The Jokes of Sigmund Freud - A Study in Humor and Jewish Identity (PDFDrive)

THE JOKES OF
SIGMUND
FREUD
THE JOKES OF
SIGMUND
FREUD
A STUDY IN HUMOR
AND jEWISH IDENTITY
ELLIOTT ORING
A JASON ARONSON BOOK
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
A JASON ARONSON BOOK
ROWMAN & LITILEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America

by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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Copyright © 1997 by Elliott Oring

First Rowman & Littlefield edition 2007
The author gratefully acknowledges permission to use the following:
Nathan the Wise, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Translated by Bayard

Quincy Morgan. Copyright© 1972 Continuum Publishing. Used with
permission of the publisher.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oring, Elliott, 1945-

The jokes of Sigmund Freud : a study in humor and Jewish identity
I Elliott Oring.
p. em.
Originally published : Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania
Press, c1984.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7657-0429-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7657-0429-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
l.Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939-Humor. 2. Psychoanalysts-
Austria-Biography. 3. Jewish wit and humor-History and criticism.
I. Title
BF173.F85066 1997
150.19'52'092-dc21 96-37012
Printed in the United States of America

e,...
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-
1992.
For Mark, Katie, and Claire
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1 Jokes and Freud 1

2 The Schnorrer 13
3 The Schadchen 27
4 The Ostjude 42
5 Fahrenheit 52
6 The Klick 79
7 The Egyptian Moses 91
8 The Complex 102
9 The Sublimation 119
Abbreviations 124
Notes 125
Bibliography 142
Index 149
Aclmowledgments
There are many contributors to a project such as this whose names

do not appear in the notes or bibliography. Arthur Niehoff, Renee
Oring, Kenneth Pratt, Judith Terzi, and Donald Ward read substantial
portions of the manuscript and offered both suggestions and encour-
agement. Donald Ward also tolerated numerous telephone inquiries
concerning German philology and folklore despite the interruption of
his quiet Sunday afternoons when he had better things to do. Michaela
Lang and Clement Padick shared their expertise on the German lan·
guage and Viennese custom.
I am happy to thank friends, relations, and colleagues who offered
intellectual and moral support: Mahadev Apte and )udit Katona-Apte,
Sharon Bassett, Brenda E. F. Beck, Dan Ben-Amos, Foley Benson,
Erika Brady, Frank de Caro, lnta Carpenter, Larry and Kerstin
Danielson, Christie Davies, Robert and Mary Georges, Bruce and Gen
Giuliano, Henry Glassie, Sin Fong Han, Larry and julie Hordes,
William lvey, Michael and Jane Jones, Rosan Jordan, Lawrence and
Dorothy Levinson, Irving Levinson, Carol Mitchell, Jon and Natalie
Olson, Mark Oring, Marjory Power, Neil and Judyann Rabitoy, Victor
Raskin, John Rees, Gloria and Fred Reinman, Taffe Semenza, Dianne
Smith, and Barre Toelken.
My friend Norman Klein was always enthusiastic about my ideas for
this book, and I will hold him to his promise to read the monograph
sometime before his retirement. Finally, Benjamin Fass, who gave me a
complete set of The Standard Edition for one of my birthdays, was the
sole private underwriter of this project.
ix
Introduction
(A name made great is a name destroyed.)
One summer, several years ago, I was teaching a class on the subject of
humor at a large midwestern university. During one of the class meet·
ings, I casually suggested that one of the students might explore the
relationship between the jokes and personality of Sigmund Freud as a
topic for a term paper. I can no longer recall the discussion that gener·
ated my remark; indeed, I remember little about the class as a whole,
but the· idea continued to hold my attention and has resulted in the
writing of this small book.
It was only as I undertook the research that I began to recognize the
extensive tradition of scholarship in the biography of Freud. 1 In the
more than forty years since his death, the number of books and essays
written about him far exceeds the number he wrote. Part of the attrac·
tion of Freud to biographers undoubtedly stems from the fact that
so much information is available about a man of such intellectual-
historical consequence. It is rare that the immortality of a man's ideas
is recognized during his own lifetime. When such a condition does
prevail, however, biographers and biographical commentators are bound
to be fruitful and multiply.
Yet it is unlikely that this condition alone can account for the
number and enthusiasm of Freud's biographers. Other recent figures of
great consequence-Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein-have
not commanded comparable attention to the minutiae of their exis·
tences. There is perhaps merit to the notion that Freud conceptualized
and shaped his life in terms of a heroic pattern2 and thus captured the
literary imaginations of subsequent biographers. To the extent that this
interpretation is true, however, it would also seem incomplete.
Inttoducrion ~
Actually the particular attraction of Freud to biographers appears to
be more deeply rooted. The intellectual revolutions initiated by the
other great luminaries were in the spheres of biology, sociology, and
cosmology, respectively, and were thus degrees removed from the lives
of ordinary individuals. But Freud's science transformed the perception,
interpretation, and understanding of everyday thought and experience,
and consequently its effects were more immediate and personal. To the
extent that psychoanalysis purported to lay bare the deepest and darkest
secrets of one's soul and hold them up for the consideration and criti·
cism of one's fellows, psychoanalysis emerged as a colossal invasion of
individual privacy. Further, the individual could not hope to seek refuge
in the repudiation of these psychoanalytic discoveries: Denial was equated
with resistance and thereby served to confirm the truth of the revela-
tion. In the very identification by Freud and his science of the mecha-
nisms of defense, these defenses were breached and rendered useless.
Darwin shattered the complacency of the nineteenth century when
he unmasked that collectivity Homo sapiens. In the twentieth century
Freud saw fit to further unmask the individual members of that species,
leaving each exposed and alone to renegotiate stopgap defenses in the
arena of social etiquette. Such an assault on privacy, a display of power
virtually megalomaniacal in its proportions, 3 could not go unavenged.
In adherence to the law of the talion, Freud's secrets would also be
exposed for all to see, and they would be revealed utilizing the very
mechanisms and techniques that he himself had discovered. It is this
retaliatory motive that most fundamentally accounts for the extent and
intensity of the tradition of psychobiographical analysis of Freud, and
this aggressive component should be acknowledged even by those who
profess to love and admire the master and claim the status of his intel-
lectual sons and heirs.
Freud vigorously defended his own efforts at psychobiography, but
when he considered the biographies that would be written about him,
he declared: "Anyone turning biographer commits himself to lies, to
concealing, to hypocrisy, to flattery, and even to hiding his own lack of
understanding. "4 I would prefer to deny that my aim is to "blacken the
radiant and drag the sublime into the dust, " 5 but if by continuing in the
tradition of the psychobiographical analysis of Freud I am forced to
entertain the likelihood of an aggressive component in my inquiry, I
have at least extended to Freud the courtesy he requested of his biogra-
phers: "One waits till the person is dead, when he cannot do anything
about it and fortunately no longer cares. "6
Two cautions to the reader would seem in order. The first concerns
xii Introduction
the notes at the end of this volume. The reader is free to ignore them
entirely without any sacrifice in understanding. Nevertheless, the notes
are conceived by the author to be an integral part of what is to follow.
Not only do they acknowledge the scholars and thinkers to whom this
author is indebted, but they document the facts upon which the scheme
of interpretation depends. Often it may seem that I have taken great
license in an effort to present a particular conceptualization and inter-
pretation of the person of Sigmund Freud. The notes are present to
assure the reader that the license is only an interpretive one, and that
the facts upon which the interpretation depends are not the products of
imagination, exaggeration, or deliberate falsification. (On occasion I
have also included the original German in the body of the text when
an interpretation seemed overly dependent on the particular meaning
of a word or phrase.) Furthermore, additional materials are to be found
in the notes: supplementary data, related readings, speculative interpre-
tations and conjectures that might have distracted the reader from the
thrust of the argument had they been included in the text proper.
The second caution pertains to style. It concerns my recurrent use
of the pronoun "we." My usage, I assure you, is not born of aristocratic
pretensions or aspirations. It is certainly not designed to erect a barrier
between myself and the reader. In fact, my intention is precisely the
opposite. It is the pedagogical "we" that I employ to include the reader
in the process of interpretation and discovery. After spending the greater
part of my life in the Academy as both a student and a teacher, this
"we" has permeated the deepest layers of my linguistic being. For those
readers who tend to bristle at such usage, I can only invoke their
generosity and indulgence so that we may proceed together on this
excursion into the biography and character of Sigmund Freud.
lnnoduction xiU
1: Jol{es and Freud
Doch, was man ist, und was

Man sein muss in der Welt, das passt ja wohl
Nicht immer.
(But what one is, and what
One must be in this world, that is not always
The same.)
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise
There is something enigmatic about the photographs of Sigmund Freud.

In the face is a tremendous yet controlled strength; in the eyes, a
penetrating alertness and seriousness; and in the mouth, framed by an
excessively manicured moustache and beard, a stalwart grimness. While
this image may seem entirely appropriate for the founder of psychoanal-
ysis, that diviner of the Sphinx's riddle, and the betrayer of mankind's
most guarded secrets, it also invites inevitable questions. What were the
secret thoughts that lay unrevealed behind Freud's own grim mask? 1
What forces were churning inside that required the appearance of such
consummate control?
Judging from the numerous biographies and biographical essays that
continue to be written about Freud, it would seem that the mystery
behind that controlled and grim countenance has yet to be resolved to
the satisfaction of all. With this monograph, another contribution is
offered to an already burgeoning literature. In truth, this is not a work
of biography proper but rather of biographical interpretation. It discovers
no new facts but seeks to reexamine, reorganize, and reinterpret those
that have already been established. The justification for this additional
contribution, if justification be required, lies in our avenue of approach,
an avenue of approach to the character of Freud that has hitherto been
ignored by biographers and commentators-Freud's jokes. 2 At first con-
Jokes and Freud 1

sideration, this failure to explore Freud's jokes may not seem like much
of an oversight. Jokes seem so incompatible with that core image of
seriousness and control attested to in the photographs that we might
feel somewhat foolish if we approached them with any sober regard. But
it was Freud himself who taught that discovery often occurs only when
one is willing to ignore the obvious and focus upon the curious detail
that has the appearance of fortuitousness and the aura of triviality.
Only a modicum of research is required, however, to establish that
Freud's jokes are unlikely to prove trivial or incidental to the study of
his character. First, there is the ample testimony of witnesses. Virtually
every description of Freud by his friends and disciples highlights his
sense of humor and penchant for joke telling. Joan Riviere: "The awe
inspiring appearance was lightened by the glow of an enchanting humor,
always latent and constantly irradiating his whole person as he spoke. " 3
Franz Alexander: "He propounded the most significant ideas in a light
conversational, casual tone. He liked to illustrate a point with anec-
dotes and jokes, was an excellent raconteur, and even serious topics
were robbed of the artificial austerity with which they are so frequently
invested. "4 Ernest Jones: "A Gentile would have said that Freud had
few overt Jewish characteristics, a fondness for relating Jewish jokes and
anecdotes being perhaps the most prominent one. " 5 This list of testi·
monies might easily be extended, but it hardly seems necessary. Docu-
mentary evidence is available in Freud's correspondence, which is pep-
pered with jokes, sarcastic allusions, and comic metaphors, demonstrating
incontrovertibly that jokes and humor constituted a basic component of
Freud's presentation of self, the grim countenance in the portrait pho-
tographs notwithstanding.
Freud's use of jokes and witticisms was skillful and creative. He did
not relate jokes in joke-telling exchanges for their own sake but em·
ployed them as glosses on discourse. 6 They served as illustrations of
problems, situations, or propositions under discussion as would proverbs
or parables. For example, as Freud anticipated the writing of his "Project
for a Scientific Psychology," he was wary nevertheless about its eventual
completion. As he wrote: "Of course I cannot say anything for certain
yet. Saying anything now would be like sending a six-months female
embryo to a ball. "7 Or again, in the analysis of one of his dreams, Freud
illustrated the infantile egoism central to the dream thought with the
story of "the married couple one of whom said to the other: 'If one of
us dies, I shall move to Paris.' "8 Freud utilized the following joke to
exemplify the secondary gains of neurosis, that is, the advantages and
compensations a patient gains from his illness once it has been estab-
lished.
2 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

A man in an insane asylum rejects the food there and insists on
having kosher dishes. His passionate demand is fulfilled and he is
served food prepared according to Jewish law. On the next Saturday
the patient is seen comfortably smoking a cigar. His physician indig-
nantly points out to him that a religious man who observes the
dietary laws should not smoke on Saturday. The patient replies:
"Then what am I meschugge (nuts) for?" 9
The ability to employ jokes in such a focused fashion indicates that

Freud was exceedingly sensitive to their structures and base meanings 10
and that he had an extensive repertoire at his command from which to
create such appropriate joking analogies.
Yet Freud's involvement with jokes and anecdotes was not merely in
their conscious manipulation for the achievement of the social ends of
effective correspondence and discourse. There is compelling evidence
that jokes held a deep, personal significance for Freud. As we shall see,
Freud often identified with joke characters, jokes provided associations
to his own dreams, and several important psychoanalytic discoveries
may first have been suggested to Freud by jokes. 11
Perhaps the most telling revelation of the personal importance of
jokes to Freud occurs in a letter written by Freud to his friend and
colleague Wilhelm Fliess in June of 1897: "Let me confess (gestehen)
that I have recently made a collection of deeply significant [tiefsinniger)
Jewish stories [i.e., jokes]. " 12 It is important to recognize the context in
which this statement was made. It was the year after the death of Freud's
father and corresponded precisely with the commencement of Freud's
own self-analysis that gave rise to The Interpretation of Dreams and the
fundamental discoveries of psychoanalysis. For it is in this very same
letter that Freud confides to his friend that he had been through "some
kind of neurotic experience, with odd states of mind not intelligible to
consciousness-cloudy thoughts and veiled doubts with barely here and
there a ray of light. " 13 Unfortunately, this sentence ends with an ellipsis,
indicating that what followed had been expurgated by the editors of his
letters, but the editors do comment in a footnote: "This passage can be
regarded as a sign of the beginning of, or rather the preparation for,
Freud's self-analysis. " 14
Why at the very moment Freud begins his historic self-analysis does
he undertake to compile a collection of jokes? Why are they Jewish
jokes? And why does he hold them to be "deeply significant" (tiefsinnig)?
Certainly the phrasing of Freud's revelation to his friend, his "confes-
sion" of the existence of this collection of jokes, should make us realize
that we are dealing with a man for whom jokes are more than a means
Jokes and Freud 3

of felicitous socializing. Furthermore, the fact that this "confession"
comes in the letter only sentences after Freud has compared himself to
a well-known character in Jewish jokelore makes us all the more confi-
dent that there is some deep and personal relationship between Freud
and his Jewish jokes. Perhaps what initially might have seemed like a
trivial or frivolous approach to the character of the founder of psycho-
analysis no longer seems so frivolous or merely clever.
It might be argued that the motivation for Freud's compilation of
Jewish jokes was less than personal and that the collection was under-
taken for scientific purposes. Perhaps he was already anticipating the
work he would not produce until 1905, ]ol«!s and Their Relation to the
Unconscious, and was merely accumulating data for this later effort. This
explanation, however, proves unsatisfactory. ]ol«!s and Their Relation to
the Unconscious depends upon the recognition of an analogy between
jokes and dreams. Yet this insight was unavailable to Freud in 1897, for
it was only in September of 1899 that his friend Wilhelm Fliess sug-
gested the similarity between jokes and dreams when Fliess commented
on the wittiness of dreams. Freud responded to Fliess's observation by
offering to include a footnote in The Interpretation of Dreams calling
attention to this similarity. 15 In other words, in June of 1897 when
Freud revealed the existence of his collection of Jewish jokes, it was
unlikely that he was anticipating a scientific treatise on the subject.
Furthermore, even if Freud had been anticipating such a treatise, why
would he restrict himself to collecting only Jewish examples and why
the curious comment about their profundity? The fact that Freud was
collecting Jewish jokes in 1897 at the very time he was initiating his
own self-analysis strongly suggests that these jokes contained personally
meaningful messages. We could assume that significant discoveries about
Freud's character might be made by scrutinizing his jokes closely.
How then are we to proceed? Has the manuscript of jokes survived?
It seems not. The manuscript was most likely destroyed by Freud. For
all his purported self-revelations, Freud was a very private man. On
several occasions he burned papers, manuscripts, and cortespondence.
"Autos-da-fe" he called these holocausts, following the phraseology of
Heinrich Heine, who was also given to similar incinerations. 16 After
burning many of"his papers in April 1885, Freud wrote to his fiancee,
Martha Bernays: "All my thoughts and feelings about the world in
general and about myself in particular have been found unworthy of
further existence. . . . As for the biographers, let them worry, we have
no desire to make it too easy for them. Each of them will be right in his
opinion of 'The Development of the Hero,' and I am already looking

forward to seeing them go astray." 17 Certainly 1885 was a little early in
his career for Freud to be seriously worried about his biographers, and
there is undoubtedly a measure of irony in his comment. But it is also
noteworthy that in considering the possibility of biographers, Freud is
not concerned that they should portray him accurately. He would prefer
to maintain his privacy and allow his biographers to go astray.
In 1908 Freud once again burned a quantity of his papers, 18 and it is
likely that the joke manuscript was destroyed at this time. In 1937 when
Freud discovered that his correspondence with Wilhelm Fliess had been
preserved and was in the possession of Marie Bonaparte, Princess of
Greece and one of Freud's psychoanalytic disciples, he made every effort
to induce her to sell him those letters so they might be destroyed.
Fortunately, she was made of sterner stuff and the correspondence sur-
vived. It has even been published, though in severely edited form. 19 In
1938, just prior to leaving Vienna for London, Freud once again burned
a great deal of correspondence and manuscripts. 20
Given the private, even secretive, nature of Freud with regard to his
own biography, and given the destruction of the manuscript of Jewish
jokes he had compiled, how are we to proceed in the investigation of
Freud's character via his Jewish jokes? First, it should be noted that
despite Freud's autos-da-fe, a wealth of biographical data remains. It is
true th'at · much of this material has not yet been published, and the
published material has undergone considerable editing; yet Ernest Jones,
who wrote the three-volume "official" biography of Freud, The Life and
Work of Sigmund Freud, did have access to the unpublished materials.
He also was a friend and disciple of freud. Indeed, many of Freud's
disciples wrote memoirs that focused upon their relationship with Freud
and the founding of the psychoanalytic movement. Second, there is the
evidence in Freud's own works, particularly The Interpretation of Dreams
and The Psychopathology af Everyday Ufe that are perhaps the most au-
tobiographical of all of Freud's writings. 21 Despite the reluctance of
Freud's literary executors to make all the biographical information avail-
able, there is enough upon which to proceed, especially if it is read
carefully. Nor is the destruction of the manuscript of Jewish jokes insur-
mountable; it is still possible to build a reasonable description of many
of the Jewish jokes in Sigmund Freud's repertoire.
The point of departure for our inquiry is Jokes and Their Relation to
the Unconscious. First and foremost, it serves as a major data source for
Freud's own repertoire of jokes. It contains nearly two hundred jokes,
anecdotes, puns, witticisms, and riddles. Much of this humor is clearly
derived from the writings of such notables as Heinrich Heine, G. C.
Jokes and Freud 5

von Lichtenberg, Franz Brentano, and Karl Kraus, as Freud was always
punctilious in identifying creators or sources. But the volume also con·
tains many jokes with no such attributions, and a large portion are
Jewish jokes. These were undoubtedly from Freud's personal repertoire,
a selection from his manuscript. Of course, Jokes and Their Relation to
the Unconscious is not the only source available in the reconstruction of
Freud's repertoire of Jewish jokes. The body of his published works as
well as his personal correspondence include occasional Jewish anec·
dotes. Moreover, disciples have sometimes recalled in their memoirs not
only Freud's fondness for joke telling but the specific jokes that he would
relate as well. When all of these sources are taken into account, we
have a substantial body of Jewish jokes that clearly formed a component
of Freud's repertoire and that should prove sufficient as a data base for
our investigation of his character.
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious is also basic to our inquiry
for another reason: it provides not only a significant portion of our data,
but the framework for their interpretation as well. It was in this work
that Freud outlined a theory of humor that remains the single most
important perspective in the conceptualization and interpretation of
humor today.
The central ideas in Freud's treatise on jokes22 that are of concern
to our own investigation of his Jewish joke repertoire are, for the most
part, easily grasped and understood. In Jokes and Their Relation to the
Unconscious Freud carefully distinguishes between the technique of the
joke, which constitutes the joke's envelope or fac;ade, and the substance
of the joke, that is, the joke's underlying thought. These two aspects of
the joke are theoretically independent of one another. Inferior thoughts
may be ensconced in excellent fac;ades, and penetrating thoughts may
be expressed in jokes with a minimal technical apparatus. Freud at·
tempted to elucidate the technique of jokes by a process of "reduction,"
that is, the minimal transformation of a joke that maintains its under-
lying thought while destroying its value as a humorous communication.
This process of reduction allows for the separation and examination of
the joke's technique and thought as independent units. A "tendentious"
joke is one that can be reduced to an underlying inhibited thought, and
it is such jokes that prove to be of the greatest psychological significance
to a joke teller and the teller's audience. The joke technique comes to
the aid of the inhibited thought by circumventing the inhibition. The
technique diverts the attention and allows the censorship function to
relax. Then, as is characteristic of jokes, the forbidden thought is sud-
denly and abruptly expressed. It is too late for the censorship to react.

The energy that hari been directed to censoring the forbidden thoughts
has suddenly become superfluous and is discharged in the behavior of
laughter. Although the techniques of the joke may in themselves be
enjoyable and pleasurable, it is through the circumventing of the cen-
sorship and the expression of inhibited thoughts that the joke makes
available its deepest sources of pleasure. 23
Jokes, then, are psychical productions that are in many ways analo-
gous to dreams, and throughout Jokes and Their Relation to the Uncon-
scious Freud devotes a great deal of time to expounding upon this anal-
ogy. Yet Freud recognized that jokes and dreams were by no means
identical. Dreams are unintelligible and completely asocial. They have
nothing to communicate to anyone else, whereas joking is the most
social of mental functions and has a requisite condition of intelligibility.
Although jokes and dreams make use of the same techniques (e.g.,
condensation, indirect representation, displacement), the statuses of
these techniques differ. In jokes, the techniques are explicit and overt
and their opposition to accepted modes of conscious thought clearly
recognizable. In dreams, however, the techniques operate implicitly or
covertly in an effort to disguise the latent dream thought. Thus jokes
have a greater tendency to expose their underlying thoughts while dreams
tend to conceal them. 24 All in all, it would seem that the inhibited
thoughts underlying a person's jokes are considerably more accessible
than those underlying a person's dreams, especially when analyzed "at
a distance" without the benefit of the psychoanalytic interview.
We shall assume with Freud that underlying every joke is a discern-
ible thought and that all jokes may be reduced to their underlying
thoughts. Often the reduction of a joke to its underlying thought is
effortlessly effected. As Freud demonstrates, the thought underlying the
witty comment "I drove with him tete-d-bete" 25 is relatively clear. This
witticism employs the technique of condensation in which the phrase
tete-a-tete (in intimate conversation) is condensed with the idea of an
animal (bete). The condensation is successfully effected because of the
phonic similarity between tete and bete. By the mere shifting of a single
phoneme, the phrase tete·d-bete is formed and the two ideas are con-
joined. The underlying thought is that the speaker is in intimate con-
versation with someone whom he considers to be a stupid ass. By virtue
of the joke technique of condensation, two otherwise unfunny ideas
have been transformed into a worthy witticism. 26
In the tete·d-bete example, the underlying aggressive thought lies
very close to the surface of the witticism. Once the technique is even
superficially recognized, the thought emerges quite clearly. The basic
Jokes and Freud 7

thought in the following joke, however, is perhaps not quite so trans-
parent:
A horsedealer 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 do in Pressburg at half-
past six in the morning!" 27
Freud correctly described the displacement technique operating in

this joke. The horsedealer establishes a relationship between the hour
of the day and the city of Pressburg in order to demonstrate the swift·
ness of the horse. The buyer displaces this relational focus on to the
specifics of time and locale. But what is the thought that underlies this
joke! Freud does not discuss it. We may venture the following formula-
tion, however: What is the value of an efficient mode of transportation that
can only deliver one to an undesired destination, to a place where one does
not belong?
Although we may have identified the underlying joke thought, it is
still not clear what this joke is supposed to mean. The ability to analyze
a joke's technique and uncover its underlying thought does not in itself
seem to constitute a complete interpretation of the joke. In establishing
such an interpretation, the interpreter may be forced to investigate the
particular significance to the teller of the elements in the joke's content,
such as horses, riding, and Pressburg in the above example. In other
words, a complete interpretation demands not only the identification of
the joke thought but also a suggestion of the relationship between that
thought and the personality or circumstances of the teller.
Freud considerately provides a model for just such an interpretation
in his analysis of a witticism made by a character in one of Heinrich
Heine's books. In Part III of Reisebilder entitled "Die Bader von Lucca,"
Heine introduces the character Hirsch-Hyacinth of Hamburg, lottery
agent and extractor of corns, who boasts of his relationship with the
Baron Rothschild: "And, as true as God shall grant me all good things,
Doctor, I sat beside Salomon Rothschild and he treated me quite as his
equal-quite famillionairely. nZB freud described the technique at the
center of this joke: the two terms, "millionaire" (Millioniir) and "famil-
iarly" (familiar), are succinctly condensed in "famillionairely" (famil-
lioniir). The underlying thought, according to Freud, is that Rothschild
treated Hyacinth as an equal, quite familiarly, that is, as far as a mil-
lionaire can; which is to say not equally at all. 29
Freud went further with this joke, however. Freud argued that ac-

tually it was Heine who was speaking through the mouth of his charac-
ter Hirsch-Hyacinth. As the character Hirsch had changed his name to
Hyacinth (thus maintaining the utility of his signet ring with the letter
"H" inscribed on it), Heine with the same economy had changed his
name from Harry to Heinrich on the occasion of his baptism. Heine
also had a rich uncle named Salomon who played a very important part
in his life and who treated him as a poor relation, that is, "quite
famillionairely." As Freud concluded: "There is not a little evidence to
show how much Heine suffered both in his youth and later from this
rejection by his rich relations. It was from the soil of this subjective
emotion that the 'famillionairely' joke sprang. "30
It would seem clear that according to Freud, the fullest understand-
ing of this joke requires a linkage of the joke thought with the person-
ality of its teller. Curiously, however, this is the only instance in which
Freud links the thought underlying a joke with the circumstances of its
teller or creator. Nowhere else in Jokes and Their Relaticm to the Unccm-
scious, or in any of his other works for that matter, does Freud ever again
attempt such an interpretation. In fact, Freud actually cautions against
such interpretations:
The presence of similar subjective determinants may be suspected

in some other of the great scoffer's [Heine's) jokes: but I know of no
other in which this case can be demonstrated so convincingly. For
this reason it is not easy to try to make any more definite statement
about the nature of personal determinants. Indeed, we shall be
disinclined in general to claim such complicated determinants for
the origin of every individual joke. 31
It is one thing to claim that it is not easy to establish the personal

determinants of jokes. It is another to disclaim categorically that all
jokes have such personal motivations. It is yet another, however, to
desist from such joke-personality interpretations altogether. Freud has
analyzed the technique, substance, and personal significance of Heine's
"famillionairely" joke. He presents this most complete joke interpreta-
tion never to attempt another. Why? Granted there are numerous jokes
in the literature for which the personal data necessary for such interpre-
tations are unavailable. This is merely a technical problem. Surely in
the thousands of hours of analysis that Freud conducted with his pa-
tients witticisms and jokes were generated or retold where the personal
data were more than accessible and the personal determinants of such
joking transparent. It would seem that Freud was disinclined to make
Jokes and Freud 9

such examples available. Yet he constantly drew upon his analysands for
examples of dreams and symptomatic acts; why not jokes and witticisms
as well? 32
Of course, we must keep in mind that Freud's excursion into joke-
personality interpretation involved a joke that Heine himself had origi·
nated, not one he had merely retold. Jokes are usually not the creations
of the people who tell them. Most jokes are anonymous and are retold
by numerous others. One might expect that the distance between joke
and personality would be significantly enlarged when the joke is merely
retold than when the joke is a novel creation. It could be argued that
because jokes are so often socially 33 transmitted rather than indit~iduaUy
composed that Freud was loath to pursue the question of the personal
determinants of joking very far. Dreams and symptomatic acts, on the
other hand, are idiosyncratic. They are not social actions perpetrated
in a social context for social ends, and therefore Freud was right in
considering them as more likely to be personally revealing.
Although this distinction between jokes and dreams is real and
important, it does not seem sufficient to explain Freud's reluctance to
pursue the personal determinants of jokes. First, there are more than
enough examples of individually created jokes and witticisms, and the
determinants of such joking productions are open to investigation and
interpretation. Freud plainly demonstrates that such interpretations are
possible with his analysis of Heine's "famillionairely" joke. Second,
even when jokes are borrowed from an established social tradition and
retold, they should not be exempted automatically from questions con·
ceming personal motivation. Why does an individual teller happen to
remember this particular joke? Why choose to retell it? Why choose this
particular time to relate it and why to this particular audience? Beneath
even the most social of behaviors lurk substantive questions concerning
personal motivation. 34 Third, numerous psychoanalysts, including some
of Freud's own disciples, were sensitive to the diagnostic value of an
individual's favorite jokes. 35 Is it conceivable that Freud could have been
entirely indifferent to the personal involvement of an individual in
traditional jokes when such jokes were oft-repeated favorites, or as oc-
casionally occurred, formed primary associations to an individual's dreams?
Why, then, was Freud so reluctant to pursue the investigation of the
personal determinants of joking, particularly after he offered the titillat·
ing analysis of Heine's witticism. Did Freud avoid the investigation of
joke-personality relations and even caution against them because he
wished to distract attention from elements in his own personality that
might be revealed in his joke repertoire? Freud felt compelled to include

many of the jokes that appear in Jokes and Their Relation to the Uncon-
scious because they had been discussed by previous investigators, yet
many others were favorites from his own repertoire, individually selected
and personally admired. As Freud admitted:
We must not shirk the duty of analysing the same instances that
have already served the classical authorities on jokes. But it is our
intention to tum besides to fresh material so as to obtain a broader
foundation for our conclusions. It is natural that we should choose
as the subjects of our investigation examples of jokes by which we
ourselves have been most stntck in the course of our lives and which have
made us laugh the most. 36 (my emphasis)
We already know that Freud tried to keep his personal life as private
as possible. Freud's seeming indifference to joke-personality relation-
ships may actually indicate the opposite: that he considered such rela-
tionships prominent and frequent. His disinclination to pursue such
relationships, therefore, is no more than a dissimulation, a disguise of
the personal determinants that he sensed lay behind his otherwise un-
censored jokes.
But, as indicated earlier, Freud tended to use jokes as conversational
glosses. He did not tell them for their own sake but rather to advance
other aims-the illustration of some point or proposition. Does not this
use of jokes suggest a greater distance between the joke teller and the
underlying joke thoughts than would occur when jokes were simply told
and enjoyed for their own sake? We might agree with this assertion in
principle, but in Freud's case too much evidence suggests a strong joke-
personality nexus. In fact, we may even suspect that Freud restricted his
use of jokes to glosses in a deliberate attempt to distance himself from
the joke thoughts. His involvement in many of his jokes may have been
so substantial that he required this extra distance in addition to that
offered by the joke fa~_;ade. This hypothesis does not seem farfetched.
Actually, Ernest Jones substantiates it to a great extent when he de-
scribes Freud as giving the impression of being a "chaste" and "puritan-
ical" person who would relate sexual jokes "only when they had a special
point illustrating a general theme" (my emphasis)Y In other words,
Freud was reluctant to communicate certain kinds of thoughts, even in
joke form, unless they were set within the justifying framework of the
gloss, the heuristic analogy. Indeed, we may perhaps regard Jokes and
Their Relation to the Unconscious as one extended heuristic framework in
which Freud is able to publicly communicate his favorite jokes.
Jokes and Freud 11

