ipl-logo

Freud's Theory Of Humor In Doctor Moorhead And A Patient

1434 Words6 Pages

Humor The common characteristic of Kim’s works was to make detectives notice that the mysterious phenomenon had been just an appearance, that is, to overturn the plot. What deserves attention here is Freud’s theory of humor, which has a remarkable analogy with Kim’s strange plot. He gives an example of humor as follows: “A rogue who was being led out to execution on a Monday remarked: ‘Well, this week’s beginning nicely’.” We feel a kind of humoristic pleasure here because of, according to Freud, “an economy in expenditure upon feeling.” The situation that ought to drive the criminal to despair might rouse intense pity in us; but that pity is inhibited because we understand that he, who is more closely concerned, makes nothing of the situation. …show more content…

A theme “burning” seems to symbolize the author’s message: “do not be serious.” It is worthy to outline Kim’s short story Doctor Moorhead and a Patient (1967) in this respect. Heroine Stella, who had made a car accident resulting in death of the victim, has been receiving doctor Moorhead 's counseling for several months. Stella confides the inside secret having impulsive aggression, and this doctor – he had sexual relations with patients several times – tells her that it is a natural instinctual drive and recommends its cancellation by killing animals or spurious suicide (reckless driving or gambling). However, she can’t get satisfied with them and kills him at last. The tragic ending of this story that is a kind of thriller, where Moorhead seems to represent sex drive (Libido), so does Stella death drive, is caused because she had believed his opinion. She should have ignored (burned) the theory maintaining the real existence of impulsive aggression. However, the question now arises: Freud discussed humor from the viewpoint of defense mechanism, that is, “the super-ego is actually repudiating reality and serving an illusion” for mental defense. In other words, the humorous attitude is optimistic escapism. For example, L. Slavin regards the following scene in Burn after Reading

Show More
Related
738 Words | 3 Pages

This is an example of changing the situation. B. Based on Critchley’s article humor functions as anti-depressant by allowing the cognitive relation to, oneself and the world. “Humor has the same formal structure as depression but it’s an anti-depressant”. It’s a way to suppress depression by being able to find positive functions for the superego.

Read More
737 Words | 3 Pages

“The Influence on the Unconscious” As young adults, we have laid around our homes for countless hours watching different types of television programing. Many of us, have a good idea on whether a program tries to offend viewers with their content. For over a decade, the popular television show “Family Guy” created by Seth MacFarlane, has shown controversial content that many people throughout the world have either loved or hated. In the writing piece titled, “Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious” by Antonia Peacocke that is discussed below encourages us to distinguish between offensive and insightful content that airs on Family Guy.

Read More
790 Words | 4 Pages

Affairs affect people in different ways, but no one could imagine an affair destroying their ability to psychologically function. The “killings” by Andre Dubus is a shocking story about a killer named Richard who murders frank the man having an affair with his wife, who is his pride and joy. Riveted with murder and passion the author revels the characteristics of Richard Strout’s in the “killings” as a psychological obsessive and controlling person; these traits effect his emotions and behaviors throughout the story. Richards’s anger which evolves throughout the story, is what leads to his obsessive and controlling behaviors. The author explains Richards’s background as a young, striving man, who is overcome by failure, and this contributes

Read More
1236 Words | 5 Pages

It’s hard to understand much else about the why’s and how’s of laughter, but they seem to know, simply, that it works. This means that in order for readers to further understand the reality of things like humor in Kesey’s book, oneself should have to ignore their feelings and sacrifice the pleasure and ask questions that help people to discover what it is about humor that is so powerful. Laughter does not only play a major role in the story, but in life as

Read More
625 Words | 3 Pages

The use of humor to alleviate the dull reality of life is used in Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which supports the idea that one's own humor creates happiness in others and relieves stress much like in the critically acclaimed Christmas classic, Elf, starring Will Ferrell. Humor is used by Ken Kesey very prominently especially when the patients do not seem to have the ability to laugh at anything nor find anything funny. The patients live a very dull life in which they repeat their monotonous cycle of life in the ward. They no longer have known what it is like in the norm because of the Big Nurse wears them down with the oppressive nature of the Combine.

