clearly an intelligent lad, but intractable and without any interest in the service. One of his superior officers, who was friendlily disposed to him, took him on one side and said to him: "Itzig, you’re no use to us. I’II give you a piece of advice: buy yourself a cannon and make yourself independent!"'

This advice, which may raise a hearty laugh, is obvious nonsense. Cannons are not to be bought and an individual cannot make himself independent as a military unit - set himself up in business, as it were. But it is impossible to doubt for a moment that the advice is not mere nonsense but joking nonsense - an excellent joke. How then is the nonsense turned into a joke?

Not much reflection is needed. We can infer from the authorities’ comments indicated above in the introduction that there is sense behind joking nonsense such as this, and that it is this sense that makes the nonsense into a joke. The sense in our example is easy to find. The officer who gives Artilleryman Itzig this nonsensical advice is only making himself out stupid to show Itzig how stupidly he himself is be having. He is copying Itzig: ‘I’II give you some advice that’s as stupid as you are.’ He enters into Itzig’s stupidity and makes it clear to him by taking it as the basis of a suggestion which would fit in with Itzig’s wishes: if Itzig possessed a cannon of his own and carried out military duties on his own account, how useful his intelligence and ambition would be to him! In what good order he would keep his cannon and how familiar he would make himself with its mechanism so as to meet the competition of the other possessors of cannons!

I will interrupt the analysis of this example, to point out the same sense in nonsense in a shorter and simpler, though less glaring, case of a nonsensical joke:

‘Never to be born would be the best thing for mortal men.’ ‘But’, adds the philosophical comment in Fliegende Blätter, ‘this happens to scarcely one person in a hundred thousand.’

This modern addition to an ancient saw is an evident piece of nonsense, made sillier by the ostensibly cautious ‘scarcely’. But the addition is attached to the original statement as an indisputably correct limitation, and is thus able to open our eyes to the fact that this solemnly accepted piece of wisdom is itself not much better than a piece of nonsense. Anyone who is not born is not a mortal man at all, and there is no good and no best for him. Thus the nonsense in the joke serves to uncover and demonstrate another piece of nonsense, just as in the example of Artilleryman Itzig.

And here I can add a third instance, which, from its content, would scarcely deserve the lengthy description that it requires, but which once again exemplifies with special clarity the use of nonsense in a joke to demonstrate another piece of nonsense.

‘A man who was obliged to go on a journey confided his daughter to a friend with the request that he should watch over her virtue during his absence. Some months later he returned, and found that she was pregnant. As was natural, he reproached his friend, who, however, seemed unable to explain the misfortune. "Well", asked the father at last, "where did she sleep?" - "In the room with my son." - "But how could you let her sleep in the same room as your son after I’d begged you so to look after her?" - "After all there was a screen between them. Your daughter’s bed was on one side and my son’s bed on the other, with the screen between(them." - "And suppose he walked round the screen?" - "Yes, there is that", replied the other thoughtfully; "it might have happened like that."'

We can arrive with the greatest ease at the reduction of this joke, whose qualities have otherwise little to recommend it. It would obviously run: ‘You have no right to reproach me. How could you be so stupid as to leave your daughter in a house where she is bound to live in the constant company of a young man? How would it be possible for an outsider to answer for a girl’s virtue in such circumstances?’ Here, then, the friend’s apparent stupidity is only a reflection of the father’s stupidity. The reduction has disposed of the stupidity in the joke and at the same time of the joke itself. The element ‘stupidity’ itself has not been got rid of: it is to be found at another point in the context of the sentence after it has been reduced to its original meaning.

We can now attempt a reduction of the joke about the cannon. The officer should have said: ‘Itzig, I know you’re an intelligent man of business. But I assure you it is very stupid of you if you can’t see that it is impossible to behave in the army in the same way as in business life, where each person acts for himself and against the others. In military life subordination and co-operation are the rule.’

The technique of the nonsensical jokes which we have so far considered really consists, therefore, in presenting something that is stupid and nonsensical, the sense of which lies in the revelation and demonstration of something else that is stupid and nonsensical.