In the following chapters we intend to concentrate upon only a
portion of Freud's repertoire, his Jewish jokes, which we expect to be
the most personally determined. Despite the fact that Freud himself did
not originate any of these jokes, there is every indication of his deep
and personal involvement in them. Certainly the most significant indi-
cation is his compilation of a manuscript of Jewish jokes during the
period of his self-analysis. The inclusion of so many Jewish jokes in Jokes
and Their Relation to the Unconscious as being ones that made him "laugh
the most" further conditions our expectation. The additional evidence
that Freud often identified with Jewish joke characters and that such
jokes could form associations to his dreams leads us to believe that, if
personal determinants for jokes exist, the Jewish jokes of Sigmund Freud
comprise as likely a repertoire as any in which such determinants can
be discovered.
All in all, what we hope to achieve in analyzing Freud's Jewish jokes
is much akin to what Freud essayed in his analysis of Heine's little
witticism, although our survey of jokes will be significantly more exten-
sive and our biographical investigation considerably more thorough.
Jokes, of course, are not the key to personality; 38 they are simply an-
other, though frequently untapped, source of personality data. As such,
our analysis of Freud's jokes should to some extent be informed by and
appear congruent with analyses derived from data in other domains. We
should be somewhat suspicious if our work generated conclusions that
were totally novel. Yet we would not be displeased to discover that
through the analysis of these jokes, certain aspects of Freud's personality
were defined more distinctly and appeared more sharply in focus.
The Jewish jokes in Freud's repertoire are not a haphazard ·compila-
tion, a disorganized potpourri. There is considerable redundancy in the
repertoire. A sizable collection of jokes is reducible to a fairly limited-
number of basic thematic categories, with the jokes in each category
expressing similar underlying thoughts. (We may also feel free to ex-
amine non-Jewish jokes when they are clearly related to one of these
thematic categories.) We shall now turn our attention to each of these
thematic groupings and attempt to lay bare the underlying thoughts and
examine their articulation with what is known about Freud from other
sources. None of these themes is primary; we may begin our investiga-
tion at any point. We have arbitrarily chosen to begin our inquiry with
those jokes that center about the popular figure of the Jewish beggar, or
as he is termed in Yiddish, the schnorrer.

2: The Schnorrer
Nur darum eben leiht er keinem,

Damit er stets zu geben habe.
(And that is why he lends to none,
That he may always have something to give.)
The character of the schnorrer, or beggar, figures prominently in Jewish

folklore and literature. Jokes and anecdotes concerning his behavior are
well represented in various anthologies of Jewish humor. 1 These schnor-
rer anecdotes tend 'to revolve around a single theme that is clearly
discernible in the examples from Freud's own repertoire.
A Schnorrer, who was allowed as a guest into the same house

every Sunday, appeared one day in the company of an unknown
young man who gave signs of being about to sit down to table.
"Who is this?" asked the householder. "He's been my son-in-law,"
was the reply, "since last week. I've promised him his board for the
first year. " 2
The schnorrer presumes upon the largess of his benefactor in order to

assume the role of benefactor to his new son-in-law. He does not ac-
knowledge his indebtedness-his dependence-to his charitable host
and treats his benefactor's wealth as if it were his own to dispense at
will.
In the next example, the protagonist is not a schnorrer proper but a
borrower who is in every respect congruent with the schnorrer figure.
An impoverished individual borrowed 25 florins from a prosperous

acquaintance, with many asseverations of his necessitous circum-
The Schnorrer 13
stances. The very same day his benefactor met him again in a
restaurant with a plate of salmon mayonnaise in front of him. The
benefactor reproached him: "What? You borrow money from me and
then order yourself salmon mayonnaise? Is that what you've used my
money for?" "I don't understand you," replied the object of the
attack: "if I haven't any money I can't eat salmon mayonnaise, and
if I have some money I mustn't eat salmon mayonnaise. Well, then,
when am I to eat salmon mayonnaise?" 3
Again the debtor fails to acknowledge his indebtedness and the conse-
quent responsibility to spend the borrowed funds only on the basic
necessities of living. The poor man's justification of his extravagant
expenditure is ludicrous because it ignores the implied obligation accom-
panying the loan of the funds.
This theme of the denial of indebtedness appears even in jokes that
are not characterized by Freud as explicitly "Jewish." The following joke
Freud cites in connection with his discussion of his dream of "Irma's
Injection" in The Interpretation of Dreams:
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 defense was: "First, I never borrowed a kettle
from B. at all; secondly, the kettle had a hole in it already when 1
got it from him; and thirdly, I gave him back the kettle undam-
aged."4
Again we see the denial of what is otherwise an obvious indebtedness.

Of course, each denial obviates the preceding one and thus affirms the
existence of the debt. In the two preceding examples, a debt is not
explicitly denied, but the behavior of the borrower or beggar reveals a
total absence of that sense of obligation we might recognize and suppose
would exist.
Now what of the relation of these jokes to Freud? It seems appropri·
ate to begin with an assessment of Freud's own financial situation. Freud
did not come from a wealthy family. His father was a merchant and, by
most accounts, not a very successful one. In his later years, it appears
that Freud's father did not produce any income for his family at all. s As
a student and during his tenure at the General Hospital of Vienna,
Freud was always severely strapped for funds. In his early student days,
his needs were modest as he lived and ate at home. But in May 1883,
he moved from his home to reside at the General Hospital where he had

been appointed to the position of Sekundiirarzt (resident). The previous
year Freud had become engaged to Martha Bernays, and he realized he
would have to watch his expenses very carefully if he ever hoped to
marry. (As it was, their engagement lasted for four and a half years
because there were insufficient funds to establish a household. ) Freud
kept careful accounts of his expenses. He sent any excess funds to
Martha to hold for him. 6 His letters to her during their engagement
bemoan his impoverished state and are filled with details of earnings
and expenditures. 7
In 1882 Freud was spending 1 gulden, 11 kreuzer (45 cents) on the
two meals that he took daily. Twenty-six kreuzer (10 cents) went for
cigars, which Freud considered a "scandalous amount." On one occa-
sion Freud was left with 4 kreuzer that had to last for three days until he
received his miserable salary from the hospital. Freud received 30 gulden
a month from the hospital and was also given a small room with a fire.
He earned small amounts for his abstracts of medical periodicals as well
as small payments from the very occasional private patient. Private
students and lecture-demonstrations paid relatively well, but these were
difficult to arrange and proved a very unsteady source of income. At the
same time, Freud was endeavoring to contribute a minimum of 10 gul-
den a month to support his family. 8
It does not require a great deal of calculation to conclude that
Freud's expenditures exceeded his earnings. Balancing the budget on a
day-to-day basis invariably involved borrowing. In Freud's case, we can
see a rather strong parallelism with the situation of the schnorrer in the
first joke. As Freud wrote to Martha in August of 1883:
I am going to tell you a funny little story but you mustn't be sorry
for me. When I got home I found a letter from a friend who fre-
quently comes to see me (privately), asking me to lend him another
gulden till the first of the month, to leave it with the janitor and if
I don't have a whole gulden then half a gulden, but at once; on the
first everything would be paid up. Well my entire fortune happened
to consist of four kreuzer, which I couldn't very well offer him. So I
decided that since my ordinary bankers were not at home, to waylay
a colleague who owes me some money. . . . But he couldn't be
found. . . . Fortunately another colleague appeared from whom I
borrowed a gulden in no time. But by then it was too late to send
part of it to the other friend. . . . If my debtor pays tomorrow he
shall have something. One day he and I will probably be rich, but
don't you think this is a funny kind of gypsy life, Marty? Or does
The Schnorrer 15
this sort of humor not appeal to you and make you weep over my
poveny?9
Not unlike the schnorrer-father-in-law in the joke, Freud must first seek
a benefactor in order to be able to provide for others. Furthermore, he
saw his situation in a humorous frame, albeit, a somewhat bitter one.
The kind of petty lending and borrowing described in the above
letter is common enough among medical students and interns even
today. But Freud had also developed a set of economic patrons of some
significance, and these patrons loaned or gave Freud substantial amounts
of money. These "bankers" of Freud included his old Hebrew teacher,
Samuel Hammerschlag; his colleagues at Briicke's Physiological Insti-
tute, Josef Paneth and Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow; and, most notably,
Josef Breuer. In January of 1884, Hammerschlag invited Freud to his
home and after describing his own situation of poverty in his youth, he
offered Freud the sum of fifty florins for his support. Wrote Freud to
Martha:
I intend to compensate for it by being charitable myself when I can

afford it. It is not the first time the old man has helped me in this
way; during my university years he often, unasked, helped me out of
a difficult situation. At first I felt very ashamed, but later, when I saw
that Breuer and he agreed in this respect, I accepted the idea of being
indebted to good men and those of our faith without the feeling af personal
obligation. Thus I was suddenly in the possession of fifty florins and
did not conceal from Hammerschlag my intention of spending it on
my family. He was very much against this idea, saying that I worked
very hard and could not at the moment afford to help other people,
but I did make it clear to him that I must spend at least half the
money in this way. 10 (my emphasis)
Note that Freud is at first "ashamed" of his former teacher's offer, and
then resolves to accept indebtedness to good men of his own faith
without feeling a sense of personal obligation. In this sentence we have
encapsulated the two trains of thought conjoined in the joke. Freud's
shame betrays his sense of indebtedness; on the other hand, he is
persuaded to accept charity from his Jewish benefactors without any
sense of obligation. In denying this sense of obligation, and against
Hammerschlag's advice, Freud again emulates the schnorrer-father-in-
law of the joke who uses the largess of his benefactor in order to play
the benefactor himself to the members of his family.

Ernst von Aeischl-Marxow regularly lent Freud sums of money. Fleisch!
died in 1891 without being fully repaid by Freud. 11 Josef Paneth also
made regular loans to Freud. In 1884, Paneth established a fund for
Freud of 1,500 gulden ($600) so that Freud might more quickly establish
a solid economic base and thus hasten the date of his marriage. The
interest from the account could be drawn upon by Freud to finance the
expensive visits to Martha, who was residing with her mother in Wands-
bek. Freud was also free to draw upon the principal as he saw fit. 12 Freud
wrote to Martha of this wonderful economic development: "Isn't it
wonderful that a wealthy man should mitigate the injustice of our poor
origins and the unfairness of his own favored position?" 13 Again Freud
betrayed the attitude of the schnorrers and borrowers in the jokes. He
treated the discrepancy between his own economic condition and that
of the wealthy Paneth as an "injustice." Freud's use of the funds without
a sense of obligation is only "fair." Paneth, like Fleischl-Marxow, died
prematurely in 1890. There was never an opportunity for Freud to repay
his debt. 14
We have explicit evidence that Freud viewed himself as something
of a schnorrer. In a letter to Fliess, Freud once characterized himself as
a schnorrer who had "allotted himself the province of Posen. " 15 Freud
also used to invent what he himself termed "Schnorrer phantasies":
little scenarios in which he imagined himself coming into large sums of
money. For example, when Freud was in Paris in 1885-86, he met the
Richettis, an Austrian physician and his wife. They were evidently quite
fond of him, and since they were childless, Freud was given to fantasiz-
ing about inheriting their considerable wealth. Another such fantasy
involved stopping a runaway horse and saving some great personage who
rode inside the carriage. Naturally, this personage would acknowledge
Freud's heroic deed with, "You are my savior-! owe my life to you!
What can I do for you?" 16 Such fantasies were truly "schnorrer fanta-
sies," for they implied no sense of indebtedness or obligation on Freud's
part.
It is important to recognize, however, that Freud's concern about
money never manifested itself in simple accumulation or glory in the
stuff. When Freud came into money, he tended to spend or distribute
it. In his later life, he liberally provided his children with money, and
he generously contributed to the support of needy friends and acquain-
tances. He delighted in giving gifts. 17 Freud's concern about money was
a concern about the social power it represented.
On the other hand, the gifts and loans that he received from his
benefactors generated in Freud feelings of indebtedness, dependence,
The Schnorrer 17
and resentment. It would seem that these feelings continued throughout
his life, despite the subsequent improvements in his economic situation.
Thirteen years after Freud married Martha he still complained to Fliess
of the helpless poverty he had known and his "constant fear of it. " 18 In
his final years, Freud undertook a training analysis of an American
psychiatrist, Joseph Wortis. Wortis was very much surprised by Freud's
"over-emphasis" of money matters. One time, when Wortis paid his
monthly bill he requested that Freud receipt it with the conventional
German phrase dankend solviert (liquidated with thanks). " 'Why with
thanks ... ?' Freud said. 'I give you something which is at least as
valuable as what you give to me.' " 19 Freud is unwilling to abide by the
etiquette of payment if it implies that he is in someone's debt. This
exchange took place in 1934. Fifty years earlier, in 1884, Freud had
written to Martha: "Oh girl I must become a rich man and then when
they want something they will have to come to me. " 20
It may prove worthwhile to review what has been established thus
far. First, Freud identified with the figure of the schnorrer. Second,
Freud's economic position was for many years a tenuous one in which
he, like the schnorrer, was repeatedly forced to accept gifts and loans
from his friends. Third, Freud resented the feelings of dependence that
resulted from this indebtedness. And fourth, Freud occasionally acted
in a manner, like the schnorrer, that tended to deny his indebtedness
and dependence.
This conflict can best be seen in Freud's relation to Josef Breuer.
Breuer, a respected and successful Jewish physician who had made some
important contributions in physiology, 21 was fourteen years Freud's se-
nior. By all accounts, he was an intelligent, sensitive, and generous
individual who grew very fond of Freud and took a strong interest in his
life as well as his career. Freud first met Breuer in the late 1870s. Their
relationship grew warm and intimate. Freud admired Breuer and referred
to him as "the ever-loyal Breuer" 22 to his fiancee. The Breuers were also
friends of the Hammerschlags and lived in the same building.
Like Hammerschlag, Fleischl-Marxow, and Paneth, Breuer was ex-
tremely generous in making loans to Freud, and such loans came in
almost regular installments. By May of 1884, Freud's debt was 1,000
gulden; by July of the following year, 1,500 gulden. Freud's total debt
eventually reached some 2,300 gulden, a staggering sum. Although
Freud jokingly commented, "It increases my self-respect to see how
much I am worth to anyone, "23 we shall see that there is good reason to
suspect otherwise.
It would seem that with Breuer, Freud was capable of playing the

classic schnorrer. For example, in 1884 Freud was planning a trip to
visit Martha in Wandsbek, and he asked Breuer for an extra fifty gulden
for his trip. Breuer refused Freud the amount, claiming that he would
only squander it on frivolous extravagances that he could ill afford.
Freud asked Breuer not to interfere with his "adventurous style of life,"
but the plea did not help. Wrote Freud: "It was really dear and intimate
of Breuer not only to refuse me, but to concern himself with my being
sensible, but all the same I am annoyed. " 24 Freud, like the consumer of
salmon mayonnaise, saw nothing wrong in indulging in extravagance
with borrowed funds. Breuer, it must be said, was considerably more
generous than the lenders in the jokes, for several days later he gave
Freud the fifty gulden, explaining that he merely wished to caution
Freud about his spending rather than to actually restrict it. 25
Breuer, of course, was more than an economic benefactor and con-
fidant. In 1882 Breuer introduced Freud to the case of Fraulein Anna
0. and the cathartic method, or the "talking cure" as Anna 0. herself
phrased it. 26 Thus Breuer was not only an economic patron but an
intellectual patron as well, providing Freud with the basic capital from
which to develop psychoanalysis. Freud eventually persuaded Breuer to
collaborate with him on Studies on Hysteria, in which Breuer docu-
mented the case of Anna 0. and Freud presented four cases from his
own practice. The book, published in 1895, commenced with an essay
they had coauthored in 1893, "On the Psychical Mechanism of Hyster-
ical Phenomena: A Preliminary Communication," followed by the five
case studies. Breuer contributed a theoretical chapter, and Freud wrote
a chapter on psychotherapy. Even before the work was published a rift
between the two men was growing. Freud had had to push Breuer to
collaborate on the preliminary communication in 1893, and in 1894,
Freud was beginning to dissociate himself from Breuer's theoretical
statement even prior to its publication. 27 The scientific difference in
opinion seemed to revolve around Freud's claim of a sexual etiology for
virtually all neuroses. The ever-cautious Breuer felt that this proposition
went way beyond the evidence, although he acknowledged that the
essential cause of every hysteria was sexual. 28
It is not quite clear, in any of the available accounts, how this
scientific difference conditioned the severe personal estrangement that
developed between the two men. Commentators seemed to agree that
the primary responsibility for the break was Freud's, 29 and that Breuer
would have liked nothing better than to maintain their previous inti·
mate relationship. Already in 1896, Freud was writing his friend Fliess
that the mere sight of Breuer "would make him want to emigrate. " 30
TheSchnoner 19
And there is the rather sad account of Breuer's daughter-in-law who
recalled walking with Breuer when he was already quite old (he died in
1925) and seeing Freud come toward them in the street: "Breuer instinc-
tively opened his arms. Freud passed by pretending not to see him. " 31 It
is hard to reconcile such hostile behavior with only a difference of
scientific opinion.
It would appear that the intensity of Freud's antipathy to Breuer
hinged upon Freud's debts, both financial and intellectual. When the
differences of scientific opinion developed, Freud wished to emancipate
himself totally from Breuer in both spheres, but the fact was that he
was bound by his indebtedness.
It was not until January of 1898 that Freud was able to send Breuer
an installment in payment of his financial debt. Breuer, however, would
not accept payment and attempted to write off Freud's debt against
medical services Freud was rendering to one of Breuer's relatives. Breuer
had always intended the money he gave Freud to be a gift rather than a
loan. 32 But for Freud, such a gift implied interminable indebtedness. In
1900 Freud was still complaining to his friend Fliess that he could not
break with Breuer completely because of the monetary debt. 33 The
payment of this debt in Freud's eyes was a prerequisite to his emancipa·
tion. Freud's response was complete avoidance.
In a thinly disguised reference to Breuer in The Psychopathology of
Everyday Life, Freud revealed: "Our intimate friendship later gave place
to a total estrangement; after that, I fell into the habit of also avoiding
the neighborhood and the house. . . . Money played a part [in certain
editions: "a great part") among the reasons for my estrangement from
the family living in this building." Freud provided this little history to
explain a case of forgetting; forgetting the location of a store that dis-
played strong boxes in its window. Although he knew that he had passed
this store many times, he was unable to locate it despite a thorough
search. Eventually he discovered that the store was in Breuer's neigh-
borhood and hence his motivation to forget. 34
That Freud owed Breuer an intellectual debt he was always scrupu-
lous to acknowledge in his published writings; although even here we
may detect a degree of ambivalence in the acknowledgment. For exam-
ple, in 1909, in delivering a series of lectures at Clark College in
Worcester, Massachusetts, Freud attributed the entire discovery of psy-
choanalysis to Breuer. "If it is a merit to have brought psycho-analysis
into being, that merit is not mine. I had no share in its earliest begin-
nings.... Another Viennese physician, Dr. Josef Breuer, first (1880-
2) made use of this procedure on a girl who was suffering from hyste-

ria. " 35 This generous treatment of Breuer always had something of the
character of a reaction formation, especially considering the vigorous
"critical opinions" that Freud held about him36 (opinions that neither
Jones nor the editors of Freud's letters saw fit to publish). However, in
1914, Freud was claiming the discovery of psychoanalysis for himself
and suggesting that his gratitude to Breuer in his previous lectures might
have been expressed "too extravagantly": "As I have long recognized
that to stir up contradiction and arouse bitterness is the inevitable fate
of psycho-analysis; I have come to the conclusion that I must be the
true originator of all that is particularly characteristic in it. I am happy
to be able to add that none of the efforts to minimize my part in creating
this much-abused analysis have ever come from Breuer himself or could
claim any support from him. "37 Freud does go on to credit Breuer with
the discovery of the cathartic method, but points out that it was he who
had urged Breuer to publish his findings and that this method was only
a preliminary stage of psychoanalysis. 38 It would seem that Freud's ex-
cessive indebtedness to Breuer is balanced by a desire to minimize his
obligation.
Breuer's case of Anna 0. was indeed a great discovery. But it was
Freud who was the creative inspiration in their collaborative efforts.
Even Breuer acknowledged it: "Freud's intellect is soaring at its highest.
I gaze after him as a hen at a hawk. "39 To have Breuer follow him in his
theories was a way of repaying his debt, of finally having Breuer depen-
dent upon him. Freud actually referred to the period of their collabora-
tion as the time Breuer "submitted to my influence. "40 But Breuer refused
to fol!,,w. He even attempted to refuse repayment of the loans. In
Freud's eyes this could only mean that Breuer could never accept a
dependent position and allow Freud to repay his debt.
Jones identifies the main point of reversal in Freud's feelings for
Breuer as the spring of 1896. 41 Freud's first attempt to repay his mone-
tary debt was in January of 1898. 42 Somewhere between 1896 and 1898
Freud had undertaken his collection of profound Jewish stories, the
schnorrer jokes prominently among them. The message of the schnorrer
jokes probably represented the unconscious wishes of Freud himself:
ignore the status of the benefactor and deny the responsibility for the
debt.
It is worthwhile to recall the joke about the borrowing of a copper
kettle mentioned earlier. In that joke, each denial of obligation contra-
dicted a previous denial and thus affirmed the existence of a debt. The
joke was cited by Freud in connection with his discussion of his dream
"Irma's Injection. "43 The dream is far too complex to review here in its
The Schnorrer 21
entirety, and the relation of the joke to the dream is somewhat tangen-
tial; that is, it is not a direct association to the content of the dream
hut a joking analogy employed by Freud to demonstrate the incompati·
bility, indeed the contradictory nature, of the various thoughts under-
lying his dream. He had this dream in July of 1895,+4 two months after
the publication of Studies on Hysteria. 45 According to Freud, the dream
concerned his own feelings of professional competence and expressed
the idea that it was not he but his colleagues who were responsible
for the persistence of his patient Irma's pains. Dr. M. (Breuer) was one
of the figures in the dream, and we learn that Freud was critical of Breuer
for refusing to accept a suggestion Freud made to him46 and also for
refusing to concur with Freud's own conclusions concerning the uncon-
scious motivations of Irma's symptoms. 47 In other words, the joke about
the denial of indebtedness is clearly associated with Freud's thoughts
about Breuer's inability to follow him and be dependent upon him.
It is now possible to see the relationship of another of Freud's Jewish
jokes to his personality. The joke is not a schnorrer joke proper, but the
underlying thought articulates perfectly with those of the schnorrer
series:
ltzig had been declared fit for military service in the artillery. He
was clearly an intelligent lad, but intractable and without any inter-
est in the service. One of his superior officers who was ftiendlily
disposed to him, took him on one side and said to him: "ltzig,
you're no use to us. I'll give you a piece of advice: buy yourself a
cannon and make yourself independent. "48
In his discussion of this joke in Jokes and Their Relation to the Uncon-
scious, Freud soberly observed that an individual cannot make himself
independent in the military where subordination and cooperation are
the rule. He noted that the senior officer's advice was patently nonsen-
sical in order to demonstrate that the requirements of military life are
not the same as those of the world of business. 49 The joke is nonsensical,
however, in the same way that the schnorrer jokes are nonsensical. The
schnorrer's behavior ignores the reality of his debt; the officer in this
joke urges ltzig to make himself "independent," even though the situa-
tion in which he is instructed to do so is manifestly inappropriate. To a
great extent, the thought underlying the schnorrer jokes is iterated once
again: ignore your obligation! make yourself independent! This is just
the way Freud wished he could behave.
There is another level at which the schnorrer jokes may be under-