Read More
1712 Words | 7 Pages

“The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can convey emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle.” The written word and the moving image have always had their entwining roots deeply entrenched in similar narrative codes, both functioning at the level of implication, connotation and referentiality. But ever since the advent of cinema, they have been pitted against each other over formal and cultural peculiarities – hence engaging in a relationship deemed “overtly compatible, secretly hostile” (Bluestone 2).

Read More
1117 Words | 5 Pages

This is shown when the characters in this novel speak out against a concept they know nothing about. Therefore, the literary terms an author uses can make an immense impact to the connections the reader makes to a novel, and help to shape a theme that is found throughout

Read More
1212 Words | 5 Pages

In the story "Saying Goodbye to Yang," written by Alexander Weinstein, and the story "St. Lucy 's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," written by Karen Russell, there are several ways these stories could be seen as humorous or funny/not funny. Each story that we have read is unique in that they each had some sense of humor about them, whether it be witty humor, dry humor, or maybe even the funny/not funny kind of humor. Different types of humor can be interpreted from each of the stories we have read this semester. Yes, these stories can be seen as a joke but there are serious ideas about them. Each story undoubtedly has important concepts intertwined into them.

Read More
1852 Words | 8 Pages

Throughout human history, humans have been known to execute gruesome acts. Whether these acts are small and insignificant or massive and change history, humans are capable of performing horrific plots against one another. To make matters worse, most of the people who commit these terrible crimes are people who are entirely in a clear state of mind. Nevertheless, there are some cases in which the line between sanity and mental instability blurs. For example, there is an ongoing debate regarding the mental health of the main character in William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily.”

Read More
1338 Words | 6 Pages

All of these touchy subjects use humor as a mechanism to cope, allowing humor to tell a sad story. A prominent example in the story was Brod. “[Brod] had to satisfy herself with the idea of love—loving the loving of things whose existence she didn't care at all about. Love itself became the object of her love” (80). She had experienced many life difficulties and hardships which contributed to her hopelessness of finding and having love.

Read More
1489 Words | 6 Pages

This shows that the speaker begins to fall from his humane side and the villain side started to come out. The uncontrollable lust for blood could not be stopped and it continued until he killed a plethora of woodchucks. Another example showing the author giving an atmosphere that everyone has a

Read More
1291 Words | 6 Pages

However, it could also be analyzed from a psychoanalytic perspective. The unnamed narrator has many mental problems. First of all, according to Freud, the unconscious affects the conscious in the form of guilt. The narrator always has an overwhelming sense of guilt. For example, the narrator says "he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more."

Read More
1720 Words | 7 Pages

One of the most valuable aspects of personality is humor – we value one’s sense of humor and make friends often based on finding certain things funny. But how and why do we consider things to be funny at all? Human beings have strived to uncover fundamental truths about human nature for centuries – even millennia – but humor itself is still yet to be pinpointed. Henri Bergson is only one of many who has attempted this feat, and his essay Laughter: an essay on the meaning of the comic from 1911 breaks down comedy into what he believes to be its essential forms and origins. While Bergson makes many valid points, Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times that was brought to screens only twenty years later seems to contradict many of Bergson’s theories, while Bergson seems to contradict even himself over the course of his essay.

Read More
496 Words | 2 Pages

Insane or Sane? The terrifying story, “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe is down right bizarre. I believe the narrator is definitely a little strange whether you may disagree or not. Edgar Allen Poe had a very interesting way of applying the narrator to act like he is not crazy, but at the same time basically baby feeding the readers that he really is crazy. There are several ways the narrator himself is actually proving he is insane.

Read More
1467 Words | 6 Pages

These are often marked by innocence, play and pleasure within a safe communal and curated context. Freud’s proposals in ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ are often seen as anti nostalgic. However, Freud’s essay is a clarification of a mindset that acts as a framework for marking an individual reclamation of the past. This is referring to the different levels of our individual consciousness. The ‘conscious’ is holding thoughts and emotions that we are aware of in the present and can be expressed in fairly logical terms while the ‘pre-conscious’ mind holds memories that can be brought back to the conscious mind only by being thought of or triggered by objects or other stimuli.

Read More

More about Freud's Theory Of Humor In Doctor Moorhead And A Patient

Related Topics

Open Document