Has this use of absurdity in joke technique always the same significance? Here is one more example which gives an affirmative reply:

‘When on one occasion Phocion was applauded after making a speech, he turned to his friends and asked: "What have I said that’s stupid, then?"'

The question sounds absurd. But we see its meaning at once: ‘What have I said, then, that can have pleased these stupid people so much? I ought to feel ashamed of the applause. If what I said has pleased stupid people, it cannot itself have been very sensible.’

Other examples, however, can teach us that absurdity is very often used in joke-technique without serving the purpose of demonstrating another piece of nonsense:

‘A well-known University teacher, who was in the habit of peppering his unattractive special subject with numerous jokes, was congratulated on the birth of his youngest child, who was granted to him when he had already reached an advanced age. "Yes", he replied to his well-wishers, "it is remarkable what human hands can accomplish.’ - This answer seems quite specially nonsensical and out of place. Children, after all, are regarded as a blessing of God, quite in contrast to human handiwork. But it soon occurs to us that after all the answer has a meaning and, at that, an obscene one. There is no question here of the happy father making himself out stupid in order to show that something or someone else is stupid. The apparently senseless answer makes a surprising, a bewildering impression on us, as the authorities would say. As we have seen they attribute the whole effect of jokes like this to an alternation between ‘bewilderment and illumination’. We shall try later to form a judgement on this; for the moment we must be content to stress the fact that the technique of this joke lies in its presentation of something bewildering and nonsensical.

A joke of Lichtenberg’s takes a quite special place among these ‘stupid’ jokes:

‘He wondered how it is that cats have two holes cut in their skin precisely at the place where their eyes are.’ To wonder about something that is in fact only the statement of an identity is undoubtedly a piece of stupidity. It reminds one of Michelet’s exclamation¹ which was meant to be taken seriously, and which to the best of my recollection runs: ‘How beautifully Nature has arranged it that as soon as a child comes into the world it finds a mother ready to take care of it!’ Michelet’s pronouncement is a real piece of stupidity, but Lichtenberg’s is a joke which makes use of stupidity for some purpose and behind which something lies. But what? For the moment, we must admit, no answer can be given.

¹ La Femme2 We have now already found from two groups of examples that the joke-work makes use of deviations from normal thinking - of displacement and absurdity - as technical methods for producing a joking form of expression. It is no doubt justifiable to expect that other kinds of faulty reasoning may find a similar use. And it is in fact possible to produce a few examples of the sort:

‘A gentleman entered a pastry-cook’s shop and ordered a cake; but he soon brought it back and asked for a glass of liqueur instead. He drank it and began to leave without having paid. The proprietor detained him. "What do you want?" asked the customer. - "You’ve not paid for the liqueur." - "But I gave you the cake in exchange for it." - "You didn’t pay for that either." - "But I hadn’t eaten it."'

This anecdote too has an appearance of logic about it, which, as we already know, is a suitable façade for a piece of faulty reasoning. The mistake evidently lies in the crafty customer’s constructing a connection which did not exist between the giving back of the cake and the taking of the liqueur in its place. The episode in fact fell into two processes, which were independent of each other so far as the vendor was concerned and were substitutes for each other only from the point of view of the purchaser’s intention. First he took the cake and gave it back, and therefore owed nothing for it; then he took the liqueur, and for it he owed payment. We might say that the customer used the relation ‘in exchange for’ with a double meaning. But it would be more correct to say that by means of a double meaning he constructed a connection which was not in reality valid.¹

¹ [Footnote added 1912:] A similar nonsensical technique appears if a joke seeks to maintain a connection which seems to be excluded by the special conditions implied in its content. Such, for instance, is Lichtenberg’s knife without a blade which has no handle. So, too, the joke repeated by Von Falke: ‘Is this the place where the Duke of Wellington spoke those words?’ - ‘Yes, it is the place; but he never spoke the words.’ 3

This is an opportunity for making a not unimportant admission. We are engaged in investigating the technique of jokes as shown in examples; and we should therefore be certain that the examples we have chosen are really genuine jokes. It is the case, however, that in a number of instances we are in doubt whether the particular example ought to be called a joke or not. We have no criterion at our disposal before our investigation has given us one. Linguistic usage is untrustworthy and itself needs to have its justification examined. In coming to our decision we can base ourselves on nothing but a certain ‘feeling’, which we may interpret as meaning that the decision is made in our judgement in accordance with particular criteria that are not yet accessible to our knowledge. In the case of our last example we must feel a doubt whether it should be represented as a joke, or perhaps as a ‘sophistical’ joke, or simply as a piece of sophistry. For the fact is that we do not yet know in what the characteristic of being a joke resides.