stood in relation to Freud's personality apart from considerations of
indebtedness. We must first recall that the majority of these jokes are
"Jewish jokes" and that this identification is not an irrelevant one.
Second, that the "Jewish" aspect of these jokes for Freud was revealed
in his own interpretative commentary: "The truth that lies behind is
that the Schnorrer, who in his thoughts treats the rich man's money as
his own, has actually, according to the sacred ordinance of the Jews,
almost a right to make this confusion. The indignation raised by this
joke is of course directed against a Law which is highly oppressive even
to pious people. " 50
Freud was correct to point out that the giving of charity is a com-
mandment in Jewish law rather than a spontaneous manifestation of
generosity. But Freud was wrong to assume that this was the basic "truth"
of the joke, for the joke may be fully understood and appreciated by
those who are ignorant of the Jewish legal injunctions to charity. How·
ever, it is obvious that Jewish law played an important part in establish-
ing the truth of the joke for Freud, and we shall not be in error if we
consider it an association (similar to an association made by a patient
to his dream) made by Freud to the joke's contents. With this associa-
tion, the interpretation of the schnorrer jokes takes on a new dimen-
sion. The debt that existed but that Freud unconsciously wanted to
deny was not simply a monetary and intellectual debt to Josef Breuer,
but a much larger debt-the debt to the law, to his Jewish heritage. As
with his debt to Breuer, Freud was always scrupulously correct in ac-
knowledging his debt to his people, but this correctness may again belie
a deeper emotional conflict about his Jewish identity.
We should recall Heine's "famillionairely" joke discussed in the
previous chapter. Although it does not involve a schnorrer, it deals with
a poor man's relations with a wealthy baron. We have observed that it
is the only joke in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious that Freud
attempts to relate to individual personality determinants. It is also one
of the jokes most frequently referred to in the work and thus merits
special attention.
Freud pointed out how the character Hirsch's change of name to
Hyacinth paralleled Heine's change of name from Harry to Heinrich.
But Freud also changed his name. He was born Sigismund and only
later altered his name to Sigmund! There does not seem to be a great
deal of consensus as to when this name change took place. In a letter
written to his half-brother Emmanuel in England in 1863, he signed his
name "Sigismund. " 51 He was registered in the school roll at the Leo·
poldstadter Real- und Obergymnasium in 1865 also as "Sigismund."52
TheSchnonrer 23
In the annual report of the Gymnasium for 18 71 he was listed as "Sig·
mund," 53 yet in 1872 in writing to his friend Emil Fliiss he still signed
his name "Sigismund. " 54 There are several commentators who date his
name change to 1878, although they provide no documentary support
for their assertion. 55 The commemorative page in the family Bible shows
both a Hebrew and German inscription at Freud's birth. In the Hebrew,
Freud's name is clearly "Schlomo Sigismund"; in the German transla-
tion it is "Sigmund. " 56 Perhaps the German is a later translation of the
Hebrew commemorative page. Or Freud may have had two names as·
signed to him at birth. The first, "Schlomo Sigismund," was his Hebrew
name, and Sigismund was used by the family. Perhaps the ;erman
translation "Sigmund" might have been intended for more pub~ •.:· uses.
In any event, it would seem that for the first fourteen years of his life
Freud was called "Sigismund" and only later adopted for permanent
usage .the name "Sigmund." The reasons and date for this adoption are
not clear, but it would appear to be earlier than the 1878 date subscribed
to by most biographers.
It must also be noted that Freud's Hebrew name was "Schlomo,"
which is the Hebrew equivalent of Salomon, the name of the million-
aire baron in Heine's joke. Furthermore, Heine came to grief over his
unrequited love for his uncle Salomon's daughter Amalie, 57 and "Amalie"
was the name of Freud's mother. There are coincidences here that
cannot be ignored. It would seem that the "famillionairely" joke was as
personally significant for Freud as he claimed it to have been for Heine.
Heine changed his name on the occasion of his baptism. 58 Might
not Freud's own "change of name" have held a similar significance: the
desire to escape his Jewish origins and merge with the society of Chris-
tian Europe? Ar: observation by Friedrich Heer, Dramaturg to the Burg-
theater in Vienna, confirms this view. Heer notes that Freud probably
changed his name because Sigismund was a stereotypic Jewish character in
Viennese anti-Jewish jokes. 59 It would seem that Freud was attempting to
escape an association with a reviled Jewish caricature to which his name
ascribed him.
There is yet other evidence to support the contention that the
"famillionairely" joke was personally significant to Freud and implied
thoughts of conversion and assimilation. 60 First of all, this joke revolves
around the problem of money (or more accurately the absence of money)
as do the jokes in the schnorrer series. And it was precisely on the
question of money that Heine's own baptism hinged. For many years,
his uncle Salomon had been his benefactor. 61 At the point of complet·
ing his degree in law at the University of Gottingen, Heine was con·
cerned for his future career and livelihood. He trusted that his conver-

sion would open up possibilities for employment at the university or in
government, as Jews were excluded from such positions. 62 As only Heine
would put it: "If one could lawfully steal silver spoons I would not have
been christened. "63
Ernest Jones also informs us that when Freud visited Paris in 1885-
86, he made a visit to Pere Lachaise cemetery. He looked for only two
graves: One was that of Heinrich Heine, the other of Ludwig Borne.
Ludwig Borne was a contemporary of Heine's and, like Heine, had been
an exile in Paris. Both writers had considerable influence in German
letters. Freud had received a collection of Borne's essays as a thirteenth
birthday present, and they made a strong impression on him. In his
later years, Freud came to suspect that a number of his psychoanalytic
ideas may have been shaped by Borne. 64 More to the point here, how-
ever, is that Ludwig Borne was born Lob Baruch in a ghetto of Frank-
furt. He changed his name to Ludwig Borne on the occasion of his
baptism, and, like Heine and his character Hyacinth, he economized
by keeping the same initials. 65
There are many jokes and witticisms by Heine included in Jokes and
Their Relation to the Unconscious, but there are only three that purport
to be about Heine. One is the "famillionairely" joke, which, although
not explicitly about Heine, Freud personalized with his own unique
analysis. Another joke about Heine revolves around the figure of a
wealthy man:
The story is told of Heine that he was in a Paris salon one evening
conversing with the dramatist Soulie, when there came into the
room one of those financial kings of Paris whom people compare
with Midas-and not merely on account of their wealth. He was
soon surrounded by a crowd who treated him with the greatest
deference. "Look there!" Soulie remarked to Heine, "Look at the
way the nineteenth century is worshipping the Golden Calf!" With
a glance at the object of so much admiration, Heine replied, as
though by way of correction: "Oh, he must be older than that by
now!"66
The prominent image in this joke is the Golden Calf-the worship that
was an abomination to the law brought by Moses to the Jews at Sinai.
The last anecdote about Heine concerns his death:
Heine is said to have made a definitely blasphemous joke on his

death-bed. When a friendly priest reminded him of God's mercy
and gave him hope that God would forgive his sins, he is said to
The Schnorrer 25
have replied: "Bien sur qu'il me pardonnera: c'est son metier" (Of
course he'll forgive me: that's his job]. 67
For Freud, Heine was an important author, and along with Goethe,
Schiller, and Lessing, was frequently quoted in his works. But the sig-
nificance of Heine the man to Freud is perhaps best glimpsed through
these jokes. Each of Freud's jokes concerning Heine confront or allude
to conversion, religious abomination, and blasphemy. It now seems
noteworthy that Freud, like Heine, referred to the burning of his papers
as "autos-da-fe." The auto-da-fe means "act of faith" and referred to the
ceremony in which the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal publicly con·
demned heretics and turned them over to the civil authorities for exe-
cution at the stake. 68
Consciously, Freud was loyal to his Jewish heritage. There are nu·
merous occasions on which he affirmed this loyalty publicly. But there
was undoubtedly a strong impulse urging him to renounce this heritage.
Yet, Freud sensed that conversion was not a solution to his dilemma.
After all, that lesson could be learned from Heine: "I am very sorry I
was christened; I do not see that things have gone any better with me
since; on the contrary, I have had nothing but ill luck from that time.
Is it not foolish? No sooner have I been christened than I am cried
down as a Jew. "69 Like Heine, Freud must have felt as though he be-
longed to two worlds, and there was no way he could successfully re-
nounce either of them. Heine was his mirror image with only the
baptismal font separating them.

3: The Schadchen
Was Priigel sind, das weiss man schon; was aber die
Liebe ist, das hat noch keiner herausgebracht.
(Everyone knows what whippings are; but no one
has yet made out what love is.)
Heinrich Heine, Reisebilder
Perhaps the largest series of jokes on a single theme in Jokes and Their
Relation to the Unconscious is the one concerned with marriage, and
most of these jokes concern the Jewish marriage broker or schadchen. 1
The schadchen jokes are almost all of two types. In one type, the
matchmaker attempts to convince the prospective bridegroom of the
attractiveness of his match, but in his unrestrained praise of the woman
and her family, he simultaneously reveals the existence of some funda-
mental flaw:
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!"-"lt's true there
is one thing," admitted the broker, "she has a small hump. "-"And
what a hump!" the echo confirmed once more. 2
In the other type of schadchen joke, the flaw is already obvious, and
the schadchen employs sophistic arguments in an attempt to mitigate
the flaw or turn it into a virtue:
The would-be bridegroom complained that the bride had one

leg shorter than the other and limped. The Schadchen contradicted
The Schadehen 27
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. "3
It is not the marriage broker who is the target in these jokes, accord-
ing to Freud: "The jokes only put forward the marriage-brokers in order
to strike at something more important. "4 The real objects of the schadchen
jokes for Freud were the institution of arranged marriages and the insti-
tution of marriage itself. 5 To a certain extent, we may accept Freud's
comments at face value, although we shall see that they perhaps overly
divert our attention from that focal figure of the Jewish marriage broker.
Freud followed this discussion of the schadchen jokes with another
joke about marriage that he first saw in a Vienna jest-book: "A wife is
like an umbrella-sooner or later one takes a cab. "6 As Freud remarked,
one marries in order to satisfy one's sexual passions, but it often happens
that "marriage does not allow of the satisfaction of needs that are
somewhat stronger than usual. . . . One must look for stronger protec-
tion. " 7 A wife is like an umbrella, therefore, in that she is capable of
satisfying rather modest sexual needs as an umbrella is capable of pro-
tecting the individual against modest rainstorms. But in a severe storm
one takes a cab; that is, with a severe outbreak of sexuality, one looks
for a public vehicle, a woman who is available in exchange for money. 8
On the basis of a perusal of these joke texts alone, one might suspect
that the object of cynicism in these jokes was Freud's own marriage.
Ernest Jones's description of Freud's marriage, however, does not im-
mediately evidence this view:
His wife was assuredly the only woman in Freud's love life, and
she always came first before all other mortals. While it is likely that
the mare passionate side of married life subsided with him earlier than it
does with many men-indeed we know this in so many words-it was
replaced by an unshakable devotion and perfect harmony of under-
standing. In his letters to her when on holiday he constantly ex-
pressed his thoughts about her and showed her the most delicate
consideration. 9 (my emphasis)
As we noted in chapter 2, it is precisely when Freud seems to be

behaving most correctly that we may begin to suspect a conflict of the
most violent forces. Despite Jones's assurances to the contrary, the

schadchen jokes encourage us to investigate Freud's marital situation
with particular attention to Jones's casual reference to the premature
ebbing of Freud's sexual passions.
Freud married Martha Bernays in September 1886 after an engage-
ment of more than four years. The first of his six children was born in
October of 1887, and his last child was born in December of 1895. It
was during the period of Martha's last pregnancy in July 1895 that Freud
first analyzed one of his own dreams ("Irma's Injection"). 10 We suspect
that following the birth of his children and coincident with the begin-
ning of Freud's most creative period of writing and research, there was
a general withdrawal of Freud's libido from the object of Martha and a
redirection of his energies to the development of psychoanalysis. It is
likely that Freud was describing his own situation in Civilization and Its
Discontents when he pointed out that
women soon come into opposition to civilization and display their

retarding influence. . . . Women represent the interests of family
and sexual life. The work of civilization has become increasingly the
business of men. . . . Since a man does not have unlimited quan-
tities of psychical energy at his disposal, he has to accomplish his
tasks by making an expedient distribution of his libido. What he
employs for cultural aims he to a great extent withdraws from women
and sexual life. His constant association with men, and his depen-
dence upon his relation with them, even estrange him from his
duties as husband and father. 11
It should be noted that the period of Freud's self-analysis and the start
of his most creative research and publication was also the time of his
most passionate relationship with his friend Wilhelm Fliess. 12
In several letters to Fliess just prior to the publication of The Inter-
pretation of Dreams, Freud refers to a joke involving both the theme of
replacement of his wife by the concerns of psychoanalysis and the theme
of hostility toward his wife:
Uncle Jonas meets his nephew who has heard of his engagement
and congratulates him. "And what is your fiancee like uncle?" he
asks. "Well, that's a matter of taste, but personally I don't like
her!" 13
Freud used this anecdote to illustrate his reactions to the first signatures
of The Interpretation of Dreams that he received from the printer. His
selection of the metaphor of a fiancee for his psychoanalytic research
The Schadchen 29
suggests the transfer of his libido from Martha to his "new wife-to-be"-
psychoanalysis. And yet the hostility of the old relationship seems to
carry over: "Personally, I don't like her."
It would seem that this conflict between marriage and career is
played out in another anecdote as well. In a letter written to Fliess a
month prior to the "Uncle Jonas" anecdote, Freud discussed his di-
lemma concerning the protection of his privacy in his forthcoming The
Interpretation of Dreams:
1 have decided that all efforts at disguise will not do and that giving
it all up will not do either, because I cannot afford to keep to myself
the finest-and probably the only lasting-discovery I have made.
In this dilemma I have followed the rabbi's line in the story of
the cock and the hen. Do you know it? A man and a wife who
owned one cock and one hen decided to celebrate a festival by
having a fowl for dinner, but they could not make up their
mind which to kill, so they consulted the rabbi. "Rabbi, what
are we to do, we've only one cock and one hen. If we kill the
cock, the hen will pine, and if we kill the hen the cock will
pine. But we want to have a fowl for dinner on the festival.
Rabbi, what are we to do?" "Well, kill the cock," the rabbi
said. "But then the hen will pine." "Yes that's true; then kill
the hen." "But rabbi, then the cock will pine." "Let it pine," said
the rabbi. 14
Perhaps it would not be overextending our interpretation to suggest that

the allocation of Freud's libido between wife and work is resolved in this
comic parable. In fact, he used the anecdote to illustrate precisely this
conflict between his private life and his public, scientific one. In order
to make contributions to the understanding of the human psyche, Freud's
private life would have to be ignored; that is, his sexual energies must
be displaced from females to psychoanalysis. In terms of the anecdote,
the hen (the female as object) must die, in which case the cock (der
Hahn) will assuredly pine!
Jones's remark that "the passionate side of Freud's marriage" sub-
sided early is footnoted with a reference to a letter written by Freud to
Emma Jung in November of 1911 15 when Freud was fifty-five years old.
Yet it is clear that Freud's sexual passions had subsided at least ten years
earlier (and probably some time before that). For in The Psychopatlwlogy
of Everyday Ufe, published in 1901, Freud reports an incident in which,
to his great surprise, his sexual impulses were aroused:

In the house of some friends I met a young girl who was staying
there as a guest and who aroused a feeling of pleasure in me which I
had long thought was extinct. As a result I was in a jovial, talkative
and obliging mood. At the time I also endeavoured to discover how
this came about; a year before, the same girl had made no impression
on me. As the girl's uncle, a very old gentleman, entered the room,
we both jumped to our feet to bring him a chair that was standing
in the comer. She was nimbler than I was and, I think, nearer to
the object; so she took hold of the chair first and carried it in front
of her with its back towards her, gripping the sides of the seat with
both hands. As I got there later, but still stuck to my intention of
carrying the chair, I suddenly found myself standing directly behind
her, and throwing my arms around her from behind; and for a
moment my hands met in front of her waist. I naturally got out of
the situation as rapidly as it had arisen. Nor does it seem to have
struck anyone how dexterously I had taken advantage of this clumsy
movement. 16 (my emphasis}
It is not clear from this account how long Freud considered his sexual
passions to have been extinct, but a period of five or six years would
confirm our hypothesis of 1895 or 1896: the beginning of his scientific
creativity.
In both The Interpretation of Dreams and The Psychopathology of Ev~
eryday Ufe Freud reveals incidents of unconscious aggression toward his
wife. In his analysis of his dream "The Botanical Monograph," Freud
recalls seeing a new book in a bookshop window on The Genus Cyclamen
the morning of the dream day. "Cyclamen . . . were my wife's faoourite
flowers and I reproached myself for so rarely remembering to bring her
flowers, which was what she liked. " 17 Freud, on the other hand, rarely
forgot to bring flowers to his mother. 18 Freud further associates the
botanical monograph in the dream with his own monograph On Coca.
It was Freud's research on coca that first drew his colleague Carl Koller's
attention to the anesthetic properties of the plant and subsequently
made Koller famous for his use of cocaine in ophthalmological surgery. 19
Had Freud taken those few extra steps in his research on cocaine, the
fame that accrued to Koller would have been his. What is particularly
striking, however, is that Freud blamed Martha for his failure to make
this important discovery. As Freud wrote in An Autobiographical Study
in 1924:
I may here go back a little and explain how it was the fault of
The Schadchen 31
my fiancee that I was not already famous at a youthful age. A side
interest, though a deep one, had led me in 1884 to obtain from
Merck some of what was then the little-known alkaloid cocaine and
to study its physiological action. While I was in the middle of this
work, an opportunity arose for making a journey to visit my fiancee,
from whom I had been parted for two years. I hastily wound up my
investigation of cocaine and contented myself in my monograph on
the subject with prophesying that further uses for it would soon be
found. I suggested, however, to my friend Konigstein, the ophthal-
mologist, that he should investigate the question of how far the
anaesthetizing properties of cocaine were applicable in diseases of
the eye. When I returned from my holiday I found that not he, but
another of my friends, Carl Koller (now in New York), whom I had
also spoken to about cocaine, had made the decisive experiments
upon animal's eyes and had demonstrated them at the Ophthalmo-
logical Congress at Heidelberg. Koller is therefore rightly regarded
as the discoverer of local anasthesia by cocaine, which has become
so important in minor surgery; but I bore my fiancee no grudge for
the interruption. 20
It is clear that Freud is somewhat disappointed that he was unable to

achieve world fame in his youth-especially when it lay within his
grasp. And it is certainly questionable that Freud bore Martha no grudge,
at least on an unconscious level; after all, he still finds it necessary to
discuss Martha in the context of his failure forty years after the incident
occurred. 21 Overall, it would seem that our initial hypothesis first sug-
gested by the jokes stands confirmed: as early as 1885, Freud saw an
antithesis between his sexual life and his scientific creativity, and the
increasing disposition of his energies over the following ten or eleven
years was in the direction of his creativity.
There are other indications of Freud's underlying antipathy toward
his wife. Freud once forgot the name of the street that Martha lived on
when she was his fiancee; 22 and Freud once arrived at the theater too
late to pick up his wife, although he maintained that he had arrived at
the appropriate hour (but he was then betrayed by a slip of the tongue). 23
As early as 1886, Freud revealed to Martha in a letter that twice in the
presence of the "beautiful and interesting" wife of one of his patients,
Martha's picture, which had "otherwise never budged," fell off the
writing table. 24 Perhaps we should not make too much of these seem-
ingly trivial details, but after all, it is Freud who first directed our
attention to them:

A lover who has failed to keep a rendezvous will find it useless to
make excuses for himself by telling the lady that unfortunately he
completely forgot about it. . . . The lady is not of course wanting
to deny the possibility of forgetting; it is only that she believes, not
without reason, that practically the same inference-of there being
some reluctance present-can be drawn from unintentional forget·
ting as from conscious evasion. 25
In his essay "The Uncanny," Freud describes an uncanny feeling

that overcame him during one of his holidays in Italy that attests to the
occasional reemergence of sexual interests that he assumed were extinct:
As I was walking, one hot summer afternoon, through the deserted

streets of a provincial town in Italy which was unknown to me, I
found myself in a quarter of whose character I could no longer
remain in doubt. Nothing but painted women were to be seen at
the windows of the small houses, and I hastened to leave the narrow
street at the next turning. But after having wandered about for a
time without enquiring my way, I suddenly found myself back in the
same street, where my presence was now beginning to excite atten-
tion. I hurried away once more, only to arrive by another detour at
the same place yet a third time. Now, however, a feeling overcame
me which I can only describe as uncanny, and I was glad enough to
find myself back at the piazza I had left a short while before, without
any further voyages of discovery. 26
Freud insists upon treating his repeated arrivals at the same narrow street
as an instance of the uncanny. It is properly a parapraxis, however, a
symptomatic act. Freud's sexual impulses were obviously once again
aroused during this Italian holiday as they had been aroused by that
young girl in the house of a friend. It was only for Martha, his enduring
and lifelong companion, that his sexual impulses were "long extinct."
Freud's most significant parapraxis with respect to Martha is neither
recorded nor analyzed in The Psychopathology of Everyday Ufe. Shortly
after their secret engagement, Freud broke the ring that Martha had
given him. During a minor throat operation to relieve an anginal swell-
ing, Freud banged his hand down on the table and broke the ring. The
ring was repaired, but a year later (again during an anginal attack),
Freud again broke the ring and the pearl was lost. 21 Freud confessed the
ring breaking to Martha in a letter, although he was unable to exclude
a subtle accusation that it somehow might have been Martha's fault:
The Schadchen 33
Now I have a tragically serious question for you. Answer me on
your honor and conscience whether at eleven o'clock last Thursday
you happened to be less fond of me, or more than usually annoyed
with me, or perhaps even "untrue" to me-as the song has it. Why
this tasteless ceremonious conjuration? Because I have a good oppor·
tunity to put an end to a superstition. At the moment in question
my ring broke where the pearl is set in. 28 (my emphasis)
Note Freud's quasi-superstitious reaction to the event. Although he

did not choose to discuss this example in The Psychopathology of Everyday
Ufe, he did discuss the significance of such bungled actions: "Chance
actions and symptomatic acts occurring in matrimonial matters often
have the most serious significance and might induce people who disregard
the psychology of the unconscious to believe in omens. It is not a happy
beginning when a young bride loses her wedding-ring on the honey·
moon" (my emphasis). 29 It would seem that in this brief paragraph Freud
has aptly described his own symptom complete with the tendency to·
ward superstitious interpretation. It is also interesting that in his hypo·
thetical example it is the wife who loses her ring, rather than the hus·
band who acts destructively in relation to the symbol of the matrimonial
bond.
If, however, this parapraxis and its significance fails to be discussed
in The Psychopathology of Everyday Ufe, it may be argued that an allusion
to it is made in a joke in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious:
A young man who had hitherto led a gay life abroad paid a call,
after a considerable absence, on a friend living here. The latter was
surprised to see an Ehering [wedding ring] on his visitor's hand.
"What," he exclaimed, "are you married?" "Yes," was the reply,
"Trauring but true. " 30
Trauring is also a term for wedding ring; but the humor of the anecdote
lies in the similarity of the phrase ·"Trauring aber wahr" to "Traurig aber
wahr" ("Sad but true"). Thus, the negative attitude toward the ring
as a symbol of marriage as exhibited in Freud's ring-breaking para·
praxis is mirrored in the negative attitude toward the ring in the
humorous anecdote.
In keeping with the hypothesis that Freud withdrew his energies
from Martha and invested them in psychoanalysis is Freud's behavior at
the time of the formation of "The Committee" in 1913. At that time,
defections had begun to plague the International Psycho-Analytical

Association; Freud's relations with its president, Carl Gustav Jung, were
severely strained; and Freud was beginning to have genuine concerns
about the survival of the movement. Jones proposed the organization of
a select group of analysts faithful to Freud who would oversee the move-
ment and serve as defenders of the cause. They would promote the
development of psychoanalysis internationally while preserving the in-
tegrity of the fundamental tenets of psychoanalytic theory. The exis-
tence of the Committee was to remain a secret. There were five original
members: Karl Abraham, Ernest Jones, Sandor Ferenczi, Otto Rank,
and Hanns Sachs. (Several years later Max Eitingon also became a
member.) At the first meeting of the full committee, Freud celebrated
the event by presenting each of the members with a ring set with a
Greek intaglio from his collection of antiquities. Freud himself wore
such a ring with an intaglio of the head of Jupiter. Thus Freud, who
repeatedly broke that first ring that linked him to Martha, eventually
presented rings to the men who were to serve as the guardians of his
scientific discoveries. 31
Samuel Rosenberg has called attention to a very interesting associa-
tion made by Freud during the early period of his engagement that
may serve as the basis for an expansion of the meaning of Freud's
ring-breaking episode. 32 Two days after their engagement, Freud
wrote to Martha and told of the disposition of the photograph she
had given him:
I knew it was only after you had gone that I would realize the
full extent of my happiness and, alas! the degree of my loss as well.
I still cannot grasp it, and if that elegant little box and that sweet
picture were not lying in front of me, I would think that it was all a
beguiling dream and be afraid to wake up.
I would so much like to give the picture a place among my
household gods that hang above my desk, but while I can display
the severe faces of the men I revere, the delicate face of the girl I
have to hide and lock away. It lies in your little box and I hardly
dare confess how often during the past twenty-four hours I have
locked my door and taken it out to refresh my memory.
And all the while I kept thinking that somewhere I had read
about a man who carried his sweetheart about with him in a little
box, and having racked my brain for a long time I realized that it
must be "The New Melusina," the fairy tale in Goethe's Wilhelm
Meister's Wanderings, which I remembered only vaguely. For the first
time in years I took down the book and found my suspicions con-
The Schadchen 35
firmed. But I found more than I was looking far. The most tantalizing
superficial allusions kept appearing here and there, behind the story's
every feature lurked a reference to ourselves, and when I remembered
what store my girl sets by being taller than she is I had to throw the
book away, half amused, half annoyed, and comfort myself with the
thought that my Martha is not a mermaid but a lovely human being.
As yet we don't see humor in the same things, which is why you
may possibly be disappointed when you read this little story. And I
would prefer not to teU you aU the crazY and serious thoughts that crossed
my mind when reading it. 33 (my emphasis)
The Melusina legend is something of an analogue to the tale of

