Jokes cover

Jokes

by Herbert S. Strean

In the tradition of Freud's Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Herbert Strean has presented an incisive examination of jokes as a form of emotional communication of our deepest anxieties and most basic conflicts and impulses. He lucidly illustrates how, through the medium of jokes, we are permitted safe, if indirect, expression of our erotic and perverse wishes, our hostile and defiant attitudes toward authority, our needs to deprecate those we perceive as superior, our stake in the war of the sexes, and our gratification in depicting religious figures (and therapists) as all too humanly succumbing to the temptations of lust and avarice. The jokes Dr. Strean presents and discusses are those concerned with the basic life situations that are inevitably characterized by ambivalence and conflict. Thus they constitute the principal material of psychotherapy.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?