On the other hand, the next example, which exhibits a type of faulty reasoning that may be said to be complementary to the former instance, is an undoubted joke. It is once again a story of a marriage-broker:

‘The Schadchen was defending the girl he had proposed against the young man’s protests. "I don’t care for the mother-in-law", said the latter. "She’s a disagreeable, stupid person." - "But after all you’re not marrying the mother-in-law. What you want is her daughter." - "Yes, but she’s not young any longer, and she’s not precisely a beauty." - "No matter. If she’s neither young nor beautiful she’ll be all the more faithful to you."- "And she hasn’t much money." - "Who’s talking about money? Are you marrying money then? After all it’s a wife that you want." - "But she’s got a hunchback too." - "Well, what do you want? Isn’t she to have a single fault?"'

What was really in question, then, was an unbeautiful girl, no longer young, with a scanty dowry and an unpleasant mother, who was moreover the victim of a serious deformity - not very inviting conditions for contracting a marriage. The marriage broker was able, in the case of each one of these defects, to point out how it would be possible to come to terms with it. He was then able to claim that the inexcusable hunch back was the single defect that every individual must be allowed to possess. Once more there is the appearance of logic which is characteristic of a piece of sophistry and which is intended to conceal the faulty reasoning. Clearly the girl had a number of defects - several that might be overlooked and one that it was impossible to disregard; she was unmarriageable. The broker behaved as though each separate defect was got rid of by his evasions, whereas in fact each one of them left a certain amount of depreciation behind which had to be added to the next one. He insisted on treating each defect in isolation and refused to add them up into a total.

The same omission is the core of another piece of sophistry which has been much laughed over, but whose right to be called a joke might be doubted:

‘A. borrowed a copper kettle from B. and after he had returned it was sued by B. because the kettle now had a big hole in it which made it unusable. His defence was: "First, I never borrowed a kettle from B. at all; secondly, the kettle had a hole in it already when I got it from him; and thirdly, I gave him back the kettle undamaged."' Each one of these defences is valid in itself, but taken together they exclude one another. A. was treating in isolation what had to be regarded as a connected whole, just as the marriage-broker treated the girl’s defects. We might also say: ‘A. has put an "and" where only an "either-or" is possible.’

We find another piece of sophistry in the following marriage broker story:

‘The would-be bridegroom complained that the bride had one leg shorter than the other and limped. The Schadchen contradicted him: "You’re wrong. Suppose you marry a woman with healthy, straight limbs! What do you gain from it? You never have a day’s security that she won’t fall down, break a leg and afterwards be lame all her life. And think of the suffering then, the agitation, and the doctor’s bill! But if you take this one, that can’t happen to you. Here you have a fait accompli.’

The appearance of logic is very thin in this case, and no one will be ready to prefer an already ‘accomplished misfortune’ to one that is merely a possibility. The fault in this train of thought can be more easily shown in another example - a story which I cannot entirely divest of its dialect:

‘In the temple at Cracow the Great Rabbi N. was sitting and praying with his disciples. Suddenly he uttered a cry, and, in reply to his disciples’ anxious enquiries, exclaimed: "At this very moment the Great Rabbi L. has died in Lemberg." The community put on mourning for the dead man. In the course of the next few days people arriving from Lemberg were asked how the Rabbi had died and what had been wrong with him; but they knew nothing about it, and had left him in the best of health. At last it was established with certainty that the Rabbi L. in Lemberg had not died at the moment at which the Rabbi N. had observed his death by telepathy, since he was still alive. A stranger took the opportunity of jeering at one of the Cracow Rabbi’s disciples about this occurrence: "Your Rabbi made a great fool of himself that time, when he saw the Rabbi L. die in Lemberg. The man’s alive to this day." "That makes no difference", replied the disciple. "Whatever you may say, the Kück¹ from Cracow to Lemberg was a magnificent one."'