Cupid and Psyche. 34 The legend involves a man who marries a mermaid
on the condition that he grant her a twenty-four-hour period of com-
plete privacy every Saturday. He accedes to her wishes until he is in-
duced to spy upon her, and he observes her at her bath in mermaid
form. When Melusina becomes aware of the violation of their contract,
the union is dissolved, despite the man's deep love for his mer-wife. 35
Goethe's "The New Melusina" bears only a modicum of resemblance
to the traditional legend. In Goethe's tale, a young vagrant without
means named Redcloak encounters a beautiful woman at an inn. He is
enchanted with her, falls in love, and agrees to enter her service. He is
assigned to guard a box in her possession with the utmost care and to
continue to travel in her coach until she rejoins him at another way
station. He is allotted ample money for his travels, but he soon squan-
ders it. One night, while sitting in the coach, he sees a light emerging
from a chink in the box, and thinking that it might contain gemstones,
he peeks in only to see his mistress in miniature form dwelling in an
ornate apartment within the box. When she next appears to him, he
confronts her with his discovery. She consents to continue to be his
loving companion if he promises never to mention his discovery by way
of reproach. He agrees and they spend much time together attending
parties in town where his mistress, Melusina, is a great favorite for her
ability to play the lute and sing. He, however, cannot abide music, and
at one party he drinks too much and in his anger shouts insults that
refer to dwarfs and mermaids during her performance. After the party,
she states that they must part. He regrets his action and pleads with her
to stay. She relates that she is of the race of King Eckwald, sovereign of
the dwarfs, and that because of inbreeding the race has been shrinking
in size. Melusina had been sent into the race of men to beget a child
with a noble knight. She must return to her people, but Redcloak may

follow her if he would consent to grow smaller. In his love, he agrees,
and she places a ring upon his little finger and he shrinks to the size of
the dwarfs. They enter the box, which in reality is the royal palace,
where they are warmly greeted by King Eckwald. A wedding is arranged,
but the hero is discomfited by the thought of marriage. After it takes
place, Redcloak finds himself restless to resume his former situation and
stature. He files through the ring on his little finger and grows to his
former size. Before long he finds himself without funds approaching the
same inn where he first met the beautiful Melusina. 36
Rosenberg correctly identified several points of similarity between
Freud's relationship to Martha and Goethe's romance. 37 Like the hero,
Freud had an aversion to music, 36 and he regularly referred to Martha as
his "princess. " 39 Freud wore Martha's ring on his little finger as Redcloak
wore the ring Melusina gave him. Melusina's ring belonged to her father
as did the ring Martha gave Freud. We might add that, like Redcloak,
Freud is also without means. Rosenberg links the Melusina story with
Freud's symptomatic ring breaking as a reflection of his deep ambiva·
lence towa!d his engagement and eventual marriage to Martha. 40 Un-
fortunately, Rosenberg leaves off his analysis of the Melusina tale with·
out inquiry into the basis of Freud's ambivalence beyond a suggestion
that "Sigmund . . . like many young men before and after him, dreaded
the ego-diminishing, imprisoning chains of love and matrimony. "41
We have already analyzed a major instance in which Freud felt that
Martha had diminished him, when he blamed Martha for his failure to
achieve fame for his discovery of the anesthetic properties of cocaine.
Undoubtedly, Freud did sense that a diminution of his scientific stature
and his potential achievement would result from his newly formed alli·
ance with Martha. We have also hypothesized that Freud's significant
psychological contributions commenced only with the withdrawal of his
libido from Martha. At one level, Rosenberg was correct when he sug-
gested that Freud's sense of the ego-diminishing consequences of his
engagement resulted in his ring-smashing episodes. But our discussions
suggest that Freud's ambivalence toward Martha was considerably more
deep-seated than Rosenberg suspects, and that his concerns were not
like those of "many young men." Rather, Freud was an insatiably ambi-
tious man who desperately feared the effects of love and matrimony on
his professional career.
Furthermore, there is an important clue in Goethe's "The New
Melusina" that Rosenberg has completely overlooked. When Melusina
reveals her identity to Redcloak, she tells of the creation of the dwarfs
by God at the very beginning of the creation of the world and their
The Schadchen 37
subsequent persecution by races of dragons and giants. She closes her
historical narrative declaiming:
It will become clear to thee that we are of the oldest race on

earth,-a circumstance which does us honor, but at the same time
brings great disadvantage along with it.
For as there is nothing in the world that can endure forever, but
all that has once been great must become little and fade, it is our
lot, also, that, ever since the creation of the world, we have been
waning, and growing smaller,-especially the royal family, on whom,
by reason of their pure blood, this destiny presses with the heaviest
force. To remedy this evil, our wise teachers have many years ago
devised the expedient of sending forth a Princess of the royal house
from time to time into the world, to wed some honorable knight,
that so the dwarf progeny may be refected and saved from entire
decay. 42
In these lines, the full significance of the story for Freud may be re-
vealed. It is about an old and once great but dying race that is attempt-
ing to preserve itself. They suffer not only the assaults of enemies-
dragons and giants-but also from a hereditary disease that is gradually
causing them to shrink into nothingness. (We shall return to this idea
of a hereditary disease in chapter 5.) Their only hope for survival is
miscegenation-marriage outside their race.
Of course, there was an ancient race that through inbreeding had
been greatly diminished over time and that inhabited all of Europe and
particularly the Vienna of Freud's day-the Jews. Is it that Martha
appeared to Freud as a princess of this tribe? As a symbol of the entire
Jewish race? We have already pointed out Freud's frequent use of the
epithet "princess" for Martha, and Martha was the descendant of an
illustrious line of rabbis. 43 Like Redcloak, Freud is a man of poverty,
although one who can "feel so much like a knight errant on a pilgrimage
to his beloved princess" 44 that we may suspect Freud's identification
with the tale hero is virtually complete. But Redcloak loves Melusina
only as long as she maintains his stature, as long as she remains at his
station, in the world of men. When he is compelled to shrink to her
size, even though she is a princess of her tribe, his love evaporates and
he abandons her. Freud may have felt that his marriage to Martha was
not merely ego-diminishing, but contaminating; it would bind him to a
forsaken race; a race with which he did not wish to link his aspirations,
his future, or his identity. The breaking of the ring thus emerges as a

symptom of Freud's unconscious rejection of the wedding that would
bind him inextricably to his Jewish heritage. Certainly, we are now
considerably closer to what may qualify as those "crazy and serious
thoughts" regarding "The New Melusina" that Freud chose not to share
with his fiancee.
It may be felt that our equation Melusina is to the dwarfs as Martha is
to the Jews is somewhat arbitrary and gratuitous. A perusal of the bio·
graphical facts, however, enhances the likelihood of just such an inter·
pretation by Freud of Goethe's tale. Freud was not just indifferent to
Jewish religious rituals-he absolutely detested them. After attending
the Jewish wedding of his friend Josef Paneth, "he wrote a letter of
sixteen pages describing all the odious details in a spirit of malign
mockery. "45 Freud expected that his wedding to Martha would be quiet,
secret, and secular. A civil wedding could take place in Germany, where
they were indeed married, but Austria would not recognize such a cere·
mony. A religious ritual was required. Jones reveals at this point that
Freud thought of changing his "Confession"; that Freud thought of
converting rather than undergoing a Jewish religious ceremony. In a
sentence, Jones dismisses Freud's impulse as not "seriously intended!" 46
But the fact in itself is astounding! If Freud had changed his confession,
he would not have escaped the Austrian requirement for a religious
wedding "Ceremony, only the requirement for a Jewish one. Furthermore,
if Freud had changed his confession, it is unlikely that Martha would
have married him; certainly Martha's mother would never have con·
sented. Freud's brief flirtation with the idea of conversion at the point
of his marriage supports our previous hypothesis. At an unconscious
level, Freud saw a Jewish wedding to Martha as inextricably binding him
to the world of Jewry. It was an identification against which Freud's
unconscious was in continuous revolt.
There is another convincing piece of evidence to demonstrate that
the ring signified to Freud more than the bond to a particular woman
but a bond to the Jewish tradition as well. In a letter to Martha only a
month before his first ring-breaking episode, Freud wrote:
The Jew is called Nathan. (A strange Jew-h'm!) Continue worthy

Nathan.... " (Or something like that; I can't go to the public
library just now to verify the quotation. The man in the Giinsemarkt
will forgive me.) This was the beginning of our acquaintance. I had
suddenly grown very fond of a little girl and suddenly found myself
in Hamburg. She had sent me a ring which her mother once re·
ceived from her father; I had a smaller copy of this ring made to fit
The Schadchen 39
her tiny finger, but it appeared that the true ring had stayed with
her after all, for everyone who saw and spoke to her loved her, and
this is the sign of the true ring. 47
All the references in this letter are to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

(whose statue stood in the Gansemarkt) and his play Nathan the Wise,
written in 1779. The play is set in the twelfth century and revolves
around the character of Nathan, a rich Jew of Jerusalem. In Act 3, the
sultan Saladin summons Nathan to his palace in an attempt to borrow
money from Nathan, whom he believes to be miserly. Saladin attempts
to entrap Nathan by asking him which religion-Judaism, Christianity,
or Islam-is the true religion. Nathan responds by telling the story of a
man who had received a priceless ring, which had the virtue that the
one who wore it was beloved by God and man. He left the ring to his
favorite son with the instruction that he should bequeath it to his
favorite son. And so it was handed down for several generations until it
descended to a man who had three sons whom he loved equally. The
man secretly had the ring copied and on his deathbed privately gave a
ring to each of his sons. After his death, each son produced his ring
and claimed the inheritance. But the true ring could not be distin-
guished as the copies were so excellent. Said Nathan, "In vain, the
genuine ring was not demonstrable;-almost as little as today the gen-
uine faith. "48
All the references in Freud's letter should now be clear. Freud wore
the ring Martha had given him, but he had given a copy of this ring
back to Martha for her to wear. He claimed that despite the fact that
she wore a copy, she had the "true ring" since she was so beloved by
everyone. But the true ring in the play is a metaphor for Judaism, the
religion from which the excellent copies of Christianity and Islam were
crafted. It is in this symbolic context that the meaning of the ring to
Freud becomes clear. Freud's ring-breaking episode is not merely a rejec-
tion of Martha, but a rejection of the Jewish heritage that it represented.
The denouement of Nathan the Wise, which is as convoluted as a
Roman farce or Shakespearean comedy, also bears upon our interpreta-
tion. As it turns out, Nathan's daughter Rachel is not his daughter at
all, but a Christian child whom he raised from infancy. Her name is not
Rachel but Blanda von Filnek, and her Christian name is restored to
her in the closing scene of the play. 49 Perhaps Freud wished that Martha,
like Rachel, was not the Jewess she appeared to be.
All in all, it does not appear as though we have been led astray in
allowing ourselves to be guided by the schadchen jokes in our study of

Freud. Where the biographer Ernest Jones paints only a picture of har-
mony, equanimity, and devotion, the underlying joke thoughts point
more accurately to a complex of hostile impulses harbored by Freud
toward his life-long companion.
Freud stands partially revealed when he suggests that the schadchen
jokes are attacks upon the institution of marriage. Freud had to sacrifice
important elements of his marriage so that he could redirect his libidinal
energies toward those tasks his ambition had set for him. Psychoanalysis
came to replace Martha as his consuming passion.
But it was not merely the institution of marriage that Freud rejected.
Like the bride in the jokes, Martha herself was indelibly flawed, and, as
in the jokes, this flaw could not be covered up successfully or argued
away. Martha was Jewish, the descendant of a long and illustrious line
of rabbis. This was a flaw as debilitating as a hunched back or a lame
leg, as it severely reduced her stature in Freud's eyes. so It was the linkage
to this princess of her tribe that Freud's unconscious rejected. For Freud,
it is the institution of Jewish marriage as represC'nted by the figure of the
schadchen that stands as the central target of these jokes. It was an
institution that condemned Freud to an identity his unconscious repu-
diated and from which he longed to escape all the days of his life.
The Schadchen 41
4: The Ostjude
,~= f,t:'l ~,:,=

(He purifies himself with vermin in hand.)
'ltQ rT'l'!:n
Freud includes in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious a series of

four Jewish jokes that concern cleanliness. Two examples should prove
sufficient to establish the theme.
Two Jews met in the neighborhood of the bath-house. "Have you

taken a bath?" asked one of them. "What?" asked the other in
return, "is one missing?" 1
A Jew noticed the remains of some food in another one's beard. "I
can tell you what you had to eat yesterday. "-"Well, tell me."-
"Lentils, then. "-"Wrong: the day before yesterday. "2
The consistent message of these jokes is that the Jew is dirty; the
jokes vary only in the techniques by which this message is articulated.
In the first joke, the Jew's misunderstanding of "taken a bath" implies a
measure of indifference to and irregularity in the practice of bathing. In
the second joke, the food in the beard and the length of time it has
lodged there likewise suggest sloppiness and uncleanliness on the part
of the Jew.
Freud employs these jokes as examples of the techniques of double
meaning, displacement, and overstatement. These jokes utilize a stereo-
type of the Jew, more particularly of the Eastern European Jew or Ostjwk.
It is curious that Freud, who despised the "brutal comic stories" 3 of anti-
Semites, should have resorted to the stereotype of the unclean Ostjude
in the public arena of his published work. He recognized quite clearly

that these jokes were of "a coarse type" 4 and that the underlying thought
of these jokes was a "malicious exaggeration. " 5 There were certainly
hundred~ of other jokes that could represent equally well the techniques
he intended to illustrate.
Another joke about an Ostjude concerns not so much his cleanli-
ness as his manners and comportment:
A Galician Jew was travelling in a train. He had made himself really

comfortable, had unbuttoned his coat and put his feet up on the
seat. just then a gentleman in modern dress entered the compart-
ment. The Jew promptly pulled himself together and took up a
proper pose. The stranger fingered through the pages of a notebook,
made some calculations, reflected for a moment and then suddenly
asked the Jew: "Excuse me, when is Yom Kippur (the Day of Atone-
ment)?" "Oho!", said the Jew, and put his feet up on the seat again
before answering. 6
The Jew on the train is from Galicia, that portion of southeast Poland
and the northwest Ukraine that had been annexed to Austria in 1772.
In the 1890s, the Jewish population of Galicia comprised some three-
quarters of a million Jews, or about 12 percent of the entire population
of the region. 7 The Jew on the train is wearing traditional garb, as
evidenced by the contrasting "modern dress" of the stranger who t>nters
the compartment. This costume would most likely include a long black
outer coat (a kapote), a white shirt, perhaps knee-length trousers with
white stockings, a velvet waistcoat (a vestel) and some type of head
covering (a streimel, spodek, or yarmulke). 8 The Galician Jew would
undoubtedly have a full beard and side curls (peyot). His feet are resting
on the seat, and he is somewhat in a state of undress when the "gentle-
man" enters the compartment. He adjusts his demeanor to accommo-
date the stranger, whom he believes to be a Gentile. When he learns
that the stranger is a Jew, he resumes his slovenly attitude. The under-
lying thought of the joke is that tidiness and manners are maintained
only for the Gentile; they are not extended to a fellow Jew. The Jew
does not merit such respect. 9
Freud's parents were both Galician Jews. His mother came from the
town of Brody and his father from Tysmenica. 10 According to Freud's
son Martin, Galician Jews (including his grandmother Amalie) "were a
peculiar race, not only different from any other races inhabiting Europe,
but absolutely different from Jews who had lived in the West for some
generations. They, these Galician Jews, had little grace and no manners;
The Osgude 43
and their women were not what we should call 'ladies.' " 11
It would seem that the inclusion of the jokes about the dirty Jews in
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious would have helped Freud
establish a distance between himself and these Jews from the East. As
if to say: "Of course certain types of Jews are dirty and unmannered; but
they do not characterize all of Jewry. Indeed, we laugh at such types
ourselves." It was from these same Jews, however, that Freud was im-
mediately descended. Did he sense an element of this dirtiness and
untidiness in himself as well!
Our inquiry starts with Freud's recollection of a story told by his
father:
I may have been ten or twelve years old, when my father began to
take me with him on his walks to reveal to me in his talk his views
upon things in the world we live in. Thus it was, on one such
occasion, that he told me a story to show me how much better
things were now than they had been in his days. "When I was a
young man," he said, "I went for a walk one Saturday in the streets
of your birthplace. I was well dressed, and had a new fur cap on my
head. A Christian came up to me and with a single blow knocked
off my cap into the mud and shouted: 'Jew! get off the pavement!' "
"And what did you do?" I asked. "I went into the roadway and
picked up my cap," was his quiet reply. This struck me as unheroic
conduct on the part of the big, strong man who was holding the
little boy by the hand. 12
When young Freud heard this tale, it aroused his anger against the
oppressors of his people. Yet he was ashamed of his father's unheroic
conduct. Freud claimed that the behavior of his father encouraged his
youthful identification with Semitic military heroes such as Hannibal
and Massena. 13
Apparently, Freud's identification with these Semitic heroes was not
altogether a fleeting one. Whenever Freud confronted explicit anti-
Semitism, he opposed it vigorously, even in situations of physical threat
against overwhelming odds. He seems to have been fully prepared to
make amends for the behavior of his father. For example, Freud de-
scribed to Martha the following events that befell him traveling third
class on a train between Dresden and Riesa in 1883:
I had my first great adventure. Unpleasant at the time, pleasant in

retrospect. You know how I am always longing for fresh air and

always anxious to open windows, above all in trains. So I opened a
window now and stuck my head out to get a breath of air. Where-
upon there were shouts to shut it (it was the windy side), especially
from one particular man. I declared my willingness to close the
window provided another, opposite, were opened, it was the only
open window in the whole long carriage. While the discussion en-
sued and the man said he was prepared to open the ventilation slit
instead of the window, there came a shout from the background:
"He's a dirty Jew!" [elender Jude: "wretched Jew" or "miserable Jew")-
And with this the whole situation took on a different color. My first
opponent also turned anti-Semitic and declared: "We Christians
consider other people, you'd better think less of your precious self,"
etc.; and muttering abuses befitting his education, my second op-
ponent announced that he was going to climb over the seats to show
me, etc. Even a year ago I would have been speechless with agita-
tion, but now I am different; I was not in the least frightened of that
mob, asked the one to keep to himself his empty phrases which
inspired no respect in me, and the other to step up and take what
was coming to him. I was quite prepared to kill him, but he did not
step up; I was glad I refrained from joining in the abuse, something
one must always leave to the others. 14
The compromise of the ventilation slit in place of the window was

achieved eventually. Later a passenger exited the train by a window,
and Freud planted himself next to the open window and refused to close
it. The conductor eventually made him close it, and when jeers and
abuse broke out at this defeat, Freud invited the ringleader to "come on
over and make ... [his] acquaintance." From then on everything was
quiet. 15
It should be noted that the epithet that triggered Freud's vigorous
response is elender ]ude. For Freud these were fighting words, whereas
they were not for Freud's father. It is perhaps a coincidence that the
entire incident occurred because of Freud's stubborn demand for fresh
air in a stuffy third-class carriage, that is, in his attempt to maintain a
hygienic and fresh environment, contrary to the condition of the Jews
portrayed in the jokes.
Freud once again displayed his martial spirit in a confrontation
during a summer holiday at Thumsee in 1901. His sons Martin and
Oliver were fishing at the lake, and some passers-by began shouting at
them that they were Israelites and were stealing the fish from the lake.
They left the lake early and returned to their lodgings and told their
The Ostjude 45
father about the incident. Later that afternoon, Freud had to go to
Reichenhall, and his sons rowed him across the lake to save him from
walking around it. As they approached the mooring place, the same
crowd that had shouted abuses earlier, swelled by additional members,
again began shouting anti-Semitic remarks. Freud "swinging his stick,
charged the hostile crowd, which gave way before him and promptly
dispersed, allowing him a free passage. " 16 Freud's courageous behavior
in both these situations would seem to indicate that he had learned a
lesson from his father's tale and would never suffer such indignities in
silence.
Yet Freud's son Martin reports a curious incident that took place
several years later during their holiday to Konigsee near Berchtesgaden.
One day they set out on an outing to St. Bartholomae at the southern
end of the lake, one of Freud's favorite spots. While visiting the local
Biergarten, they sat next to a middle-class Berlin family who sent their
boy to fill their water glasses at the well. The boy's journey was not a
success, as he spilled the water all over himself, slipped several times,
broke one of the glasses, and spilled some water into the soup of one of
the guests. As Martin recalled:
Father had at first watched this expedition with amused curiosity

. . . but when the boy was safely back with his parents, father
remarked in a cold voice, loud enough to be heard by the parents,
that he hoped none of us would give so shocking a display, if sent
on a similar errand. The incident remains impressed on my mind because
of the irritation shown lry my father ooer so unimportant an event. Later,
when I was much older, I recalled the scene and began asking myself
why he had been so cross. The boy who disgraced himself so much
in father's eyes was plainly Jewish in an unmistakable and not at-
tractive way, rather like a caricature of a Jewish boy; and this was
quickly seen by the Gentiles in the Biergarten who watched the
performance with amused disdain. 17 (my emphasis)
Martin went on to suggest that his father felt the boy's performance
showed bad upbringing and "let the side down." He speculated that
his father may have thought his own children might someday llleet
with such disdain when it was not so deserved. Curiously, Martin
concluded his discussion by dismissing the episode and his interpreta·
tion of it. "This is merely the thought that occurred to me, and it could
be false. Anyway, it is futile to raise questions that cannot be an-
swered."18

Perhaps Martin dismissed this episode in the end because he acutely
sensed its implications. He was certainly surprised by his father's irrita-
tion over the event, an event that otherwise seemed to him "unimpor-
tant." What was the source of Freud's agitation?
When Freud heard the story of how his father was pushed from the
pavement and made to retrieve his hat from the mud in the gutter, it
aroused his anger against his people's oppressors. But the image of his
father standing in the gutter with his hat in the mud may have impressed
another message upon young Freud's mind: my father the Jew leaves the
pavement and stands in the dirt and makes no protest. This is where a
dirty Jew must belong.
The inept behavior of the boy in the Biergarten may have echoed
too faithfully Freud's own thoughts that Jews were slovenly, unman-
nered, and dirty. Middle-class education, manners, and the German
language were only fac;ades; the slovenly and dirty demeanor of the
Ostjude will out. Freud must have sensed that even his immersion in
German Kultur and his dissociation from the religion of Judaism was
only a fac;ade that could barely mask his Galician heritage. To the
discriminating eye, the lentils that clung to his beard, like those of the
Jew in the joke, were easily discernible.
There is one instance in which we know Freud felt both slovenly and
dirty like' the Jews in the jokes already cited. The locus for these feelings
was a dream.
I was very incompletely dressed and was going upstairs from a flat
on the ground floor to a higher storey. I was going up three steps at
a time and was delighted at my agility. Suddenly I saw a maid-
servant coming down the stairs-coming towards me, that is. I felt
ashamed and tried to hurry, and at this point a feeling of being
inhibited set in: I was glued to the steps and unable to budge from
the spot. 19
Freud first reported this dream to Fliess in May of 1897, 20 a month

before he confessed to his collection of Jewish jokes. In his letter, he
characterized his state of incomplete dress as "having very few clothes
on." The evening of the dream, Freud had indeed climbed the stairs
from his office and consulting room on the ground floor to his apart-
ments one story above. The staircase was a public one, and, as his dress
was somewhat "disordered"-that is, he had removed his collar, tie,
and cuffs-he was concerned lest he meet some neighbor on the stairs. 21
But the staircase in the dream was not the one in his own house. It was
The Ost;jude 47
the staircase in the house of one of his patients, where Freud had several
encounters with the concierge and the maidservant. Apparently Freud
was in the habit of clearing his throat upon entering this patient's
building, and, as there was no spittoon present, he was likewise accus-
tomed to spitting on the stairs. The concierge, an old woman, took to
lying in wait for him, and if she saw him accommodate himself on the
stairs, she would grumble audibly and withhold her usual greeting for
the next several days. The day before the dream occurred, Freud had
also been reproached by the maidservant, another elderly woman, who
chastised him for failing to wipe his boots before entering the apart·
ment, thereby dirtying the carpet inside. 22 Thus Freud's primary associ·
ations to this dream of being improperly dressed are the reprimands by
these two women for his lack of cleanliness.
Freud included his dream among that category of "Embarrassing
Dreams of Being Naked." The state of undress in such dreams is relative.
A dreamer may vaguely imagine himself to be attired only in a chemise
or petticoat; or a soldier may feel he has violated in some way the code
of military dress. It is typical in these dreams that the people in whose
presence one feels ashamed are strangers. 23 Interestingly, Freud likens
these dreams to Hans Christian Andersen's tale, "The Emperor's New
Clothes," in which a king believes himself to be magnificently attired
but in truth parades naked before the onlooking crowd. H
Like the fairytale emperor, Freud was always fastidious about his
dress and appearance. He maintained that clothes were basic to self-
respect and insisted that his children be bought good clothes in order
to maintain their self-esteem. He once commented: "The good opinion
of my tailor matters to me as much as that of my professor." During his
"poverty years," there were times when he would not go out of doors
because of the holes in his coat, and on occasion he had to borrow a
friend's coat to call on a respectable acquaintance. 25 When he had even
a slight surplus of funds, he used it to enhance his appearance. As he
wrote to Martha from Paris in 1886, describing his preparation for an
evening at the Charcots': "My appearance was immaculate except that
I had replaced the unfortunate ready-made white tie with one of the
beautiful black ones from Hamburg. This was my tail coat's first appear-
ance; I had bought myself a new shirt and white gloves, as the washable
pair are no longer very nice; I had my hair set and my rather wild beard
trimmed in the French style; altogether I spent fourteen francs on the
evening. As a result I looked very fine and made a favorable impression
on myself. "26
It is our argument that Freud's great concern for his appearance was

in part motivated by his wish to dissociate himself from the figures of
the Ostjuden in the jokes. To be a member of civilized society, one had
to conform to its codes of dress and cleanliness. But Freud felt that,
fundamentally and unalterably, what lay underneath was none other
than the dirty and disheveled Jew from the East. In the dream of
going up the stairs naked, he was recognized for what he truly was, like
the emperor in Andersen's fairytale. The maidservant and concierge
had observed his true nature. And he was ashamed, for unlike the
slovenly Jew in the railway carriage, Freud had been exposed, not before
his co-religionists, but before Gentiles. In fact, he was observed and
reprimanded by members of the lowest strata of Gentile society-ser-
vants-as indeed the emperor's imposture was revealed by the voice of
a mere child. At this point it should come as no surprise to find Freud
referring to himself in a letter to his friend Fliess as "a rather shabby old
Jew. uz7
Freud's dream suggests not only that behind the mannered fa~ade
lurks the shabby Jew, but also that the fa~ade is rather flimsy and the
true identity ever ready to emerge. This notion that the Jew will out is
contained in the jokes as well:
The doctor, who had been asked to look after the Baroness at her
confinement, pronounced that the moment had not come, and sug-
gested to the Baron that in the meantime they should have a game
of cards in the next room. After a while a cry of pain from the
Baroness struck the ears of the two men: "Ah, mon Dieu, que je
souffre!" Her husband sprang up, but the doctor signed to him to sit
down: "It's nothing. Let's go on with the game!" A little later there
were again sounds from the pregnant woman: "Mein Gott, mein
Gott, was fur Schmerzen!"-"Aren't you going in, Professor?" asked
the Baron.-"No, no. It's not time yet."-At last there came from
next door an unmistakable cry of "Ai, waih, waih!" The doctor
threw down his cards and exclaimed: "Now it's time. " 28
Freud discusses how the character of the baroness's cries changes little
by little until genuine pain causes "primitive nature to break through
all the layers of education. "29 Freud's version is a Jewish joke. Theodor
Reik discusses Freud's joke in his book Jewish Wit and shows how the
cries proceed from French to German to the mother tongue of the
Ostjude, Yiddish. 30 The "Ai, waih, waih" is a truncated "Oy tJay iz mir,"
the term waih or ooy deriving from the German Weh meaning woe. The
message of the joke, however, is clear: in certain circumstances, partie-
The Ostjude 49
ularly those of physical or emotional crisis, the true identity will emerge.
Despite wealth, social status, and education, the Jew will out.
This notion that the Jew may be lurking behind even the most
aristocratic exterior is reiterated by Freud in an interpretation that he
made of an anecdote told to him by Theodor Reik. Reik's anecdote was
as follows:
In the middle of the night the superintendent of the house of the

Spanish ambassador in Vienna is awakened by the repeated ringing
of the bell of the palace. He finally opens the door and finds two
well groomed, dignified gentlemen who say again and again one
sentence: "Wir syn zwa Spanische Granden" (We are two Spanish
grandees). The Viennese is astonished to hear them repeat those
words pronounced in unmistakably genuine Yiddish, but under-
stands, finally, that the two men ask him urgently to waken up the
ambassador to whom they bring an important message from Spain.
The ambassador, at last brought to the scene, greets the two men
with great respect: they are really two Spanish noblemen of highest
rank who have brought a diplomatic message from the king. The
Viennese superintendent hears them converse with the ambassador
in pure Castillian and learns that the two men who cannot speak
German had run into a Polish Jew on the express train from Madrid
to Vienna. They made him understand who they were, that they
would arrive at night in Vienna and asked him what they should say
in order to get their message to the ambassador. 31
According to Reik, Freud liked this little story and revealed that the
concealed meaning of the tale "becomes transparent when one assumes
that the two Spanish noblemen could have been Jewish"! Freud went
on to explain the history of the Jews in Spain and Portugal and how
many had become noblemen and had served in the highest diplomatic
positions. The Maranos, baptized Jews and their descendants, were in-
fluential at the Spanish court. Therefore, the secret meaning of the
story, according to Freud, was that there was an intimate connection
between the Spanish noblemen and the Polish Jew on the train; a
common origin and tradition. Consequently, it was only natural that
the Viennese superintendent should have mistaken them for Jews and
was startled by their claims of Spanish nobility. 32
Reik seems to have accepted this interpretation of the anecdote
without question. In fact, he considers it to be a new point of view in
the interpretation of Jewish humor, one not to be found in Jokes and
SO The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

Their Relation to the Unconscious. It would appear, however, that Freud's
interpretation reveals a lot more about Freud than it does about Jewish
humor. It is Freud who seems compelled to see a potential Jew concealed
behind the most unlikely of fac;ades, and his Jew always stands ready to
reveal himself in the language of the Ostjude.
The Osf;jude .51

5: Fahrenheit
A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse.

Shakespeare, Richard lll
Jahwohl: das Blut, das Blut allein

Macht lange noch den Vater nicht.
(Yes blood alone
Is far from all that makes a father!)
I. To Karlsbad
In the summer of 1898, while working on The Interpretation of Dreams,

Freud sent Fliess a chapter to critique and in the accompanying letter
remarked:
It was all written by the unconscious, on the well-known principle

of ltzig, the Sunday horseman.
"ltzig, where are you going?"
"Don't ask me, ask the horse. " 1
Freud later introduced this witticism into The Interpretation of Dreams as

an association to the following dream:
I was riding on a grey horse, timidly and awkwardly to begin with,

as though I were only reclining on it. I met one of my colleagues,
P., who was sitting high on a horse, dressed in a tweed suit, and
who drew my attention to something (probably my bad seat). I now

began to find myself sitting more and more comfortably on my highly
intelligent horse, and noticed that I was feeling quite at home up
there. My saddle was a kind of bolster, which completely filled the
space between its neck and crupper. In this way I rode straight in
between two vans. After riding some distance up the street, I turned
round and tried to dismount, first in front of a small open chapel
that stood in the street frontage. Then I actually did dismount in
front of another chapel that stood near it. My hotel was in the same
street; I might have let the horse go to it on its own but I preferred
to lead it there. It was as though I should have felt ashamed to arrive
at it on horseback. A hotel "boots" was standing in front of the
hotel; he showed me a note of mine that had been found, and
laughed at me over it. In the note was written, doubly underlined:
"No food" and then another remark (indistinct) such as "No work,"
together with a vague idea that I was in a strange town in which I
was doing no work. 2
Freud dreamt this dream at a time when he was suffering from the
severe pain of a boil at the base of his scrotum. The boil was so painful
that he was even prevented from fulfilling his medical duties. The dream
of riding represented the wish to be free of the boil and to go on
sleeping, as the activity of riding in the dream was itself a denial of the
existence of the boil, for riding would have been impossible with such
an ailment. According to Freud, his boil was the result of eating highly
spiced food, an etiology he preferred to that of eating sugar (that is,
diabetes), which apparently was also a cause for boils. Freud's brief
encounter with his colleague P. in the dream reminded him that P. had
taken over a patient of his and now "liked to ride the high horse over
him."3
Clearly, this dream stemmed from Freud's physical debilitation, but
most directly, we would argue, from his anxiety over the inability to
work. Indeed, in both the joke and the dream, riding clearly signified
Freud's psychoanalytic and medical career (Karriere), a term itself de-
rived from the equestrian domain. 4 Where Freud's career would lead
him, Freud, like the horseman ltzig, claimed not to know, for it is largely
the product of his unconscious. 5 This same idea is contained in the
aphorism of Oliver Cromwell that Freud frequently quoted: "One never
mounts so high as when he does not know where he is going. " 6 But in
the dream we do get some indication of where Freud is going. Freud,
the horseman, reined in the horse in front of one chapel and then
dismounted in front of another. When he returned to his hotel, which
Fahrenheit 53
was on the same street as these two chapels, he led the horse, for he felt
ashamed to arrive on horseback. In other words, Freud had to take his
unconscious in hand. He had to bridle his wishes to enter the church
and remain faithful to his heritage even though he would suffer for it;
he would remain a stranger in the town and do no work. 7
Although Freud gave no date for this dream, it must have been
sometime in October 1898. 8 At this time, Freud's concern over his
career and his employment must have been intense. In January of the
previous year, after he had been a Privatdozent for the period of twelve
years, Freud was first proposed by Professors Nothnagel, Kraft-Ebbing,
and Frankl-Hochwart for the position of Professar Extraardinarius (asso-
ciate professor) at the University of Vienna. He prepared a dossier of
his work as was required, but the proposal was not ratified by the min-
ister of education. In 1898 the proposal was renewed, but once again it
was not approved. 9 Ministry ratifications took place in September of the
year, so the "Riding on a Horse" dream took place the month following
his second rejection for the position of professor. Nothnagel had warned
him of his possible rejection when his candidacy was first proposed in
1897: "You know the further difficulties. It may do no more than put
you on the tapis" (French: carpet). 10 Undoubtedly, the "further difficul-
ties" were Freud's Jewishness and his interest in sexual matters. (Profes-
sor Nothnagel himself was head of the Society to Combat Anti-Semi-
tism at the University of Vienna.) 11 Freud was subsequently passed over
in 1899 as well, and in 1900 his was the only proposed name not
ratified. 12 In Vienna at this time questions of title directly affected
reputation, the ability to attract patients, and the establishment of fees.
Thus Freud's employment was dependent upon the achievement of a
title that was made more difficult by his Jewishness. Baptism was the
usual way ambitious Jews were able to overcome barriers to their ad-
vancement within the university and government. This was the very
route Martha Freud's uncle Michael Bernays had taken in furthering his
career at the University of Munich. 13 But Freud was ashamed to further
his career in this fashion; he had to dismount from his horse in the
dream and lead it back to the hotel where he was confronted by the
message: "No food-no work!"
As we now have some insight into the significance of riding a horse
for Freud, we are in a position to assess the significance of another of
the Jewish jokes he cites in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious:
A horsedealer 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
in Pressburg at half past six in the morning."

"What should I do in Pressburg at half past six in the morn-
ing?"H
As I have already pointed out in chapter 1, this joke depends upon the
displacement of the swiftness of the horse on to the specifics of time
and place in which this swiftness has been expressed. The underlying
thought of the joke would seem to be: what is the value of an efficient
mode of transportation that can only deliver one to an undesired desti-
nation-a place where, after all, one does not belong? In the dream,
Freud's horse brings him to the door of a chapel, that is, to a place,
irrespective of his unconscious desires, where he knew he could never
belong. For however high one may mount, however fast one might
arrive, as we have shown in the last chapter, there is always the Jew
below the surface:
A very poor youth is befriended by a rich and influential man. The

benefactor gives his protege a letter of recommendation to the Jew-
ish community of a small town-let us call it Rzezow-where the
post of schammes (the Jewish version of verger) has become vacant.
The job is miserably paid, but it protects at least from downright
starvation and therefore the young man is extremely eager to get it.
All seems to go well until it turns out that the applicant can neither
read nor write. Since the post involves some clerical work and offi-
cial correspondence he is turned down. He comes home deeply
despondent and his protector, out of compassion for his disappoint-
ment, lends him a small sum of money so that he can start making
a living as a pedlar. He shows excellent business sense and accumu-
lates some capital. When oil is found in parts of the country where
he does his business he enters the oil game and in a few years has
become the owner of a big oil firm. His progress culminates in a
transaction by which he is to become chief executive of a big con-
cern. The president of the bank which has managed and financed
the deal arranges a sort of celebration; the new chief is asked to read
aloud and sign the agreement. When he hears this he draws the
president aside and asks him to drop this part. Pressed for his reason,
he finally admits that he can neither read nor write.
"What," cries the president, "a man of your financial acumen,
illiterate! What would have been your career without such a handi-
cap!"
"I can tell you about that," comes the reply. "I would have been
schammes in Rzezow. " 15
Career alone, no matter how distinguished or successful, cannot effect
Fahrenheit 55
an escape from one's origins. Behind the most prosperous oil magnate
lies a potential schammes of Rzezow.
Freud wrote a curious letter to Martha in August of 1885 that
conjoins both the feature of Pressburg in the horsedealer joke and the
occupation of schammes. Freud reported to Martha on a dinner at the
home of Moritz L. "I will tell you his history. Once upon a time there
lived in Pressburg a certain Moritz L. (certainly not the only one of that
name), a man as poor as only a jew can be. Or rather his father was as
poor as that; I'm not sure whether he was a peddler or a schammes or a
dealer in secondhand clothes. I think the second of the three." Freud
goes on to describe how Moritz proved to be industrious and bright at
the Pressburg grammar school and went on to Vienna to study medicine.
He was made Sekundiirarzt under the great (non-jewish) Professor J.,
married his daughter, and eventually succeeded to his position. "In
short," continued Freud, "L. son of the Schammes, turned into L. the
Dozent, associate professor, and finally ... J. 's successor. The character
of this vain, rather transparent man has aspects which one cannot help
respecting, among them the lack of any trace of pompousness and con-
ceit, no shame at being a Jew. " 16 Freud also indicated that the evening
left a "bad taste" in his mouth although it had been quite genial.
Indeed, he closed his letter by reporting that despite his moderation at
dinner, he did not feel well the next day and took a cold bath and an
infusion of Karlsbad salts.
Note that in this letter we have the concatenation of the city of
Pressburg, the occupation of schammes, and the poor jew who succeeds
magnificently in his career in spite of his origins. Perhaps L. 's success
in Freud's eyes was attributable to his having no shame at being a jew,
an attribute that Freud could not honestly claim for himself. Further-
more, Freud seems to have left the dinner with some stomach ailment,
which may have been an early episode of the chronic gastrointestinal
distress that plagued him throughout his life. This ailment was generally
associated with traveling and usually preceded a productive period of
writing. 17 Nor, as we shall soon see, is the Karlsbad remedy he sought
following his dinner with Moritz L. without significance in this partic-
ular context. In any event, this letter showed that in a completely
different situation, the ideas of Pressburg, the schammes, career ad-
vancement, and Jewish identity were clearly associated in Freud's mind.
Traveling by train, rather than by horse, is the dominant image
connected with Freud's "Rome Series" of dreams. The series consists of
four dreams concerning Freud's longing to visit the city of Rome. De-
spite several visits to Italy prior to the publication of The Interpretation

of Dreams, Freud always avoided Rome, an avoidance he himself had
termed "deeply neurotic. " 18 The dreams of the "Rome Series" are as
follows:
I dreamt once that I was looking out of a railway-carriage win-

dow at the Tiber at the Ponte Sant' Angelo. The train began to
move off, and it occurred to me that I had not so much as set foot
in the city.
Another time someone led me to the top of a hill and showed
me Rome half-shrouded in mist; it was so far away that I was sur-
prised at my view of it being so clear. There was more in the content
of this dream than I feel prepared to detail; but the theme of "the
promised land seen from afar" was obvious in it.
In a third dream I had at last got to Rome, as the dream itself
informed me; but I was disappointed to find that the scenery was far
from being of an urban character. There was a narrow stream of
dark water; on one side of it were black cliffs and on the other
meadows with big white flowers. I noticed Herr Zucker (whom I
knew slightly) and determined to ask him the way to the city.
A fourth dream which occurred soon after the last one, took me
to Rome once more. I saw a street-corner before me and was sur-
prised to find so many posters in German stuck up there. 19
The failure to enter Rome that Freud reported in the first dream he
compared to the failure of Hannibal to reach Rome. Like most school-
children, Freud identified with the Carthaginians in their studies of the
Punic Wars. But Freud's sense of membership in an "alien race" and his
sense of anti-Semitism among his schoolmates made him esteem the
"semitic general" even more highly: "To my youthful mind Hannibal
and Rome symbolized the conflict between the tenacity of Jewry and
the organization of the Catholic church. . . . Thus the wish to go to
Rome had become in my dream-life a cloak and symbol for a number of
other passionate wishes. " 20
It is at this point in his account of the associations to his "Rome
Series" of dreams that Freud recounted the previously mentioned story
of his father having his cap knocked off by a Gentile and being forced
into the gutter. Freud's father's meek behavior in quietly picking up his
hat and continuing on his way contrasted sharply in Freud's mind with
that of Hannibal's father, Hamilcar Barca, who made his son swear
eternal hatred for the Romans.
Incidentally, Hannibal was not the only of Freud's heroes who failed
Fahrenheit 57
to reach Rome. Heine during his travels in Italy (which, of course, was
the trip in which he visited the Baths of Lucca) also intended to visit
the city, but he was called home at the last minute when he received
word that his father was quite ill. He returned to Germany only to hear
at Wurzberg that his father had died. ZI Thus we encounter yet another
curious connection between Freud and Heine. Both traveled in Italy yet
both failed to reach Rome; and the failure of each was somehow linked
to their relationships to their fathers.
In the second dream of the series we can observe an element of
Freud's identification with the figure of Moses, who could only glimpse
the promised land from afar. In Freud's dream, however, the promised
land was the city of Rome, not the biblical Canaan. Our curiosity
cannot fail to be aroused by the remaining content of this second dream
that Freud chose to expurgate. The wishes it contained must have
proven rather transparent. In any event, we shall have more to say about
Freud's relation to the figure of Moses in a later chapter.
It is in the third dream that Freud encounters Herr Zucker and asks
him the way to the city. Zucker is, of course, the German word for
"sugar." Amazingly, Freud's only associations to this dream are two
Jewish jokes! The first one Freud calls the "constitution" story:
An impecunious Jew has stowed himself away without a ticket in

the fast train to Karlsbad. He was caught, and each time tickets
were inspected he was taken out of the train and treated more and
more severely. At one of the stations on his via d.olarosa he met
an acquaintance, who asked him where he was travelling to. "To
Karlsbad," was his reply, "if my constitution [Konstitution] can stand
it. ,zz
In Karls bad was a famous spa where people went to "take the cure."
On several occasions, Freud would undertake the cure at Karlsbad for
his gastrointestinal ailments. n We have already noted Freud's use of
Karlsbad salts as early as 1885. The mineral waters at the spa had a
laxative effect, and one needed a strong constitution to withstand the
cure. 24 Thus the joke is dependent on the two senses in which one has
the constitution to undertake the trip to Karlsbad: the usual one of
being able to tolerate the effects of the mineral waters, and the more
unusual one of the poor Jew being able to withstand being thrown off
the train at every station along the route. Karlsbad was also a place
where physicians sent patients who were suffering from "the constitu-

tional complaint of diabetes" (Zuckerkrankheit or sugar disease), as Freud
informs us. 25
From this wealth of associations the meaning of the Karlsbad joke
to Freud begins to emerge: one is constitutionally Jewish, and in a
Christian society being Jewish is a constitutional disease like diabetes. 26
A journey to Rome (i.e., baptism) may effect a cure, but only at the
expense of one's constitution, i.e., one's Jewishness. But before such a
cure is undertaken, one remains an outsider, a person without a "ticket,"
like the Jew on the train.
Does this interpretation seem too reckless? too farfetched? Let us
examine the evidence carefully. First, it is Freud who associated Karls-
bad and Rome in the third dream of the "Rome Series." Furthermore,
this connection between Karlsbad and Rome was firmly fixed in Freud's
mind and repeatedly emerged in his letters to Fliess. 27 We should also
observe that the representation of baptism as going to a spa or "baths"
is not without its own inherent logic. In fact, we should recall that
our earlier reinterpretation of the "famillionarely" joke, as reflecting
Freud's own change of name and wish to convert, appears in the part
of Heine's Reisebilder (Pictures of Travel) called "Die Bader von
Lucca" ("The Baths of Lucca")! Nor can we ignore Freud's choice
of the term via dolorosa to characterize the poor Jew's pilgrimage to
Karlsbad.
Second, that the term "constitution" suggested Jewishness to Freud
is clear from his use of the term in a letter he wrote to Karl Abraham
in which he urged Abraham to be more tolerant of Jung and the Swiss
psychiatrists: "Please be tolerant and do not forget that it is really easier
for you than it is for Jung to follow my ideas, for . . . you are closer to
my intellectual constitution [intellektuellen Konstitution] because of racial
kinship" (my emphasis). 28 Thus the connection between Jewish identity
and the term "constitution" is clearly established for Freud. 29
Third, the characterization of Judaism as a disease and baptism as a
ticket of admission were by no means novel metaphors of Freud's. Heine
had coined them long before. It was Heine's much quoted aphorism
that baptism was "the entrance ticket to European culture. " 30 And in
his poem "The New Jewish Hospital at Hamburg," Heine developed the
theme of Judaism as an incurable disease:
0 hospital for sick and needy Jews,

For the poor sons of sorrow thrice accursed,
Who groan beneath the heavy, threefold evil
Of pain, and poverty, and Judaism.
Fahrenheit 59
The most malignant of the three the last is;
That family disease a thousand years old,
The plague that they brought with them from the Nile valley-
The unregenerate faith of ancient Egypt.
Incurable deep ill! defying treatment

Of douche, and vapour-bath and apparatus
Of surgery, and all the healing medicine
This house can offer to its sickly inmates. 31
Was Freud familiar with this poem of Heine's? Undoubtedly Freud was
familiar with all of Heine's works, but we know for a fact that this poem
made a particular impression on him, for in a footnote in his last
creative work, Moses and Monotheism, Freud quoted the line about the
"unregenerate faith of ancient Egypt" to show how Heine intuitively
had arrived at conclusions Freud only reached after laborious research
and deduction. 32
It seems worthwhile to point out that the association of sugar and
diabetes with the third Roman dream also serves as a connecting link
to the "Riding on the Horse" dream discussed earlier. Freud's riding
dream was in part a wish to be free of the boil on his perineum, which
was caused by eating highly spiced food, an etiology that Freud found
preferable to the diagnosis of diabetes. In other words, Freud preferred
to believe the factors that might inhibit his equestrian feats (i.e., his
career) were not, like diabetes, of a constitutional nature.
It was only after this rather laborious effort to demonstrate the
symbolic connection between diabetes and Judaism in Freud's mind that
I discovered that at the turn of the century, diabetes was generally
considered to be a ]udenkrankheit, a Jewish disease. 33 It can only be
ascribed to the insidiousness of scholarship that one must often travel
long circuitous routes before discovering substantial shortcuts and that
one's destination is just next door. Nevertheless, the discovery that
diabetes was thought to be intimately connected with Jews inspires
confidence in our methods of interpretation. It is, perhaps, as much
verification as one can hope for in the arena of symbolic interpretation.
The second of Freud's joke associations to the third dream of the
"Rome Series" is by allusion only. No complete text is provided. All
that Freud reveals is that the joke concerns a "Jew who could not speak
French and had been recommended when he was in Paris to ask the way
to Rue Richelieu. " 34 Alexander Grinstein has provided a fuller descrip-
tion of this anecdote:

A Jew, who could not speak French, is instructed, when he is in
Paris, to inquire his way to his destination by asking: "Savez-vous ou
est Ia rue Richeli~u?" (Do you know where Richelieu Street is?] When
he finally gets to Paris, he meets another Jew. Being thoroughly
mixed up in his French, he says to him: "]e sais ou est Ia rue Riche-
lieu." (I know where Richelieu Street is.] This is ridiculous because
he obviously does not know where he is, let alone where rue Riche-
lieu is. The French Jew, recognizing that he is a fellow Jew who is
obviously lost and who does not know any French, tells the foreigner
in Yiddish: "Mann kann Schabbes machen mit das" [One (you) can
make the Sabbath with it]. 35
The implication of the French Jew's remark is that with the information
and the French of the traveling Jew, plus the proper benedictions, one
can make the Sabbath. But since one does not need anything except
the benedictions to bring in the Sabbath, it implies that the traveling
jew's knowledge of where he is, where he is going, as well as of French
is totally worthless.
Clearly, Grinstein has not provided a complete joke text but rather
a detailed narrative outline of the joke without any attention to the joke
techniques. Nevertheless, in the absence of any text in Freud's own
writings or a more integrated text in the memoirs of his disciples, Grin-
stein's model must serve as the basis for our discussion.
As Freud associated the joke about the journey to Karlsbad with his
own longing to visit Rome, the joke about rue Richelieu was connected
with his earlier ambitions to visit Paris. Years earlier Freud had felt, as
he currently felt about Rome, that his success in visiting Paris would
lead to the successful fulfillment of other wishes as well. 36
There is another, although almost invisible, link between the two
jokes. The first time Freud alluded to the Karlsbad joke was in a letter
he wrote to Fliess on the third of January 1897. What is so striking
about this allusion, however, is that he uses the punchline of the Karls-
bad joke but concludes his thought with an expression in French! Wrote
Freud: "Instead of the passage we are seeking, we may find oceans, to
be fully explored by those who come after us; but if we are not prema-
turely capsized, if our constitutions can stand it, we shall make it. Nous y
arriverons" (my emphasis). 37 Nor should we be too surprised perhaps
that this French expression ("we shall arrive there" or "we shall make
land") is also appropriate to the theme of the rue Richelieu joke-
arriving at one's destination. Furthermore, this allusion to the Karlsbad
joke in Freud's letter is mentioned in connection with "those who come
Fahrenheit 61
after." Later we shall see that the significance of the "journey" to Freud
was intimately bound up with concern for those who would follow after.
When Freud was writing The Interpretation of Dreams he had not yet
visited Rome. He had visited Paris, however, almost a decade and a half
earlier, arriving in October of 1885 and departing some four and a half
months later in February of 1886. 38 The purpose of Freud's visit was to
study with Jean Martin Charcot at the Saltpetriere. Freud's exposure to
Charcot's teachings are a well-documented episode in the history of
psychoanalysis, but the impact of Paris itself on Freud has not always
merited the attention it deserves. A perusal of Freud's letters to Martha
from Paris, for example, contributes to our expansion of the significance
of the rue Richelieu joke to Freud. Concerning a trip to the theater,
Freud wrote: "I went in the hope of learning French, for I have no one
to talk to and everyday I seem to get worse at uttering these wretched
sounds. I don't think I am mistaken if I say already that I shall never
achieve a tolerable 'accent,' but it must at least be possible to construct
a sentence correctly. " 39 Following this confession of language incompe-
tence, Freud proceeds to recount the walking tours that he had taken
through the city: "Today I walked in an arc similar to that of three days
ago, but away from the Seine and off the map which I sent you the day
before yesterday. I found myself surrounded by the most frantic Paris
hubbub until I worked my way through to the well-known Boulevards
and the Rue Richelieu" (my emphasis). 40 It should become evident that
the jokes about the Jew who journeys to Karlsbad and Paris are not mere
associations to Freud's dream; they are extensions of it. Freud is the Jew
who travels to Karlsbad/Rome at the peril of his constitution and who
meanders about the streets of Paris in quest of the rue Richelieu.
Nor does the analogy between Freud and the Jew seeking the rue
Richelieu end here. As the identity of the wayfaring Jew in the joke is
recognized and revealed, so is that of Freud. The Jew will out. On
several occasions Freud complained about the difficulty he was experi-
encing with the French language. 41 But on February 2, Freud was invited
to a gathering at Charcot's home where he confessed, "My French was
worse than usual." During a political conversation that ensued, one of
the guests predicted an imminent war between France and Germany.
Freud reported: "I promptly explained that I am a Jew, adhering neither
to Germany nor Austria. But such conversations are always very embar-
rassing to me, for I feel stirring within me something German which I
long ago decided to suppress. "42 Thus Freud, who could not speak French
properly, was recognized in Paris for what he was-a foreigner. Indeed,
he had to admit to being that perpetual foreigner to all nations-a Jew.

Yet Freud felt stirring deep within himself "something German," which
he felt he had to suppress. Perhaps this was why in the fourth dream of
the "Rome Series" Freud reached Rome only to find it covered with
large numbers of German posters; for the baptism that Rome symbolized
was first and foremost an admission ticket to European society, more
specifically German society and culture, which Freud held so near and
dear. The religious ritual was significant only in terms of what it could
accomplish in furthering Freud's acceptance into German society.
Freud finally did succeed in visiting Rome. His first trip took place
in September of 1901. Upon his return, Freud undertook seeing to his
promotion to the rank of Professor Extraordinarius (associate professor).
He asked Nothnagel and Kraft-Ebbing to renew his application and
made use of former patients in an attempt to exert some influence on
the minister of education. The influence proved successful, and the
minister forwarded the appropriate document to the emperor for his
signature. 43 Why Freud was able to visit Rome in 1901 when he seemed
unable to do so in previous years is not entirely clear, but it would seem
that in his visit to Rome, Freud had confronted some of his own uncon-
scious wishes and returned with a greater sense of reality concerning his
own destiny. As he wrote to Fliess:
I made up my mind to break with my strict scruples and take appro-

priate steps, as others do after all. One must look somewhere for
one's salvation [Heil), and the salvation [Heiland: literally "Saviour")
I chose was the title of professor.
In the whole affair there is one person with very long ears . . .
and that is myself. If I had taken those few steps three years ago I
should have been appointed three years earlier and should have
spared myself much. Others are just as clever, without having to go
to Rome first. 44
Whatever happened to Freud on his first visit to Rome, it would seem

that he returned with a greater determination to employ the reality
principle in molding his future career. He was no longer quite like ltzig,
the Sunday horseman, led solely by his unconscious. His "salvation," as
he phrased it, was no longer to be sought in a pilgrimage to confront
the mysteries of Rome, but rather as a Jew mundanely working out his
daily survival in the world of men. But the symbolic significance of
Rome never entirely disappeared for Freud. In 1913, Freud sent a picture
postcard from Rome to his colleague Karl Abraham. On one side was a
picture of the Arch of Titus, the arch erected to commemorate the
Fahrenheit 63
victory of Titus over the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70
c. E. During the Middle Ages, the Jews were forbidden, or forbade them-
selves, to pass through it. And the message Freud scribbled to his col-
league on the other face of the card: "The Jew survives it!" 45
II. To Thebes
Another dream of Freud's, although not properly a part of the "Rome

Series," also centers about the city of Rome and introduces further
associations concerning that city, which for Freud was a "cloak and
symbol." The dream is popularly known as "My Son, the Myops."
Professor M. said: "My Son, the Myops . . . " the dream was
only an introductory one preliminary to another in which I did play
a part.
On account of certain events which had occurred in the city of
Rome, it had become necessary to remove the children to safety,
and this was done. The scene was then in front of a gateway, double
doors in the ancient style (the "Porta Romana" at Siena, as I was
aware during the dream itselO. I was sitting on the edge of a fountain
and was greatly depressed and almost in tears. A female figure-an
attendant or nun-brought two boys out and handed them over to
their father who was not myself. The elder of the two was clearly my
eldest son; I did not see the other one's face. The woman who
brought out the boy asked him to kiss her good-bye. She was notice-
able for having a red nose. The boy refused to kiss her, but', holding
out his hand in farewell, said "Auf Geseres" to her, and then "Auf
Ungeseres" to the two of us (or to one of us}. I had a notion that
this last phrase denoted a preference. 46
As Freud informed us, this dream was "constructed on a tangle of

thoughts" stimulated by the play The New Ghetto. The play concerns
an enlightened Jewish family in Vienna in 1893 and the invisible bar-
riers that have come to replace the physical walls of the old ghetto in
separating them from the larger society.
The New Ghetto was written by Theodor Herzl in the final months
of 1894, but he was unable to get it produced. Only after Herzl achieved
his reputation as the leader of the Zionist movement following his pub-
lication of The Jewish State in 1896 and his establishment of the World
Zionist Organization, whose president he became in 1897, did the play

find a producer and open at the Carl-Theater on the Praterstrasse in
January 1898. Ironically, by that time its author had abandoned ·many
of the assimilationist goals expressed in the drama in favor of a Zionist
solution to the Jewish question. 47 It was somewhat unusual for Freud to
have seen the play because he rarely attended the theater; he would go
only if a production attracted his special attention. 48 It is somewhat
more unusual for Freud to fail to mention the author of the play in The
Interpretation of Dreams, an oversight he rarely made in connection with
his host of other literary references and one that for some reason he
failed to amend in any of the subsequent editions of the work. 49 It
becomes even more remarkable when we realize that at the time the
play was produced, Herzl lived just down the street from Freud at Berg-
gasse 6 (Freud was at Berggasse 19). 50 We become convinced that this
omission is more than mere oversight when we learn that Freud had
another dream that was connected with Herzl but was never published.
According to Dr. Joseph Freud, a relative of Sigmund, Freud referred to
Herzl in one of his lectures on dreams at the University of Vienna in
1905 or 1907. Herzl appeared to Freud in a dream with "an appearance
filled with glory, with a dark yet pale countenance, adorned with an
attractive black beard, and with eyes that expressed infinite grief. The
apparition attempted to persuade Freud of the need for immediate ac-
tion, if the Jewish people were to be saved. " 51 This dream specimen was
never published, and it is not known when it was dreamt. However, in
the same lecture Freud was alleged to have stated that he had been
surprised by the close resemblance between the figure of Herzl in the
dream and the man whom he later saw on a bus, 52 so it had to be
sometime before Herzl's death in July 1904. But the dream may have
been as early as 1898, the year of "My Son, the Myops." Certainly the
themes of the two dreams seem closely related.
"My Son, the Myops" would seem to be an almost explicit conver-
sion fantasy. Almost every association to Freud's dream involves Jewish
and Christian references in various degrees of conjunction. Elements of
the conversion theme seem to lie very near the surface of the dream. In
the city of Rome, a nun (who resembled Freud's childhood nurse) is in
charge of two of Freud's sons whom she turns over to a new father-a
father who is not Freud. In other words, after the church has taken
charge of the sons, they are lost to the father; he no longer has descen-
dants and they no longer have ancestors. This is one possible meaning
of the expression "myops." The term is a neologism, as Freud informs
us, based on the terms "myopia" and "Cyclops." Both the original and
derived terms imply short or otherwise limited sight, 53 and certainly a
Fahrenheit 65
child who could not look back to his immediate ancestors (in the
dream, by the reason of their conversion) would be extremely short-
sighted, a true "myops."
The image of sitting by a fountain almost in tears triggers in Freud's
mind the verse: "By the waters of Babylon [Wassem Babels] we sat down
and wept." Psalm 137 begins "By the rivers of Babylon we sat down,
yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." The theme is the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem and the captivity of Israel in a foreign land. Certainly,
the conversion to Christianity might be considered a modem-day ana-
log to the destruction of Jerusalem, that city symbolic of the Jewish
people. Alexander Grinstein has argued that Freud's association to the
image of weeping by a fountain is not derived from the psalm but from
the poem by Charles Algernon Swinburne "Super Flumina Babylonis,"
because Freud uses the term "waters" rather than "rivers" as in the
psalm. 54
By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept,