The faulty reasoning common to the last two examples is here undisguisedly admitted. The value of phantasy is exalted unduly in comparison with reality; a possibility is almost equated with an actual event. The distant look across the stretch of country separating Cracow and Lemberg would have been an impressive telepathic achievement if it had produced something that was true. But the disciple was not concerned with that. It might after all have possibly happened that the Rabbi in Lemberg had died at the moment at which the Cracow Rabbi announced his death; and the disciple displaced the emphasis from the condition subject to which the teacher’s achievement deserved admiration on to an unconditional admiration of the achievement. ‘In magnis rebus voluisse sat est’ ² expresses a similar point of view. Just as in this example reality is disregarded in favour of possibility, so in the former one the marriage-broker suggests to the would-be bridegroom that the possibility of a woman being made lame by an accident should be regarded as something far more important than the question of whether she is really lame or not.

¹ [A Yiddish word] from the German ‘gucken [to look or peep]’: ‘look’, ‘distant look’.

² [‘In great things it is enough to have wished.’]5

This group of ‘sophistical’ pieces of faulty reasoning is resembled by another interesting group in which the faulty reasoning can be described as ‘automatic’. It may be due to no more than a whim of chance that all the examples that I shall bring forward of this new group are once more Schadchen stories:

‘A Schadchen had brought an assistant with him to the discussion about the proposed bride, to bear out what he had to say. "She is straight as a pine-tree", said the Schadchen. - "As a pine-tree", repeated the echo. - "And she has eyes that ought to be seen!" - "What eyes she has!" confirmed the echo.- "And she is better educated than anyone!" - "What an education!" - "It’s true there’s one thing", admitted the broker, "she has a small hump." - "And what a hump!" the echo confirmed once more.’ The other stories are analogous, but have more sense.

‘The bridegroom was most disagreeably surprised when the bride was introduced to him, and drew the broker on one side and whispered his remonstrances: "Why have you brought me here?" he asked reproachfully. "She’s ugly and old, she squints and has bad teeth and bleary eyes..." - "You needn’t lower your voice", interrupted the broker, "she’s deaf as well."'

‘The bridegroom was paying his first visit to the bride’s house in the company of the broker, and while they were waiting in the salon for the family to appear, the broker drew attention to a cupboard with glass doors in which the finest set of silver plate was exhibited. "There! Look at that! You can see from these things how rich these people are." - "But", asked the suspicious young man, "mightn’t it be possible that these fine things were only collected for the occasion - that they were borrowed to give an impression of wealth?" - "What an idea!" answered the broker protestingly. "Who do you think would lend these people anything?"'

The same thing happens in all three cases. A person who has reacted in the same way several times in succession repeats this mode of expression on the next occasion, when it is unsuitable and defeats his own intentions. He neglects to adapt himself to the needs of the situation, by giving way to the automatic action of habit. Thus, in the first story the assistant forgets that he was brought along in order to prejudice the would-be bridegroom in favour of the proposed bride. And since to begin with he has performed his task and underlined the bride’s advantages by repeating each one as it is brought forward, he goes on to underline her timidly admitted hump, which he should have minimized. The broker in the second story is so much fascinated by the enumeration of the bride’s defects and infirmities that he completes the list out of his own knowledge, though that was certainly not his business or purpose. In the third story, finally, he allows himself to be so much carried away by his eagerness to convince the young man of the family’s wealth that, in order to establish one confirmatory point, he brings up something that is bound to upset all his efforts. In every case automatic action triumphs over the expedient modification of thought and expression.

This is easy to see; but it is bound to have a confusing effect when we notice that these three stories have as much right to be called ‘comic’ as we had to produce them as ‘jokes’. The uncovering of psychical automatism is one of the techniques of the comic, just as is any kind of revelation or self-betrayal. We suddenly find ourselves faced at this point with the problem of the relation of jokes to the comic which we intended to evade. (See the introduction.) Are these stories perhaps only ‘comic’ and not ‘jokes’? Is the comic operating here by the same methods as jokes do? And, once again, what constitutes the peculiar characteristics of jokes?

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