Remembering thee;
That for ages of agony hast endured and slept,
And wouldst not see. 55
The poem itself articulates very well with the dream, as it compares the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the redemption brought
by the resurrection of Christ to the resurrection of Italy to her former
glory. Certainly the last line of this first verse complements the "myops"
motif quite welt.
However, Psalm 13 7 seems equally relevant. The psalm ends with
the famous declamation:
If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem

Let my right hand forget her cunning.
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
If I remember thee not;
If I set not Jerusalem
Above my chiefest joy.
Note the dooms that are called down upon those who forget Jerusalem:
immobilization of the limbs, dysfunctions in speech. Is it Freud's own
novel contribution that the sense of sight shall be affected as well?
Myops? 56 It would seem that it is the accounting of these dooms in the

last part of the psalm that provides the link to the presence of the term
"geseres" in Freud's dream.
The term "geseres" derives from the Yiddish and Hebrew term meaning
"decrees" or "dooms." Freud acknowledges that the term "ungeseres" is
his own creation on the model of such terms as gesalzen (salted) or
ungesalzen (unsalted) or gesiiuert (leavened) and ungesiiuert (unleav·
ened). This last pair of terms Freud links with the unleavened bread
that the children of Israel ate when they fled Egypt in such haste.
Curiously, Freud refers to the holiday the Jews continue to celebrate by
the eating of unleavened bread as "Easter" rather than "Passover." Easter
in turn conjures up a congress that he held with his friend Fliess in
Breslau the previous Easter, and how as they were walking through the
streets, a little girl stopped them and asked directions to a particular
street (shades of rue Richelieu!). Since they were strangers in the city,
they could not show her the way, and Freud remarked to Fliess that he
hoped the girl would show more discrimination in choosing people to
direct her. At that point, Freud caught sight of a name plate on a
building marked "Dr. Herodes" and quipped that he hoped Dr. Herodes
was not a children's doctor57 (the joke being based on King Herod's
slaughter of the newborn upon learning of the prophecy of Christ's
imminent birth). It is perhaps significant that Freud remembered his
joke based upon the events surrounding Christ's birth that he made in
the city of Breslau, because Freud erred in dating his congress with Fliess
at Easter. He actually met Fliess between December 22 and 29; that is,
during Christmas, not Easter! 58
This might be as good a place as any to note the curious position
that Easter occupied in Freud's calendar. In his associations with the
"My Son, the Myops" dream, we have noted how he replaced Passover
with Easter and Christmas with Easter. When Freud returned from Paris
from his studies with Charcot, he opened his medical offices at Rathaus·
strasse 7 on Easter Day (April 25, 1886). It was a most unusual day to
open a practice, to say the least. Everything was closed: businesses,
offices, and all but emergency medical services. 59 Freud mentions Easter
in his correspondence with Fliess no less than twenty-two times between
1896 and 1901. 60 And on April 16, 1900, Freud closed his letter to
Fliess with the following joking reference to his wish to visit Rome:
"Otherwise Vienna is Vienna, that is to say extremely revolting. If I
closed with 'Next Easter in Rome' I should feel like a pious Jew. "61 On
Passover, the formal liturgical part of the seder meal ends with the
exclamation by the participants "Next year in Jerusalem!" Freud replaces
Passover with Easter and Jerusalem with Rome; a set of transformations
Fahrenheit 67
entirely consistent with those in his associations to the dream "My Son,
the Myops."
In the dream, Freud's eldest son turns to him and bids him "Auf
Ungeseres. " Is it an expression of the wish that Freud might avoid those
Geseres that befall those who would forget Jerusalem and replace it with
Rome? The use of the term Geseres in slang suggests to Freud "weeping
and wailing, "62 thus Ungeseres implies that the loss of sons to the father
was for the best and not an occasion for bereavement. (There is a
custom among Orthodox Jews of sitting in mourning for a member of
the family who has converted to another faith as though that person
had died. Martha's uncle Jacob observed just such a mourning period
for his brother Michael upon Michael's conversion to Christianity. )63
Appropriately, the second verse of Swinburne's poem suggests that the
coming of Christ has delivered the mourners for Zion from their weep-
ing:
By the waters of Babylon we stood up and sang,

Considering thee,
That a blast of deliverance in the darkness rang,
To set thee free. 64
In the psalm, the weepers over the destruction of Jerusalem had put
away their harps, but their captors mocked them to sing a song of Zion.
In Swinburne's poem, however, Christ had ended the suffering; the
Geseres were truly past.
The play by Theodor Herzl that triggered Freud's "My Son, the
Myops" dream closes with the demise of the hero, who on his deathbed
cries out: "I want to get out; Out! Out-of-the-Ghetto!"65 Freud's own
wish to escape from the new ghetto was no less passionate than that of
the play's protagonist, but he undoubtedly realized that it was too late
to effect his own escape in reality. For his children, it was perhaps a
different matter. They were still young (the oldest being ten years old,
the youngest just three); perhaps there was a possibility for them to
escape. Freud explicitly revealed the disturbing thoughts that Herzl's
play had aroused in his mind: "The Jewish problem, concern about the
future of one's own children to whom one cannot give a country of
their own, concern about educating them in such a way that they can
move freely across frontiers [dass sie freizuzig werden ki.innen)-all of this
was easily recognizable among the relevant dream thoughts" 66 (my em-
phasis). Note how Freud's expression concerning freedom of movement

leads us rather directly back to our jokes about riding a horse, traveling
by train, and even his agility in mounting stairs.
We should also be alert to the tie-in between the "Myops" dream
and Freud's worry over his own employment (remember "No food-no
work" in the "Riding on a Horse" dream). Freud pointed out that near
the Porta Romana in Siena, the scene in which the "Myops" dream is
set, stood the Manicomio, the insane asylum. Shortly before he had the
dream, Freud disclosed that he had been informed of a doctor who had
been forced to resign a position in the state asylum that he had achieved
after considerable effort because of his Jewish background. 67 Hence we
are led back once again to the career-conversion complex in Freud's
thought.
There is yet another connection between Freud and Herzl that de-
serves comment. It is a connection of coincidence rather than cause
but is significant nevertheless in contextualizing the conversion fantasies
that tempted Freud. Herzl, who in 1895 had realized that the assimila-
tion of the Jews into European society was impossible, and who was
outlining his grand scenario for the foundation of a Jewish state, had in
1893 fantasized about the conversion of his children-indeed, about
the mass conversion of all Jewish children in the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. The conversion of the children, Herzl reasoned, would spare
them the agony of their parents, and a mass conversion would overcome
the shame that attached to the individual Jew who wanted to convert.
Herzl could actually imagine this mass conversion taking place outside
the church of St. Stephen in Vienna. Herzl and the other leaders of
this movement would accompany the converts to the portals of the
church, but they would remain outside. They would not convert and
would remain the last Jews on earth (or at least in the empire). Unlike
Freud's fantasy disguised in the language of dream, Herzl's fantasy was
conscious and clearly articulated. He even approached his editors at the
Neue freie Presse in an effort to convince them to propagate his ideas.
The editors, both assimilated Jews, rejected his proposal. One of their
arguments apparently struck home: "For a hundred generations your line
has preserved itself within the field of judaism. Now you propose to set
yourself up as a terminal point in this process. This is audacious. You
cannot do it. You have no right. "68 And so Herzl abandoned his fantas-
tic scheme.
It would be fruitless to hypothesize any lines of communication
between Freud and Herzl to account for the similarities in their fanta-
sies. Although they lived on the same street at the time Freud was
preparing The Interpretation of Dreams and Herzl was laying the founda-
Fahrenheit 69
tion for a world Zionist movement there is no indication that they ever
met or spoke to one another. Yet even a passing familiarity with the
biographies of these two figures would allow for the recognition of strong
resemblances between them. They were approximately the same age
(Freud was four years older). They both came to Vienna from the
eastern provinces of the empire. They both had indulgent fathers and
strong-willed mothers who were convinced of their sons' greamess. They
both aspired to positions in their society that they knew were unattain-
able because of their Jewish backgrounds, yet both felt fundamentally
and thoroughly German. They both, therefore, moved into the "free
professions" where they could make their own way relatively indepen-
dently from the institutional structures of the society: Freud in medicine
and Herzl in journalism and literature. They both adored travel, and
both entertained aristocratic fantasies. They both suffered from great
ambition that only began to be realized late in their careers. Both were
radically transformed by their experiences in Paris. Both became the
scorn of Vienna, and both identified in some way with the figure of
Moses. 69
Undoubtedly, many of their similarities were due to growing up
Jewish in the milieu of late nineteenth-century Vienna. Certainly, they
were not the only Jews of their time to entertain conversion fantasies.
In fact, in the year 1900 when The Interpretation of Dreams was pub-
lished, 559 Viennese Jews in a population of 146,926 converted to
Christianity. 70 It is certainly less difficult to entertain the notion that
Freud harbored deep and passionate wishes to escape his identity and to
allow his children to escape theirs through baptism when he is viewed
alongside his contemporary, Herzl. But Freud repressed and suppressed
his wishes. Ultimately, he was deeply ashamed of them. The creative
energies that the conflicts over identity engendered in the two men took
different courses. Herzl, who was open about his fantasies, sought a
resolution to his conflict in the political arena; Freud, who repressed his
wishes, focused his energies on the creation of a psychology of the
unconscious mind.
Max Graf, an early participant at the psychoanalytic meetings that
were held every Wednesday evening at Freud's home beginning in 1902,
and which eventually evolved into the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Soci-
ety, remembered approaching Freud and asking whether it would be
better to bring up his son in the Christian faith as the anti-Semitic
mood in Vienna had increased sharply. (Graf was the father of Freud's
famous child-patient "Little Hans.") Freud advised him: "If you do not
let your son grow up as a Jew, you will deprive him of those sources of

energy which cannot be replaced by anything else. He will have to
struggle as a Jew, and you ought to develop in him all the energy that
he will need for that struggle. " 71 Here we have the first explicit sugges-
tion by Freud that his own conflict over his identity provided him with
a great fund of energy for his own work, for Freud's insight was undoubt-
edly derived from his own experience. It might even seem to be a clear
and decisive victory by Freud over his unconscious impulses in offering
such advice, but we must not jump to such conclusions. As Freud
himself has observed:
We deny ourselves many things so that others may do without them

as well. ... It reveals itself unexpectedly in the syphilitic's dread of
infecting other people, which psycho-analysis has taught us to un-
derstand. The dread exhibited by these poor wretches corresponds
to their violent struggles against the unconscious wish to spread the
infection to other people; for why should they alone be infected and
cut off from so much? why not other people as well? And the same
germ is to be found in the apt story of the judgement of Solomon.
If one woman's child is dead, the other shall not have a live one
either. The bereaved woman is recognized by this wish. 72
In a similar vein, why should the insidious disease of Judaism be trans-

mitted from "sire to son" in one case and not the other? As Heine
inquired in "The New Jewish Hospital at Hamburg":
Will Time, eternal goddess, in compassion

Root out this dark calamity transmitted
From sire to son?-Will one day a descendant
Recover, and grow well and wise and happy? 73
No, time alone would not root out the infection, only baptism. Perhaps
in Freud's advice to Graf about the baptism of his child, Freud was in
part directed by his failure to save his own. After all, why should Freud's
children remain stricken if not others as well?
There is a strong patrilineal tendency in Freud's view of his children.
In "My Son, the Myops" only sons appear despite the balance in the
sexual distribution of Freud's children (three sons and three daughters).
Even in his later years, there is some indication that Freud responded to
questions concerning his children with information regarding the live-
lihood and geographical situation of his sons. 74 Most telling is the choice
of names for his children: Freud named all his sons after non-Jews and
Fahrenheit 71
all his daughters after Jews. Martin, Oliver, and Ernst were named for
Jean Martin Charcot, Oliver Cromwell, and Ernst Briicke. {It is said
that Freud particularly admired Cromwell for his readmission of the Jews
to England. Cromwell readmitted them partly from a sense of tolerance,
partly from h1s belief that they could be converted. )75 Mathilde, Freud's
eldest child, was named after Josef Breuer's wife, Sophie was named
after his old schoolmaster Professor Hammerschlag's niece, and Anna
after Hammerschlag's daughter. 76 It would seem that when Freud thought
in terms of his descendants, he thought primarily in terms of the con-
tinuity of the male line. There is, perhaps, a measure of irony in the
fact that Freud's only true intellectual heir among his children was his
youngest daughter, Anna.
A mention of Freud's relationship with Jung is also apropos. Freud
regularly tame into conflict with his own Jewish colleagues over his
selection of Jung as, what he termed, his "son and heir" of the psycho-
analytic movement. 77 What Freud saw in Jung was an adherent of psy-
choanalysis who was not Viennese, was a psychiatrist, and was not a
Jew. The advantage of having a non-Jew, or an Aryan as Freud tended
to call them, as the president of The International Psycho-Analytical
Association and as editor of the ]ahrbuch fur psychoanalytische und psy-
chopathologische Forschungen was always clear in Freud's mind: "His as-
sociation with us is more valuable for that. I nearly said that it was only
by his appearance on the scene that psychoanalysis escaped the danger
of becoming a Jewish national affair. " 78 In both Freud's selection of the
names for his sons and in his insistence upon Jung as his only legitimate
successor, we can observe the elements of Freud's wish for non-Jewish
heirs.
Let us briefly recapitulate what has been established thus far. First,
we have seen how three of Freud's jokes concerning riding or traveling
are directly associated with his dreams: the "ltzig the Sunday Horse-
man" joke with the "Riding on a Horse" dream; and the "Karlsbad" and
"rue Riche lieu" jokes with the third dream of his "Rome Series." We
interpreted riding on a horse as a metaphor for Freud's career, which he
felt was impeded by his Jewish origins. Traveling by train, moving freely,
escaping the invisible but nevertheless real walls of the new ghetto were
Freud's desires, but he felt that such an escape could only be effected by
a journey to Rome, by the purchase of Heine's "admission ticket" to
European society-baptism. Freud's own obsessive avoidance of the city
of Rome was an attempt to deny symbolically the power and attraction
of this unconscious wish, of which Freud was deeply ashamed. Con-
sciously he was committed, or perhaps condemned, to the maintenance

of his Jewish identity. But the question of his children continued to
plague him, as evidenced primarily in the dream "My Son, the Myops."
There is other evidence that will allow us to enlarge upon the
network of meanings in Freud's traveling jokes. Beyond Freud's neurotic
resistance to visiting the city of Rome, he had a more generalized fear
or anxiety at departing on a journey. 79 Apparently Freud had a full-
blown attack of this "traveling phobia" at his first congress with Fliess
in Berchtesgaden in 1890. 80 An insight into the nature of this anxiety
is offered in an essay he wrote only three years before his death, an essay
in honor of Romain Rolland's seventieth birthday: "A Disturbance of
Memory on the Acropolis." In this essay Freud recalled a disturbance
that occurred when he and his brother Alexander were visiting the
Acropolis in Athens in 1904. Upon reaching the Acropolis, Freud ex·
perienced a sensation of unreality about the place-as though it did not
really exist. This sensation he referred to as a derealization, of which
there are two kinds: derealizations proper, in which a piece of reality is
experienced as strange; and depersonalizations, in which a piece of one's
self is experienced as strange. Freud ascribed this sensation of the de-
realization of the Acropolis to a defense mechanism. It was a denial of
the feeling, upon seeing the Acropolis, of glory in the accomplishment,
a negation of the joy in the thought, "We have really come a long way."
Freud a~ued that his sense of achievement at his journey must have
aroused a sense of guilt in him over having "gotten further than his
father." What interfered with Freud's pleasurable experience of the
Acropolis was a "stirring of piety" (Regung der Pietiit). 81 In other words,
the derealization was a defense against Freud's sense of impiety. It was
the rejection of his ancestry, not the rejection of the person or role of
his father, however, that was truly impious. Traveling or making a jour·
ney symbolized for Freud his wish to travel beyond the boundaries of the
walls of the ghetto and merge with the larger Western culture (as appro·
priately symbolized by the Acropolis), a journey that could only be
accomplished at the expense of his ancestry.
It is within the context of Freud's thoughts about traveling, career,
and the abandonment of one's heritage that the form of and the moti·
vation behind his nasty comment about the death of Alfred Adler
become completely understandable. Adler had broken with Freud in
1911 and left the Vienna Psycho· Analytical Society taking a good num·
ber of members with him. The "Individual Psychology" that Adler
developed was in many instances competing, and competing success·
fully, with Freud's psychoanalysis. When Adler died in 1937 while on a
lecture tour in Scotland, Freud wrote to Arnold Zweig: "I don't under-
Fahrenheit 73
stand your sympathy for Adler. For a Jew boy out of a Viennese suburb
a death in Aberdeen is an unheard of career in itself and a proof how
far he had got on. The world really rewarded him richly for his service
in having contradicted psychoanalysis. "82 Freud views Adler's success as
being at the expense of psychoanalysis. The world rewarded him richly,
no doubt in Freud's eyes, because Adler had bought his entrance ticket:
Adler had converted to Christianity in 1904. Note how Freud evaluates
Adler's career in terms of "how far he got on," with the geography of
Aberdeen, Scotland, providing the metaphorical measurement. Freud
was undoubtedly furious to see those who had purchased their tickets
succeed at the expense of those who had controlled their impulses and
remained outwardly faithful to their ancestry. Freud refused to acknowl-
edge Adler's successful escape from the ghetto; Adler would remain,
after all, a "Jew boy" from Vienna.
There exists another connection to be drawn between Freud's jokes
concerning traveling, his guilt at surpassing his father, and the fate of
his progeny. The term fahren, which means "to go," "to drive," "to
travel," and which is used repeatedly by Freud in his dreams, dream
associations, and jokes, is a root in the word Vmfahren meaning "ances-
try." We have not made extensive use of such lexical arguments thus
far, for although they are often clever, they are only rarely compelling.
We offer the argument here, however, because Freud observed the very
same connection! Freud reports the following association to the word
fahren in his discussion of his "Count Thun" dream:
One evening, while I was at the home of the hospitable and

witty lady who appeared as the "housekeeper" in one of the other
scenes in the same dream, I had heard two riddles which I had been
unable to solve. Since they were familiar to the rest of the company,
I cut a rather ludicrous figure in my vain attempts to find the an·
swers. They depended on puns on the words Nachkammen and Vor-
fahren.
Der Herr befiehlt's,
Der Kutscher tut's.
Ein jeder hat's,
Im grabe ruht's.
[With the master's request
The driver complies:
By all men possessed
In the graveyard it lies.]
(Answer: Vmfahren ["Drive up" and "Ancestry"; more literally "go
in front" and "predecessors"].)

Der Herr befiehlt's,
Der Kutscher tut's.
Nicht jeder hat's,
In der Wiege ruht's.
[With the master's request
The driver complies:
Not by all men possessed
In the cradle it lies.)
(Answer: Nachkommen ["Follow after" and "Progeny"; more literally
"come after" and "successors"]. )83
The dream thought that lies behind this association, Freud reveals,
is that, "It is absurd to be proud of one's ancestry; it is better to be an an-
cestor oneself" (my emphasis). 84 What is even more astounding is
that in this same dream, when Freud gives expression to his Ger-
man nationalistic attitudes, he uses the expression "lch fahre auf,
fahre also auf" ("I got fired up, so I got fired up") 85 to character-
ize his indignation toward anti-German sentiments. So once
again, though by an entirely different route, we are confronted
with Freud's clear associations between traveling, ancestry,
progeny, and his own sense of being a German rather than a
Jew.
We should perhaps now ask: Was Freud's Oedipus complex, which
he describes in The Interpretation of Dreams, a mask for another
wish: the wish to abandon the Jewish identity that was bestowed
upon him by his father? I suggest that this was indeed the case.
Freud's wish to abandon his Jewish heritage, however, was so shame-
ful to him that he preferred to acknowledge the existence of an un-
conscious hatred toward the person and role of his father rather
than acknowledge his own "apostacy." Freud told the truth when
he admitted his hatred for his father, but he dissembled in character-
izing the target of that hatred as a sexual rival rather than a Jewish an-
cestor.
Perhaps we may now hypothesize a particular meaning of another of
Freud's jokes concerning traveling by train:
Two Jews met in a railway carriage at a station in Galicia. "Where

are you going?" asked one.
"To Cracow," was the answer.
"What a liar you are!" broke out the other. "If you say you are
going to Cracow, you want me to believe you are going to Lemberg.
Fahrenheit 75
But I know in fact that you're going to Cracow. So why are you lying
to me?" 86
Like the Jew on the train, Freud told the truth; yet his truth was the
basis for a deception. Freud truthfully admitted that his journey to the
Acropolis represented a wish to surpass his father; yet he failed to
acknowledge that his journey to overtake and surpass his father was
fundamentally an effort to escape the identity his father had bequeathed
to him.
But why should the story of Oedipus come to be the foremost rep-
resentation of this forbidden wish? Are there any clues in the Oedipus
drama that suggest the true direction of Freud's impulses? Indeed, there
are. Consider the fundamental theme of Sophocles's drama. It concerns
a man who attempts to escape a fate that was ordained even before his
birth. It is the tale of a man who is gradually forced to acknowledge his
true ancestry and to endure the terrible consequences of that ancestry.
Oedipus, though born in Thebes, returns to his native city as a stranger,
a foreigner. For solving the Sphinx's riddle, he is made ruler of the city,
yet his presence pollutes the land, and his expulsion is demanded by
the gods. Oedipus must leave his native city and become a wanderer.
Oedipus bemoans the fate of his children (in this case, his daughters)
who are condemned to be disgraced for crimes they did not commit.
Indeed, at the close of the drama, Oedipus commends his two daugh-
ters, Antigone and Ismene, to the care of Creon in a scene strongly
reminiscent of that in the dream "My Son, the Myops." (Oedipus, who
puts out his eyes, might be considered the original "myops. ")
Other similarities between Freud and Oedipus call for our attention.
Although Freud's family moved to Vienna from the eastern provinces of
the empire, Freud maintained (with hardly any discoverable evidence)
that his family's roots were old and Germanic, and that this latter
migration was simply a return to the soil of a greater Germany: "I have
reason to believe that my father's family were settled for a long time on
the Rhine (at Cologne), that, as a result of a persecution of the Jews
during the fourteenth or fifteenth century, they fled eastwards, and that,
in the course of the nineteenth century, they migrated back from Lith-
uania through Galicia into German Austria. "87 So, like Oedipus, Freud
too had returned to the land of his origin. When Freud was in Paris in
1885, he was deeply moved by a performance of Oedipus Rex he saw
with Mont-Sully in the title role. 88 He had also written to Martha from
Paris that Paris was a "vast overdressed Sphinx who gobbles up every
foreigner unable to solve her riddles" (my emphasis). 89 It would seem

that it was the fate of Oedipus the foreigner that so impressed Freud in
Paris, rather than the themes of parricide and incest that fifteen years
later he tried to argue were the source of the drama's power. 90 It is a
comical coincidence that in a letter written to Arnold Zweig in 1935,
Freud had occasion to refer to his daughter as "my Anna-Antigone" and
then to go on to express his concern about the "poor eyes" of Zweig. 91
John Murray Cuddihy has suggested another important connection
betwen Freud and the Oedipus drama that may have stimulated Freud's
emotional response to the play. 92 In one scene, Oedipus recounted to
Jocasta how he left Corinth to attend the oracle at Delphi, where he
learned of the prophecy that he would slay his father and bed his
mother. In an effort to avoid this terrible fate, he headed away from
Corinth, which he believed to be his true home and the abode of his
parents. He left, as Oedipus phrases it, so that he "should not produce
a race of men intolerable to see. "9 } Oedipus recounted that in the land
of Phocis, where the roads from Delphi, Daulia, and Thebes converge,
that:
I found myself upon the self-same spot

Where you say the king perished. In your ears,
Wife, I will tell the whole. When in my travels
I was come near this place where three roads meet,
There met a herald and a man that rode
In a colt-carriage, as you tell of him,
And from the track the leader, by main force,
And the old man himself, would have thrust me. I,
Being enraged, strike him who jostled me-
The driver-and the old man, when he saw it,
Watching as I was passing, from the car
With his goad's fork smote me upon the hecul.
He paid, though! duly I say not; but in brief,
Smitten by the staff in this right hand of mine,
Out of the middle of the carriage straight
He rolls down headlong; and I slay them all. 94 (my emphasis)
As Cuddihy observes, this scene is remarkably reminiscent of the scene

in which Freud's father's hat is knocked off by a non-Jew as he is forced
off the pavement into the gutter. Freud admitted that he had been
ashamed of his father's seeming cowardice in the face of such provoca-
tion. Certainly, the memory of his father's story95 conditioned Freud's
subsequent violent encounters with overt anti-Semitism. We may be-
Fahrenheit 77
lieve, with Cuddihy, that in the confrontation of Oedipus the traveler
with those who would push him from the road we discover a scene that
may have gripped Freud so powerfully it conditioned his total response
to the drama and elevated the figure of Oedipus as the supreme ruler in
the realm of Freud's psychological metaphors.
Freud's conflict over his Jewish identity generated the energy that
allowed him to invent psychoanalysis and organize the psychoanalytic
movement. Without the barriers, without the shame, without the con-
flict, the invention might not have been forthcoming. Conflict is at the
core of Freud's theory of psychodynamics, so it should not come as a
surprise if we find it at the root of his own identity.
In the first lines of "An Autobiographical Study," Freud boldly ac-
knowledges his Jewish heritage, and commentators have always pointed
to this passage as firm evidence of his resolute and unconflicted sense of
identity. It is apparent, however, that these same commentators have
ignored the curious formulation of Freud's affirmation, for it is totally
passive: The heritage is not something to be embraced but rather some-
thing to be endured. As Freud phrased it: "I was born on May 6, 1856,
at Freiberg in Moravia. . . . My parents were Jews and I have remained
a Jew myself" ["Meine Eltem waren ]uden, auch ich bin Jude geblieben "]. 96

6 : The l{iicl(.
l"'V!!:W : 'T'I MJp= rr'I'IQ

(He who admits to a part must swear on the balance.)
:ecncec.=
Of particular interest are a short series of mystical or occult jokes that

appear in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Although they do
not form a very great portion of Freud's known repertoire, they indicate
strikingly the direct correspondences between the content of Freud's
jokes and the substance of his thoughts. The basic anecdote is once
again a "Jewish joke," one that likely was contained in his manuscript
collection; but aspects of the joke theme are reiterated in several other
non-Jewish jokes as well.
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 Kii.ck
[look] from Cracow to Lemberg was a magnificent one. " 1
The Kiick 79
If the rabbi of Lemberg had indeed died at the same moment that
the rabbi of Cracow had received his message, it would have been a
startling demonstration of the existence of telepathic communication
and the miraculous abilities of the rabbi. However, it is only the co-
occurrence of the rabbi of Lemberg's death and the rabbi of Cracow's
vision that can possibly demonstrate the existence of such a marvelous
telepathic channel. The disciple, however, continues to affirm the ex-
istence of such a channel despite the total absence of evidence for it. It
is the unconditional admiration for the rabbi's achievement in total
disregard of evidence from the real world that lies at the core of this
joke. Freud sees it as a cynical joke "directed against miracle-workers
and certainly against the belief in miracles as well. " 2 But the joke's
narrative techniques merge two contradictory thoughts; that miraculous
phenomena both do and do not exist. The underlying joke's thought is:
miraculous telepathic occurrences exist despite all evidence to the contrary.
Another joke Freud cites in Jokes and Their Relation to the Uncon·
scious also hinges on the opposition between the possibility and impos-
sibility of occult phenomena:
Frederick the Great heard of a preacher in Silesia who had the

reputation of being in contact with spirits. He sent for the man and
received him with the question "You can conjure up spirits?" The
reply was: "At your Majesty's command. But they don't come!" 3
In this joke, Freud observes, the answer "No" is replaced by its opposite.
"At your Majesty's command" suggests the occult abilities of the Sile-
sian preacher. The addendum "but they don't come," however, concur-
rently denies these abilities. The message of this joke, like the one about
the rabbi of Cracow and his disciple, simultaneously asserts the exis-
tence and nonexistence of occult powers. Although Freud holds that
such jokes are "cynical" with respect to the miraculous and occult, it is
this merging of the assertion with the denial that we will explore in
Freud's own thought.
Ernest Jones, who in so many instances in his biography was protec-
tive of Freud, is forced by his own skepticism to be straightforward about
Freud's attitude toward the occult:
We find throughout an exquisite oscillation between scepticism and

credulity so striking that it is possible to quote just as many pieces
of evidence in support of his doubt concerning occult beliefs as of
his adherence to them.... It may prove to be only one more

example of the remarkable fact that highly developed critical powers
may co-exist in the same person with an unexpected fund of credu-
lity. 4
Freud's oscillation between skepticism and credulity, we argue, was the

result of a serious conflict between conscious and unconscious forces.
Freud's citation in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious of Lichten-
berg's aphorism is remarkably apropos: "Not only did he disbelieve in
ghosts; he was not even afraid of them. " 5 As Freud points out, when
the joking envelope is removed from this bon mot the thought that
remains is: "It is much easier to get rid of the fear of ghosts intellectually
than it is to escape it when the occasion arises. "6 As we shall presently
see, in these few words Freud has admirably summed up his own situa-
tion.
In chapter 3, we were introduced to Freud's superstitious attitude in
connection with the breaking of Martha's ring. In another letter to
Martha, Freud had asked facetiously: "Do you believe in omens?" Then
he suggested that since their meeting he had become "quite supersti·
tious. " 7 In The Psychopathology of Everyday Life Freud pointed out that
superstitious behavior, especially in the form of anticipated troubles,
derives from repressed hostile and cruel impulses whose force is felt in
the continual expectation of punishment. 8 This insight correlates well
with our hypothesis of strong negative feelings toward Martha during
the period of their engagement.
Freud provides some rather substantial examples of his own supersti-
tious behavior in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. For example,
when in Paris during the period of his studies with Charcot, Freud was
given to hearing disembodied voices: "I quite often heard my name
called by an unmistakable and beloved voice; I noted down the exact
moment of the hallucination and made anxious enquiries of those at
home about what had happened at that time. Nothing had happened. "9
Note that Frwd's anxiety is sufficient to cause him to note down re-
peatedly the exact times of his auditory hallucinations and to initiate
inquiries as to their objective correlatives. Although such inquiries came
to naught, Freud did not thenceforth cease to entertain superstitious
beliefs.
During an illness of his eldest daughter, Mathilde, in 1905, Freud
had given up hope of her recovery. When her condition suddenly im-
proved, he gave way to an impulse to hurl one of his slippers against the
wall, thus breaking a little marble statue of Venus: "My attack of de-
structive fury served therefore to express a feeling of gratitude to fate
The Kiick 81
and allowed me to perform a sacrificial act-rather as if I had made a
vow to sacrifice something or other as a thank-offering if she recovered
her health. " 10 Apparently Freud was not above making vows and offer-
ings to unnamed powers, a behavior clearly in the religious mode. Freud's
behavior here is a perfect illustration of Lichtenberg's insight: occasion
overpowers reason and acknowledges the existence of an occult or su-
pernatural reality. Freud may not have believed in ghosts, but periodi-
cally he would seem to have been afraid of them.
Freud's initial acceptance of some of the more extreme aspects of
Wilhelm Fliess's "theory of periodicity" also reflects a tendency toward
uncritical belief and semimystical explanation. Fliess's theory revolved
around the concept of male and female biological periods of twenty-
three and twenty-eight days, respectively. When Fliess began to extend
his periodicity theory to the cosmos, Freud hailed him as "the Kepler of
biology. " 11 Freud's later rejection of Fliess's theory of periodicity accom-
panied the disintegration of their friendship, but during the course of
their relationship, Fliess was constantly attempting to demonstrate his
theory with numerical calculations. Freud believed that he would die at
the age of 51 because of a calculation of Fliess (the summation of the
male and female periods). 12 When that date had passed, he took to
believing that he would die at the age of 61 or 62. Freud confided this
belief to Jung in a letter in 1909. The "rationale" for this belief rested
upon the fact that in 1899 (the year The Interpretation of Dreams was
published, although it was postdated 1900), Freud received a new tele-
phone number: 14362. Since Freud was then 43 years old, it was only
"plausible to suppose" that the remaining digits in the phone number
signified the age at which he would die; that is, at 61 or 62 (12, 16, 21,
and 26 were clearly impossible). When Freud made a trip to Greece
with his brother Alexander in 1904 (the trip in which Freud experi·
enced the derealization on.the Acropolis discussed in chapter 5), the
numbers 61 and 62 kept cropping up with uncanny frequency on all
manner of numbered objects, "especially those connected with trans-
portation. " 13 This second forecast of death was in some way also tied in
with the figure of Fliess, because Freud indicated that this superstition
really developed following Fliess's attack on him. 14 Freud made frequent
reference to this prognostication, but when it passed uneventfully, he
wrote to his colleague Sandor Ferenczi (who was deeply interested in
the occult): "That shows what little trust one can place in the super·
natural. •>~s Later, Freud came to believe that he would die at the age of
81, the age at which his father had died. 16 Again his belief proved
erroneous.

Questions concerning the occult were not confined to Freud's pri-
vate life but were considered in the arena of his published works as well.
We are speaking here not only of his consideration of superstitious
behaviors in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, but also of a series of
essays dealing with the issue of telepathic communication. In 1921
Freud wrote "Psycho-Analysis and Telepathy, " 17 which he read to some
of his closest followers at a gathering in the Harz Mountains. 18 When
Freud suggested that he read his paper at the forthcoming Congress of
the International Psycho-Analytical Association, Ernest Jones and Max
Eitingon attempted to dissuade him. 19 They were successful in their
efforts, and the essay was not published until after Freud's death. The
following year, however, Freud published a treatment of the problem in
"Dreams and Telepathy. " 20
In this paper Freud proclaimed to the reader from the outset: "You
will learn nothing . . . about the enigma of telepathy; indeed, you will
not even gather whether l believe in the existence of 'telepathy' or
not. " 21 He went on to discuss two cases: one of a seemingly telepathic
dream, the other of a recurrent dream of a person who had had many
telepathic experiences. In both cases Freud attempted to demonstrate
that the dreams could be understood from an analytic point of view
independent of any belief in the existence of telepathic channels of
communication. In fact, the analyses showed that the telepathic occur-
rences were eminently understandable in terms of the dynamics of psy·
chicallife uncovered by the science of psychoanalysis. All in all, the
essay, as Freud cautioned, did nothing to further the claims for genuine
telepathic experiences, although it did not deny the possibility of such
experiences. The essay is rather a defense of his dream theory against
any possible claims or demonstrations of telepathic occurrences. Even if
telepathic communication were indisputably demonstrated, according
to Freud, it would not alter the theory of dreams one whit. "Telepathy
has no relation to the essential nature of dreams; it cannot deepen in
any way what we already understand of them through analysis. " 22 Curi-
ously, Freud proceeded to claim that the science of psychoanalysis may
indeed come to the aid of telepathy: "By the help of its interpretations
. . . still doubtful phenomena may for the first time definitely be ascer-
tained to be of a telepathic nature. "23
In the context of "Dreams and Telepathy," Freud's last statement
seems somewhat obscure. But it is immediately understandable within
the context of Freud's earlier essay "Psycho-Analysis and Telepathy,"
which his colleagues had urged him to suppress. In this essay Freud
openly declared: "If attention is directed to occult phenomena the outcome
TheKiick 83
will very soon be ckar that the occurrence of a number of them will be
confirmed. " 24 The essay concerns two cases in which the claims of
clairvoyants clearly proved to be false. Freud intended to include a third
case, but when he came to prepare the manuscript in Gastein, he found
that he had forgotten the notes for the case in Vienna. The case sur·
vived in manuscript form and was later included in "Lecture XXX:
Dreams and Occultism" in New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis.
The heading on the original unpublished manuscript of this case reads:
"Postscript. Here is the report omitted owing to resistance, on a case of
thought-transference during analytic practice. " 25
The first case Freud discussed in "Psycho-Analysis and Telepathy"
concerned a patient who sought out the services of an astrologer. The
patient had provided the astrologer with his brother-in-law's birth date,
and the astrologer, after appropriate calculations, then predicted the
brother-in-law would die of oyster or crayfish poisoning sometime in July
or August. The brother-in-law had no such attack, but he was fond of
crayfish and oysters and had experienced a serious attack of seafood
poisoning the previous August and had almost died. Freud's response to
his patient's narrative is striking: "I had the impression that he was not
at all clear about the significance of his experience. I myself was so much
struck-to tell the truth, so disagreeably affected-that I omitted to make
any analytic use of this tale" (my emphasis). 26
The second case involved a forty-year-old childless woman patient
who consulted a famous fortuneteller while visiting Paris. The fortune·
teller's technique involved pressing the client's hand into a dish of sand
and forecasting on the basis of the imprint. The patient had removed
her wedding ring before the fortunetelling session and the seer predicted
that, "In the near future you will have to go through some severe
struggles, but all will tum out well. You will get married, and have two
children by the time you are 32." The patient was impressed by this
forecast despite the fact that she was already married and the dates for
fulfillment of this prophecy had long since passed. Commented Freud:
"I reflected that perhaps she was admiring the confident boldness of the
prophecy-like the faithful disciple of the long-sighted Rabbi" (my empha-
sis). 27
Freud thoughtfully confirms our suspicion that there is an intimate
connection between the Ki«:k joke and his attitude toward the occult.
But the full significance of the joke emerges only after we examine
Freud's assessment of these two curious cases. Freud acknowledged that
no consultation of astrological tables could have revealed to the fortune-
teller that the brother-in-law of the first patient suffered an attack of

seafood poisoning. But the knowledge of such an attack, says Freud,
"was present in the mind of her questioner. The event becomes com-
pletely explicable if we are ready to assume that the knowledge was
tmnsferred from him to the supposed prophetess-by some unknown
method which excluded the means of communication familiar to us.
That is to say, we must draw the inference that there is such a thing as
thought-transference" (my emphasis). 28 Freud argued that his patient's
powerful hatred of his brother-in-law harbored the wish that he might
die, as he almost died of the seafood poisoning the previous summer. It
was this wish, in Freud's view, that was telepathically communicated to
the astrologer.
In the case of the second patient, the forty-year-old childless woman,
Freud attempted to show that she had a strong and pathological identi·
fication with her mother, and the prophecy of the seer was perfectly
accurate with respect to the life of the patient's mother! The mother
had not married until she was thirty and in her thirty-second year, she
had borne two children. It was the powerful identification with her
mother that enabled this patient to telepathically communicate the
detailed information to the seer who was busy examining the imprint of
her hand in the dish of sand. 29
In neither the encounter with the astrologer nor the one with the
fortuneteller do the patients themselves make any claim for the exis-
tence of occult phenomena. It is true that they were both impressed
with the prophecies even though the prophecies proved inaccumte. In
other words, the evidence from these two cases does not demonstmte
the existence of the occult. It is only his analysis of these two cases that
allows Freud to conclude that the prophecies do justify claims to occult
knowledge: telepathic communication by the patients to the seers of
their powerful wishes and their associated facts. As Freud correctly
observed: "Analysis may actually be said to have created the occult
fact. nJO
No great intellectual leap is required to recognize the intimate con-
nection between Freud's evaluation of these "occult" phenomena and
the joke about the mbbi's Kikk. The joke concerns an unfulfilled proph-
ecy. It is understood that an unfulfilled prophecy cannot serve as the
basis for the affirmation of prophetic power. But the mbbi's disciple
reasons in just such a fashion. He accepts the false prophecy as a
miraculous accomplishment, a marvelous telepathic insight whether ac-
cumte or not. And indeed, we find Freud in exactly the same position
as this disciple. Despite the inaccumcy of the prophecies reported by
the patients, Freud comes to demonstmte in these unfulfilled prophecies
TheKuck 85
the existence of telepathic channels of communication, thereby affirm-
ing the existence of miraculous occult powers. It is as if Freud were
asserting: "Whatever else you may say, the Kack was a magnificent one."
It is not entirely clear why the third case was the object of so much
resistance on Freud's part. We know it made "the strongest impression"
on him and that he regarded his forgetting the notes on the case when
he was preparing "Psycho-Analysis and Telepathy" as due to "resis-
tance. " 31 There does not seem to be anything remarkable about the case
except that Freud himself was directly involved. Freud tells us in so
many words that he did not provide all the facts of the case, and it does
not seem possible to reconstruct the missing pieces. The case involved
a patient of Freud's named Herr P. and three seeming instances of
telepathic communication between them. In the first instance, Freud
told Herr P. that the analysis was leading nowhere and should be ter-
minated, but Herr P. was reluctant to end treatment. Freud agreed to
continue treatment but only until a foreign patient whom he was ex-
pecting should arrive for a training analysis. The training analysand, a
Dr. Forsyth of London, finally arrived in Vienna and stopped by to
make an appointment with Freud to begin his analysis. Later that after-
noon, Freud was in session with Herr P., who was discussing his prob-
lematic relationships with women and who in describing one girl with
whom he was hoping to have a relationship suddenly volunteered that
this girl called him "Herr von Vorsicht" (Dr. Foresight). Freud was
struck by the similarity of this name to the name of his new English
analysand, which was unknown to P. Since P. realized that his analysis
would terminate with the arrival of Freud's new foreign visitor and was
therefore extremely jealous of him, Freud interpreted Herr P. 's remark
as a plea: "It is mortifying to me that your thoughts should be so
intensely occupied with this new arrival. Do come back to me; after all
I'm a Forsyth too-though it's true I'm only a Herr von Vorsicht. 11
The second instance of seeming telepathic communication was pre-
cipitated by Freud's visit to the Hungarian analyst Dr. Anton von Freund,
who was staying at a pension in Vienna. Freud was surprised to discover
that Herr P. lived in the same building as this pension and later re-
marked to P. that in a sense he had paid him a visit in his house.
Although Freud was certain he had not revealed the name of the person
whom he was visiting, shortly after Herr P. had referred to himself as
Herr von Vorsicht, he mistakenly called Freud "Dr. Freund. 11
In the third instance, Herr P. told Freud of a frightening dream that
he had dreamt-"a regular 'Alptraum.' " Herr P. went on to recall an
incident in which someone had asked him for the English word for

Alptraum and he had said "mare's nest," although this was clearly non·
sense (a "mare's nest" is something like a "cock and bull story"). The
translation of Alptraum is "nightmare," and Freud recalled that a month
earlier while he was in a session with P., the English analyst Ernest
Jones had arrived. Herr P. recognized Jones from his photograph hanging
on the wall and asked to be introduced. Now Ernest Jones had written
a monograph on the subject of the nightmare, yet Herr P. avoided
reading psychoanalytic literature and should not have been familiar with
it. 32
Very little of the above should impress the reader as particularly
compelling evidence of telepathic communication. Indeed, Freud spends
several pages reviewing each of the incidents and suggests alternative
rational explanations for each of the three coincidences. These alter-
native explanations seem far more convincing than any occult hypoth·
esis, yet Freud persists in maintaining his case for thought transference.
Perhaps Freud's persistence is based upon facts that he chose to suppress
in his account, but as the evidence stands in his essay, we would have
to take seriously his facetious suggestion that he had "a secret inclina-
tion towards the miraculous." For in this case as well, Freud has behaved
like the disciple who, in his enthusiasm and without any factual evi·
dence, attests to the rabbi's telepathic Kikk.
Another incident provides an indication of the strength of Freud's
conflict with respect to his interest in the occult. In 1911, Freud was
elected a corresponding member of the British Society for Psychical
Research, and he was made an honorary fellow of the American Society
for Psychical Research in 1915. In 1921 (the year of Freud's "Psycho-
Analysis and Telepathy"), Hereward Carrington, then director of the
American Psychical Institute, invited Freud to become a member of the
advisory council of that organization. Freud responded: "I am not one
of those who, from the outset, disapprove of the study of so-called occult
psychological phenomena as unscientific, as unworthy, or even danger-
ous. If I were at the beginning of a scientific career, instead of, as now,
at its end I would perhaps choose no other field of work, in spite of all its
difficulties" (my emphasis)Y Freud went on in the letter to request that
they not use his name in connection with their researches because he
was a novice in the field, he did not believe that psychoanalysis had
anything occult about it, and because of his "skeptic-materialist preju-
dices."
When Dr. George Lawton heard from Carrington that Freud had
once written that he would have chosen psychical research over psycho-
analysis if he had his life to live over again, Lawton queried Freud about
TheKuck 87
the truth of the statement. Freud's answer (December 20, 1929) stated:
"I deplore the fact that you yourself did not read my letter to Carring·
ton. You would have easily convinced yourself that I said nothing to
justify the assertion. "34 The letter that Freud wrote to Carrington exists,
however, as quoted above. Freud might have explained to Lawton that
his statement was made in politeness to the director of the American
Psychical Institute rather than from any deep commitment to the area
of psychical research, but Freud's emphatic denial of his statement only
reaffirms the suspicion of a deep and serious conflict in Freud with
respect to matters occult.
Freud's belief in telepathy is rather certain, and it would seem appro·
priate to examine the extent of his convictions about other occult
phenomena. He denied that there was any basis for a belief in spirits or
spiritual- phenomena, and he cautioned that if we were to accept the
claims of contemporary occultists, we would also have to "believe in
the authenticity of the reports which have come down to us from an·
cient times. And we must then reflect that the tradition and sacred
books of all people are brimful of similar marvellous tales and that the
religious base their claim to credibility on precisely such miraculous
events. "35 In other words, Freud warned that an acceptance of any
portion of occult reality proposes the existence of the entire domain
and raises the possibility that religion is not mere illusion.
Freud also suggested at the end of his essay "Psycho-Analysis and
Telepathy" that even the establishment of thought-transference alone
was a momentous step in the establishment of the larger domain of the
occult. Typically, Freud illustrated his point with an anecdote:
What the custodian of [the basilica of) Saint·Denis used to add to

his account of the saint's martyrdom remains true. Saint-Denis is
said, after his head was cut off, to have picked it up and to have
walked quite a distance with it under his arm. But the custodian
used to remark: "Dans des cas pareils, ce n' est que k premier pas qui
coute [in such cases it is only the first step that counts]. The rest is
easy."36
The mot is apropos. It is indeed only the first step that counts, for from
the first step, the rest follows, and the door to the occult and religion
stands open. Despite Freud's efforts to close this door firmly in Totem
and Taboo, The Future of an Illusion, and numerous other essays, it would
seem that it was actually left ajar and that the motives for Freud's attacks
on religious behavior and belief are somewhat suspect.

The most dramatic of Freud's known "occult experiences" took place
in the presence of Jung when Jung visited him in March 1909. The two
men discussed occult phenomena late into the night, and while they
were talking, Jung suddenly felt as if his diaphragm were made of iron
and were glowing red hot. Suddenly, a loud explosion was heard in the
bookcase. Both men were alarmed. Jung told Freud that it was an
example of a "catalytic exteriorization phenomenon." Freud regarded it
as "sheer bosh," but Jung then predicted that another explosion would
take place at any moment. No sooner had Jung made the prediction
than another explosion did take place. Freud "stared aghast" at Jung,
and Jung later believed that that incident had aroused Freud's continual
distrust of him. 37 In a letter written shortly after his visit, Jung apolo-
gized for his "spookery. " 38 Freud's reply indicated that he was at first
very impressed by the event and only later was able to discover some
rational explanation for what had occurred. "I don't deny that your
stories and your experiment made a deep impression on me .... My
credulity, or at least my willingness to believe, vanished with the magic
of your personal presence; once again for some inward reason I can't put
my finger on, it strikes me as quite unlikely that such phenomena should
exist" (my emphasis). 39 In this case, Freud's denial of the occult nature
of the experience followed two weeks of rational contemplation. His
immediate reaction to the occasion was strong and positive, and, as
Freud would phrase it "undignified."
The following April, Jung once again visited Freud in Vienna. Again
the question of the occult surfaced. Jung described the scene:
I can still recall vividly how Freud said to me, "My dear Jung,
promise me never to abandon sexual theory. That is the most essen-
tial thing of all. You see, we must make a dogma of it, an un~hakable
bulwark." He said that to me with great emotion. . . . In some
astonishment I asked him, "A bulwark-against what?" To which
he replied, "Against the black tide of mud" -and here he hesitated for
a moment, then added-"of occultism. "40 (my emphasis)
Whatever Freud meant by the "black tide of mud of occultism," it

undoubtedly demonstrated the fund of emotion he brought to the issue.
Jung interpreted Freud's behavior as "the eruption of unconscious reli-
gious factors, "41 and if Jung's recollection is accurate, we would certainly
concur in this assessment. It would appear that Freud's acknowledgment
of telepathy was only a "first step" in what was a greater "inclination
towards the miraculous." Up to this point, we have suggested that
The Kuck 89
Freud's ambivalence toward his Jewish heritage hinged solely upon his
concern to assimilate into European society; this is the first indication
that genuine religious factors may have also been involved as well.
In a letter written to Jung in September 1907, Freud characterized
the differences between their personalities: "If a healthy man like you
regards himself as an hysterical type, I can only claim for myself the
'obsessional' type, each specimen of which vegetates in a sealed-off
world of his own. 1142 The distinction between hysterical and obsessional
types was drawn rather early by Freud. Hysterical types repress ideas
whose affects are then converted into something somatic: motor or
sensory innervations. 43 Obsessional types, on the other hand, detach
the affect from the original repressed idea and re-attach it to different
ideas, which then become obsessional. 44 If there is any idea with which
Freud might be said to have been obsessed (at least as is evident in his
published works), it is the idea of sexuality. But this idea may have been
a secondary idea to which the affect of some other idea had been
displaced. Freud's encounter with Jung described above suggests that
religious ideas may have been the source of the original affect and his
obsession with sexuality a mere defense; or, as Freud phrased it, a "bul-
wark against the black tide of mud." In the same year as this letter to
Jung, Freud had drawn parallels between obsessional neurosis and reli-
gion. "One might venture to regard obsessional neurosis as a pathologi-
cal counterpart of the formation of a religion, and to describe that
neurosis as an individual religiosity and religion as a universal obsessional
neurosis. 1145
Given the data available, it is difficult to gauge accurately the spe-
cific commitment of Freud to a set or system of religious ideas. Yet given
his leaning toward the occult, be it only in his belief in telepathy or in
his being impressed with "catalytic exteriorization phenomena," we
must concede with the keeper of the basilica of St. Denis that "it is
only the first step that counts. The rest is easy." After the first step all
else is possible, even, as Freud put it, der Iiebe Gott. 46

7: The Egyptian
Moses
"Aber," rief ich, "was soli den aus diesen guten Leuten, aus den armen
alten Gottem werden."
"Das wird sich finden, Iieber Freund," antwortete jener; "wahrscheinlich
danken sie ab oder werden auf irgendeine eh~ende Art in den Ruhestand
versetzt."
("But," I cried, "what will become of those good folks, the poor old gods?"
"That will arrange itself, good friend," replied he. "Probably they will
abdicate or be placed in some honourable way or other on the retired list.")
Heinrich Heine, Reisebilder
The boy Itzig is asked in grammar school: "Who was Moses?"

and answers, "Moses was the son of an Egyptian princess." "That's
not true," says the teacher, "Moses was the son of a Hebrew mother.
The Egyptian princess found the baby in a casket." But Itzig an·
swers, "Says she!" 1
Of all Freud's identifications with literary or historical personages, his

identification with Moses was one of his most significant and most
enduring. The question the teacher asks Itzig, "Who was Moses?" was
a crucial one for Freud.
We know that from his earliest years the stories of the Bible made a
strong impression on Freud: "My deep engrossment in the Bible story
(almost as soon as I had learnt the art of reading) had, as I recognized
much later, an enduring effect upon the direction of my interest. " 2 We
also know, from the inscription in the Bible that Freud's father gave him
on his thirty-fifth birthday, that this "engrossment" began at about the
age of seven: "My dear son Shlomo, In the seventh . . . of your life the
spirit of the Lord began to move you and said to you: Go read in my
Book that I have written, and there will be opened to you the sources
of wisdom, of knowledge, and understanding. " 3
The Egyptian Moses 91

We have already encountered Freud's first explicit identification with
the figure of Moses in the second of his "Rome Series" of dreams in
which he was shown the city of Rome from a distant hilltop and equated
it with "the promised land seen from afar" that Moses had seen from
Mount Nebo in the land of Moab (Deut. 32:52).
This same identification was later employed by Freud in 1909 in
connection with jung's succession as head of the psychoanalytic move-
ment. As Freud wrote to Jung: "If I am Moses then you are Joshua and
will take possession of the promised land of psychiatry, which I shall
only be able to glimpse from afar. "4 Freud's enthusiastic endorsement of
Jung's succession was to a great extent based upon Jung's Aryan (non·
Jewish) background, which would save psychoanalysis from becoming a
"Jewish national affair. "5
Freud, of course, did visit Rome eventually, and one of its marvels
that absorbed his attention hour after hour, day after day, and visit after
visit was the statue of Moses erected for the tomb of Pope Julius II by
Michelangelo Buonarroti. "No other piece of statuary has ever made a
stronger impression on me than this," wrote Freud. 6
In 1913 Freud composed an essay in which he offered a totally new
interpretation of the Moses statue. Freud argued that the statue was not
of the biblical Moses leaping to his feet to smash the Tablets of the Law,
as was so often assumed, but of a Moses
who desired to act, to spring up and take vengeance and forget the
Tables; but ... [who] has overcome the temptation.... Nor will
he throw away the Tables so that they will break on the stones, for
it is on their special account that he has controlled his anger; it was
to preserve them that he kept his passion in check. . . . He remem-
bered his mission and for its sake renounced an indulgence of his
feelings. 7
Freud first encountered the statue of Moses during his initial visit to
Rome in September of 1901; but he did not write "The Moses of Mi·
chelangelo" until the autumn of 1913. As Jones has pointed out, the
writing of the essay took place during the worst period in his conflict
with Jung. It was actually written in the same month as "The History
of the Psycho-Analytical Movement," in which Freud attempted to
divorce the work of Jung and his followers from the mainstream of
psychoanalysis. Jones suggests that Freud's identification with Moses was
based upon his attempt to control his own passions concerning Jung's
defection. 8
Undoubtedly Freud, like Moses, was trying to master his passions,

as Jones suggests, but it is unlikely that the full resonance of the Moses
identification emanated from Freud's conflict with Jung. In the first
place, Freud first became entranced by the statue in 1901, five years
before he ever met Jung. More important, Freud's behavior with respect
to the publication of his little essay betrays a highly charged core in
connection with the figure of Moses, more than warranted by any con-
nection to his break with Jung. For at first, Freud refused to publish his
essay. When Rank, Sachs, and Ferenczi insisted, he consented to pub-
lish it anonymously; and so it was published in Imago in 1914. Only with
the publication of his Gesammelte Schriften in 1924 did Freud publicly
acknowledge authorship of "The Moses of Michelangelo." At the time
of the first publication of the essay, Freud claimed he did not wish to
acknowledge his authorship because he doubted his conclusions, he
sensed a certain amateurishness in his effort, and he "did not want to
disgrace the name of Moses by putting (his) name on it." To this last
excuse he appended the remark: "It is a joke but perhaps not a bad one"
(my emphasis). 9 Would that all our sources were so explicit in indicating
that Freud's jokes were the result of deep ambivalence.
Freud's little joke exhibiting an exaggerated concern about disgrac-
ing the image of Judaism's foremost prophet was certainly not the reason
for anonymous publication of the essay. But, as Freud has taught us, one
common technique of jokes is "representation by the opposite": repre-
senting a statement with a proposition that expresses the exact opposite
of that which was intended. 10 If this were indeed a technique operative
in Freud's own witticism, we may suggest that it was rather the associa-
tion with the figure of Moses that created the disgrace for Freud, and
the passion he was struggling so hard to master was his antipathy toward
his Jewish identity.
There are actually two aspects to Freud's identification with Michel-
angelo's statue: one with Moses the Lawgiver, but the other with an
idolatrous worshiper of the Golden Calf who must confront the Law-
giver's wrath:
How often have I mounted the steps of the unlovely Corso Cavour
to the lonely place where the deserted church stands, and have
essayed to support the angry scorn of the Lawgiver's glance. Some-
times I have crept cautiously out of the half-gloom of the interior as
though I myself belonged to the mob upon whom his eye is turned-
the mob which can hold fast to no conviction, which has neither
faith nor patience and which rejoices when it has gained illusory
idols. 11
This dual aspect in Freud's relation to the figure of Moses succinctly

reflects the conflict within himself. To the extent that he accepted and
was proud of his Jewish heritage, the figure of Moses, the greatest prophet
of his people, was an image for positive identification. But to the extent
that he unconsciously rebelled against that heritage, his identification
with the idolatrous mob assumed greater importance. (Mobs were con-
sidered to be more instinctually based, according to Freud, thus making
the Moses/mob distinction a particularly appropriate representation for
the conflict of conscious and unconscious forces.) 12
There is a certain measure of irony in the fact that Freud, who came
to Rome only after overcoming the greatest internal resistances, should
arrive to confront the wrathful Lawgiver awaiting him in a church,
adorning the tomb of a pope. In the city of Rome, standing before this
massive marble figure, Freud must have felt his conflict most acutely. To
some extent, his essay, "The Moses of Michelangelo," was one attempt
at a reconciliation of this conflict. Freud the idolator had to come to
terms with the wrathful Lawgiver, and thus in his essay he reinterprets
the figure of Moses. It is no longer the biblical Moses who, in his wrath,
destroys the Tablets of the Law and sends the Levites to destroy the
idolatrous Israelites (Exod. 32), but a different Moses, "One superior to
the historical or traditional Moses,'' 13 who does not break the tablets
and consequently does not wreak vengeance on the idolatrous children
of Israel. This new Moses has controlled his passions; his anger is past.
Moses and the idolators may somehow coexist. Freud has created the
figure of a forgiving Moses from Michelangelo's statue; one is tempted
to say, a "Christian Moses."
It should be startlingly clear that the question the grammar school
teacher asked ltzig, "Who was Moses?", was of profound significance for
Freud. It was a question that would haunt Freud all the days of his life.
The word "haunt" is not used casually. As Freud conceded in his last
creative effort, Moses and Monotheism: Three Essays: "It tormented me
like an unlaid ghost. " 14 Apparently the resolution of Freud's conflict
with respect to the figure of Moses attempted in "The Moses of Michel-
angelo" was not entirely successful. Moses had to be reassessed.
Moses and Monotheism: Three Essays is from the point of view of
style, publication history, sociological context, and argument a curious
literary effort. Even James Strachey, general editor of the Standard Edi-
tion of Freud's psychological works, remarked on the "unorthodoxy" and
"eccentricity" of its construction. 15 The work is composed of three
essays of differing length, with two prefaces at the beginning of the third
essay and yet a third preface in its middle! The essays are remarkably
repetitious so that even Freud felt compelled to apologize for his inele-

gance of execution. 16 In part, as Strachey notes, some of the irregulari-
ties are due to the long period of time and unusual circumstances in
which the book was composed. But Strachey also notes that these
stylistic difficulties are not evident elsewhere in Freud's writings. Nor
can they be attributed to his advanced age, as The Outline of Psycho-
Analysis, which was written after Moses and Monotheism, was "concise
and well-organized. " 17
A first draft of the book was completed in 1934. The first two essays
were published in Imago only in 1937. The third essay was read by Anna
Freud to the Paris International Psycho-Analytical Congress in 1938.
The book was first printed as a whole the following year. 18 The extraor-
dinary delays and piecemeal publication Freud himself attributed to
several causes, not the least of which were his own reservations about
the work. In 1934 Freud wrote to Arnold Zweig that his work on Moses
was "an historical novel that won't stand up to ... criticism. " 19 Nev-
ertheless, as we have already noted, Freud published the first two essays
in 1937. Freud held back the third essay, however, because he felt it
would alienate the Catholic church, which stood as the last guardian of
freedom against the rising tide of national socialism in Germany and
Austria. 20 Only after the Anschluss and his departure for England and
the destruction of psychoanalysis under the Nazi regime did Freud feel
free to publish his third essay.
Freud's explanations of the delays in publication do not entirely ring
true, particularly his effort to explain the late publication of the third
essay. After all, the third essay contained very little that was not already
expressed in the first two essays or expressed some twenty-five years
earlier in Totem and Taboo. We must conclude that, like "The Moses of
Michelangelo," Moses and Monotheism was the expression of a profound
conflict within Freud himself.
Freud was certainly aware of the repercussions that Moses and Mon-
otheism would have throughout the Jewish community: "To deprive a
people of the man whom they take pride in as the greatest of their sons
is not a thing to be gladly or carelessly undertaken, least of all by
someone who is himself one of them. But we cannot allow any such
reflection to induce us to put the truth aside in favour of what are
supposed to be national interests. " 21 Yet considering the reservations
Freud entertained about the substantiveness of his arguments-he char-
acterized his treatise as a "dancer balancing on the tip of one toe" 22 -
the "truth" that diverted Freud from his national interests seems precar-
ious indeed. And Freud conceived, composed, and published his essays
when Jewish interests were even more precarious than the arguments he

proposed. The Nuremberg Laws, the Anschluss, Freud's own ransom and
escape from Austria, and Kristallnacht all were to transpire before the
work was to achieve its final form. Despite the critical situation of the
Jews in Germany and Austria, and despite pleas by leaders of the Jewish
community not to publish his Moses book, 23 Freud nevenheless came to
consider Moses and Monotheism "not an unworthy leavetaking. " 24
In Moses and Monotheism Freud advances four basic theses: ( 1) Moses
was an Egyptian; (2) the monotheism Moses gave to the Jewish people
was derived from the Egyptian worship of Aten founded by Akhenaten
(Ikhnaton); (3) Moses was murdered by the Israelites in the wilderness,
and the strict monotheism he taught was submerged under the Semitic
worship of Yahweh (propogated by a second Midianite Moses); and (4)
the murder of Moses was repressed and thus created an enormous sense
of guilt in the Jewish people. The anti-Semitism that the Jews have
experienced throughout the centuries, is, in part, a result of their refusal
to acknowledge and atone for this murder.
For those readers unfamiliar with Moses and Monotheism these prop-
ositions undoubtedly seem rather startling. However, it is not our inten-
tion to examine critically Freud's arguments here. It is rather the theses
themselves and their relationship to the character of Freud that will
command our attention.
Freud based the thesis that Moses was an Egyptian upon etymologi-
cal considerations of the name "Moses" as well as the analytic insight
that in myths of the hero, the family into which the hero is adopted
and grows up is the real one, whereas the family into which the hero is
born is only a fictitious one. Thus Moses, as analytic interpretation
would have it, had two mothers: a fictitious Jewish mother and a real
Egyptian one. zs This, of course, was precisely the implication of ltzig's
"Says she!" in the joke. Indeed, Theodor Reik has maintained that this
joke was Freud's earliest expression of the thesis of Moses' Egyptian
nationality. 26
Freud's thesis about Moses seems quite consistent with the ambiva-
lence that has been hypothesized concerning his Jewish identity. Con-
sidering Freud's identification with the figure of Moses, it would seem
that this thesis expresses Freud's unconscious wish that his Hebrew
ancestry would prove to be as fictitious as that of Moses, a wish that his
own parents were not of humble Jewish origin but of a more exalted,
non-Semitic lineage.
There is a clue that this wish may have been a very old one for
Freud and that he imagined his mother to be of Egyptian royalty in his
early childhood. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud reponed the

following anxiety dream that he had when he was seven or eight years
old: "I saw my beloved mother, with a peculiarly peaceful, sleeping
expression on her features, being carried into the room by two (or three)
people with birds' beaks and laid upon the bed." Freud associated these
beaked figures with falcon-headed gods he had seen in a reproduction
of an ancient Egyptian funerary relief in Phillipson's Bible (Die israe-
litsche Bibel; Leipzig, 1858). Thus Freud saw his mother in death at-
tended much like an Egyptian queen. 27 (Freud also came to possess a
falcon-headed figure in his large collection of ancient Egyptian statu-
ary. )2 8
It seems significant that the greatest number of woodcuts of Egyptian
gods with birds' heads that appear in Phillipson's Bible are included in
the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy in which Moses recounts the exodus
from Egypt, the giving of the law at Horeb, and then enjoins the
children of Israel to follow God's commandments. The fifth chapter,
which follows immediately after the woodcuts, contains the Ten Com-
mandments. 29 This association of the woodcuts with the figure of Moses
strengthens the impression that Freud's thesis in Moses and Monotheism
concerning Moses' Egyptian origins is related to this dream of his mother
as an Egyptian royal figure and an unconscious wish to dissociate himself
from his Semitic ancestors.
But Freud advances beyond the thesis of the Egyptian roots of Moses
to a thesis of the Egyptian roots of Jewish monotheism. The worship of
Aten founded by Akhenaten during his seventeen-year reign (ascending
the throne sometime around 1375 B.C.E.) was strictly monotheistic.
After his death, all of Akhenaten's religious reforms were swept away,
but Freud hypothesized that Moses was an aristocrat close to the Phar-
aoh who was an adherent of Akht..naten's new religion. When the
religion of Akhenaten was destroyed, Moses set out to bequeath the
religion of Aten to the Hebrews along with the Egyptian rite of circum-
cision. (Freud allows that his hypothesis does not demand that Moses
and Akhenaten be contemporaries; Moses could have come on the
scene after Akhenaten's reign. )30 In other words, Moses was an Akh-
enaten surrogate who was to do for the Hebrews what Akhenaten had
done for the Egyptians, albeit with more enduring consequences.
The passion of Akhenaten for his new faith was revealed in his
behavior toward the old religion. Born Amenophis IV (named after his
father), he changed his name to Akhenaten in order to expunge the
name of the god Amun from his name. He also expunged the name of
this detested god from every inscription, "even when it occurred in the
name of his father, Amenophis III. " 31 Thus the figure of Akhenaten

calls to mind the conversion to a new religion (actually the founding of
a religion), a change of name associated with that conversion, and an
obliteration of the name of one's ancestors, ideas that we have already
considered at some length in previous chapters.
At the Psycho-Analytical Congress in Munich in 1912 at the Park
Hotel, a curious incident occurred. It was the scene of one of Freud's
notorious fainting episodes. As Jung reponed:
Someone had turned the conversation to Amenophis IV (lkhna-

ton). The point was made that as a result of his negative attitude
toward his father he had destroyed his father's canouches on the
steles, and at the back of his great creation of a monotheistic religion
there lurked a father complex. This son of thing irritated me, and I
attempted to argue that Amenophis had been a creative and pro-
foundly religious person whose acts could not be explained by per-
sonal resistances toward his father. On the contrary, I said he had
held the memory of his father in honor, and his zeal for destruction
had been directed only against the name of the god Amon, which
he had everywhere annihilated; it was also chiseled out of the car-
touches of his father Amon-hotep. Moreover, other pharaohs had
replaced the names of their actual or divine fore-fathers on monu-
ments and statues by their own, feeling that they had a right to do
so since they were incarnations of the same god. Yet they, I pointed
out, had inaugurated neither a new style nor a new religion. 32
At this point Freud slid off his chair in a dead faint. Jung carried him to
a couch where he soon revived. His first words upon reviving were,
"How sweet it must be to die. "33
There have been various interpretations of Freud's fainting episode,
and there is little doubt that it is overdetermined, as Max Schur has
suggested. 34 Freud's other documented fainting episode also took place
in the presence of Jung, 35 and Freud also reported that he had similar
episodes in the same hotel years earlier when he had come to meet with
Fliess in Munich. 36 Freud himself variously attributed his fainting at the
1912 Congress to "an unruly homosexual feeling" 37 and an early and
successful death wish directed at his infant brother Julius (when Freud
was one year old). 38 However, given our discussion of Freud's thesis
concerning Moses and the religion of Akhenaten, we are in the position
to explore another possible dimension in Freud's fainting attack.
At the time of the Munich Congress, Freud was in the midst of
writing Totem and Taboo, which traced the origins of totemism and

exogamy to a primeval yet historical Oedipal event. Freud had been at
odds with Jung over the question of religious phenomena, as we have
seen in chapter 6; Freud always reduced them to the Oedipal conflict,
whereas Jung recognized them as independent and powerful impulses.
Amenophis IV's eradication of his father's name as the impetus for his
religious conversion had been proposed by Karl Abraham in a paper
read at the Munich Congress. What Jung maintained, however, was
that Amenophis loved and revered his father and that the eradication
of his father's name was the result of his conversion rather than the
cause. This proposition must have struck too close to home for Freud.
He also loved and revered his father, and, as we have maintained in
chapter 5, it would seem that Freud was using his Oedipal conflict as a
mask for a different type of conflict: a conflict over the religious identity
bequeathed to him by his father. Freud vastly preferred Abraham's view
of Akhenaten's apostacy, but he must have sensed that Jung's view was
much closer to the truth in his own case.
The third major thesis presented in Moses and Monotheism was that
the Jews killed the Egyptian Moses in the desert and under the influence
of a second, Midianite, Moses were introduced to the worship of the
volcano god Yahweh at Kadesh. 39 Although they retained the Egyptian
rite of circumcision, the monotheism taught by the Egyptian Moses was
submerged under the Semitic religion adopted at Kadesh but was kept
alive to reemerge in the teachings of the prophets many centuries later.
Freud tried to argue that the Jewish people should feel it a sufficient
honor that they maintained the great tradition taught by the Egyptian
Moses even though they were not the originators of it: "It is honour
enough to the Jewish people that they could preserve such a tradition
and produce men who gave it a voice-even though the initiative to it
came from the outside, from· a great foreigner. "40 Freud's honorific bow
to his people does not seem entirely sincere. In denying the Jewish
people the kinship of Moses, in deriving their monotheism from the
religion of Akhenaten, and in attributing circumcision, one of their
most distinctive practices, to the customs of Egypt, Freud had turned
the Jewish people from a people apart into the preservers of the tradi-
tions of ancient Egypt, thus stripping them of all their Semitic charac-
teristics.
It is in the third essay that Freud formulates his most curious thesis
with respect to the Jewish people. As this thesis is the only novel thesis
in the third essay, we can only assume that his delay in publishing the
third essay stemmed from his ambivalent feelings about it. According to
Freud, in killing the Egyptian Moses, the Jewish people had reenacted

the primal parricide he had described in Totem and Taboo. But the Jews
repressed this murder, and through the centuries that followed
a growing sense of guilt had taken hold of the Jewish people. . . .

Till at last one of these Jewish people found . . . the occasion for
detaching a new . . . religion from Judaism. Paul, a Roman Jew from
Tarsus, seized upon this sense of guilt and traced it back correctly to
its original source. He called this the "original sin"; it was a crime
against God and could only be atoned for by death. 41
The original sin, according to Freud, was, of course, the primal murder
of the father that was recommitted in the murder of Moses. The atone·
ment for this sin could only be the sacrifice of a son who could take on
the guilt of all men.
According to Freud, the only greatness of the Jewish religion was its
preservation of the original monotheism of Akhenaten. But with the
birth of Christianity and its admission of the primal crime against the
father, Judaism had been superseded. It had become "a fossil," 42 for
Judaism would not acknowledge the crime. Therefore, the anti-Semi·
tism that the Jewish people endured throughout the centuries was in
one sense actually justified:
The poor Jewish people, who with their habitual stubbornness con·
tinued to disavow the father's murder, atoned heavily for it in the
course of time. They were constantly met with the reproach "You
killed God!" And this reproach is true, if it is correctly translated.
If it is brought into relation with the history of religion it runs: "You
will not admit that you murdered God (the primal picture of God,
the primal father and his later reincarnations)." There should be an
addition declaring: "We did the same thing to be sure, but we
admitted it and since then we have been absolved. "43
As I have said, it must have been this third thesis that made Freud
reluctant to publish his last essay. Nor is it likely that Freud believed it
was the Catholic church, the last bastion against Nazism, that would be
offended by this essay. In fact, there might be every cause for the church
to be pleased. In Freud's view, Christianity was a clear advance over
Judaism. Judaism was a fossil. No, it was clear that it was the Jews
themselves who would be offended by Freud's Moses. And indeed, many
were. For the most part, the Jewish community dismissed the book as a
misguided and unscholarly effort, but there were those who regarded it

as an almost traitorous and anti-Semitic tract. This view was expressed
by the biblical scholar Abraham Shalom Yehuda in the conclusion to
his review of Moses and Monotheism: "It seems to me that in these words
we hear the voice of one of the most fanatical Christians in his hatred
of Israel and not the voice of a Freud who hated and despised such
fanaticism with all his heart and strength. "44
Undoubtedly Freud sensed that such a reaction might be forthcom-
ing from the Jewish community, for perhaps in no other work does his
ambivalence about his Jewish identity lie so near the surface. In the
period that saw the Nazi rise to absolute power in Germany and Austria,
Freud wrote this final creative work in which he denied to the Jewish
people the kinship of Moses, dismissed their contribution in the crea-
tion of a monotheistic religion, and suggested that the anti-Semitic
persecutions they had endured and were currently enduring were the
result of not having acknowledged the underlying truth in the Christian
mythology of deicide. Moses and Monotheism would seem to be the work
of a modern apostle, a new gospel with a perhaps not-so-new Epistle to
the Hebrews. 45 All in all it would appear to be a clear and unmistakable
triumph for Freud's unconscious in his waning years. If Moses was not a
Jew then neither was Freud. 46 If anti-Semitism were to disappear, then
the Jews must be prepared to acknowledge the underlying message of
the Christ myth as preached by a psychoanalytic prophet.

8: The Complex
Eine Christin, die

In meiner Kindheit mich gepflegt; mich so
Gepflegt!-Du glaubst nicht! Die mir eine Mutter
So wenig missen lassen!-Gott vergelt
Es ihr!-Die aber mich auch so geangstet!
Mich so gequalt!
(She's a Christian, who
Was nurse to me in childhood; such a nurse!-
You'd not believe!-who let me miss a mother
So little!-God requite it her!-But who
So frightened me as well! tormented so!)
Gotthold Ephxaim Lessing, Nathan der Weise
In the previous chapters, we have tried to show that a close reading of

Freud's Jewish jokes leads to the awareness of a profound ambivalence
concerning his Jewish identity. It would seem important to attempt to
explore the forces that conditioned this ambivalence. The forces we
shall consider are of two kinds (although they are certainly not unre·
lated). First are the forces that affected an entire generation, of which
Sigmund Freud was only one individual. These were the sociocultural
conditions in the Habsburg Empire in the latter nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries in general, and the condition of Jews in fin-de-siecle
Vienna in particular. For the most part, these forces, abstracted from
the larger body of events of nineteenth-century Central European his·
tory, are widely and well documented. Second are the forces that shaped
the psyche of Sigmund Freud specifically, especially in his early years.
Unfortunately, the documentation for these forces is exceedingly frag-
mentary and necessitates a more speculative mode of interpretation.
Nevertheless, striking relationships exist between the themes of Freud's
jokes and the incidents of his early childhood.

The history of the Jews in Austria is a long and complicated tale,
and we need not recount it in its entirety here. The status and fortunes
of the Jews in Austria fluctuated greatly, generally in direct response to
the attitudes of the Habsburg monarchs themselves: from expulsion, to
severe restriction and segregation, to mild restriction and segregation,
to toleration. The condition of the Jews deteriorated under the rule of
Leopold I (1657-1705) when numerous Jews were expelled from Vienna
and improved somewhat in the reign of Maria Theresia ( 1740-80)
when economic benefits accruing to the regime from Jewish entrepre·
neurship were recognized. Josef ll's (1780-90) Toleranzpatent was the
first of its kind in Europe and attempted to encourage the assimilation
of the Jews into German-Austrian culture. Josef II encouraged the in·
duction of Jews into the army, the education of Jewish children in
German-language schools, and he abolished the wearing of the yellow
badge and the poll tax. After his reign, the condition of Jews in the
empire once again deteriorated, but the steps toward integration of the
Jews into Austro-German society had begun, and they were inevitably
to have their consequences. It was not until1846 that the more ]wlaico,
the humiliating oath required by Jews in their legal suits against Chris·
tians, was abolished. 1
The Revolution of 1848 signaled the beginning of dramatic changes
in the political, legal, and social participation of Jews in Habsburg
Austria. The revolution was fomented principally by the Austrian hour·
geoisie and motivated by their liberal ideology: an ideology of reason
and law in which constitutional monarchy would replace aristocratic
absolutism, science would supersede religion, German Kultur would lib·
erate the primitive eastern provinces, and laissez faire capitalism would
establish an arena in which individual merit rather than personal privi-
lege would triumph. 2 Although the revolution was ruthlessly suppressed
by the troops of the new monarch, Franz Josef I, and many of its leaders
(including Jews) were killed, arrested, or executed, certain reforms nev-
ertheless took place. In 1849, discrimination on the basis of religion
was abolished along with specifically Jewish taxes. Freedom of move·
ment within the empire was permitted, along with an easing of restric·
tions on the press. Limitations on the franchise and eligibility to hold
elective office were likewise abolished. 3 Liberal forces were able to achieve
their greatest successes in tempering the absolute authority of the Habs-
burg monarchy following the disastrous failures of Habsburg foreign pol·
icy, reinforced by the humiliating defeats of the army against Piedmont
at Solferino in 1859 and against Prussia in 1866 at Sadowa. As the old
order was failing, Franz Josef was forced to rearrange his domestic poli-
The Complex 103

cies and make concessions to both nationalistic and liberal aspirations.
In 186 7 the status of Hungary was changed from that of a province of
the empire to that of a full nation under the kingship of Franz Josef,
thus founding the "Dual Monarchy." German liberals were allowed to
amend the constitution of 1861 with proclamations of equality before
the law, freedom of speech and assembly, the protection of the language
and culture of all nationalities, and the authority of parliament. Edicts
against discrimination on the basis of religion were also reaffirmed. The
new cabinet appointed by Franz Josef in 1868 was known as the "Burger
Ministry" because its members were drawn from the ranks of the middle
class. For the next twenty-five years, liberalism would be the dominant
political force in the empire. 4
It was in this era of burgeoning liberalism that Sigismund Freud was
born and raised. Born in Freiburg, Moravia, on May 6, 1856, the Freud
family departed for Leipzig in 1859, finally settling in Vienna the follow-
ing year. The family first lived at Pfeffergasse 1 in the Jewish district of
the Leopoldstadt and in 1875 moved to larger quarters at Kaiser Josef-
strasse 38. 5
Young Sigismund was raised with the belief that great opportunities
lay in store for him. He was born with a caul, and at the time of his
birth an old peasant woman predicted for his mother that a great man
had been brought into the world. When he was eleven or twelve, a
fortuneteller in a restaurant prophesied that he would become a minister
of state. 6 This last prediction made a great impression on Freud as it was
made at the time of the "Burger Ministry." As Freud was later to recall:
"Father had brought home portraits of these middle-class professional
men-Herbst, Giskra, Unger, Berger and the rest-and we had illumi-
nated the house in their honour. There had even been some Jews among
them. So henceforth every industrious Jewish schoolboy carried a Cab-
inet Minister's portfolio in his satchel. " 7 No barriers were perceived to
the attainment of a successful career by the young Freud, and he com-
pleted his studies at the Communal- Real- und Obergymnasium with
honors and the full intention to study law at the University of Vienna
in pursuit of a political career. It was only at the last moment that Freud
decided to enter the Faculty of Medicine at the university and pursue a
scientific career. 8
Everything in young Freud's Vienna reflected the ascendancy of the
liberal spirit and the promise of opportunity. The most visible embodi-
ment of this transformation in the life of Vienna was the physical
renovation of the city itself. The inner city of Vienna had been sur-
rounded with massive defense works, which were in turn surrounded by

a broad belt of open land. In 1857 Franz Josef announced his intention
to open this belt of land to public use. Plans were developed and con-
struction was begun. The old walls were torn down, and a wide boule-
vard 187 feet wide and two and a half miles in circumference, known
as the Ringstrasse, was constructed around the inner city. Although
apartment houses occupied most of the building space, the monumental
buildings were most evocative of the new rule of the middle class and
its liberal ideology. Centers of constitutional governance, science, art,
music, and learning were the jewels in this liberal crown that encircled
the aristocratic inner city: the Opera (1861-69), the Rathaus (1873-
83), the Borse (1872-77), the Reichsrat (1874-83), the Palace of
Justice (completed 1881), the Court Theater (completed 1889), the
University (1873-84), and the Museum of Art and Industry (1868-
71 ). Even the Hofburg of the emperor in the inner city was extended to
front on the Ringstrasse. 9
Freud's life in Vienna and the building of the Ringstrasse began
together. He could not fail to have been impressed with the develop-
ment of this new Vienna and the message of opportunity that it pro-
claimed. (Ringstrassenstil came to express the essence of this liberal
experiment, although it was used as a term of criticism by a later
generation.) 10 It is perhaps ironic that the Ringstrasse was only fully
completed long after the decline of liberalism. In the years following
the establishment of his practice in 1891 at Berggasse 19, when liberal
forces were in full retreat, it was Freud's custom after lunch to march
the full circuit of the Ringstrasse at terrific speed, 11 perhaps in anger
that the values symbolized by the Ringstrasse had failed to root success-
fully in the soil of Vienna. 12
Very little is known about Freud's years in the Gymnasium. Judging
from other sources, anti-Semitism did not play a great role in the Gym-
nasium. 13 Nevertheless, we do know that Freud's identification with
Hannibal and Marshal Massena occurred in this period, indicating an
awareness of and response to the presence of anti-Semitic influences. It
is not known whether specific events precipitated his father's telling of
the story in which his hat was knocked into the mud. 14 (The word
"anti-Semitism" [Antisemitismus] was only coined in 1879 by the anti-
Semite Wilhelm Marr to refer to an antipathy to Jews stemming from
an aversion to the people themselves and their "racial" characteristics
as distinct from the religiously motivated hatred of earlier times Uuden-
hass]. )Is
In June 1873, Freud was completing his Matura examinations and
preparing to enter the university. He had already visited the Vienna
The Complex 105

International Exhibition that had opened in April and displayed the
material and economic achievements of the rapidly industrializing em-
pire. 16 In the month just prior to his examination, the Viennese stock
market crashed, and Jews were widely blamed for precipitating the crash
although they were no more involved in speculation than other groups
or classes. 17
When the Freud family first moved to Vienna, the Jewish population
was less than 1 percent of the city's total population. By the time Freud
stood ready to enter the university, the Jewish population had grown
more than 700 percent while the total population had increased only
some 21 percent. 18 Jews were coming to dominate professions like med-
icine and law and were prominent in publishing. 19 Approximately 30
percent of Freud's class at the University of Vienna was Jewish, and in
the Faculty of Medicine the percentage was considerably higher. 20
Anti-Semitism at the university, however, did not seem to be moti-
vated primarily by fears of economic competition. The intellectual,
relatively insulated from the economy and more influenced by cultural
matters, tended to respond to the appeal of romantic and linguistic
nationalism, which often manifested itself in a virulent anti-Semitism. 21
It would seem that it was in his first year at the university that Freud
had to directly contend with the forces of anti-5emitism:
When I first joined the University, I experienced some appreciable

disappointments. Above all, I found that I was expected to feel
inferior and an alien because I was a Jew. I refused absolutely to do
the first of these things. I have never been able to see why I should
feel ashamed of my descent or, as people were beginning to say, of
my "race. "22
Arthur Schnitzler, who was six years younger than Freud and entered
the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Vienna only five years later,
similarly noticed the dramatic increase in anti-Semitism at the univer-
sityY (Note that Freud only acknowledges his refusal to feel "inferior";
he did not deny his status as an "alien," which supports the arguments
advanced in chapter 5.)
Again, there is no information on how Freud handled his day-to-
day encounters with anti-Semitism at the university or later at the
General Hospital of Vienna. There is no indication that he was an
accomplished fencer or that he fought any duels as a student (Mensur)
or as a reserve officer. (All medical students served a year in the military
and then moved to reserve status. They continued to live at home and

were assigned boring service in the hospitals. Freud served in this active
capacity in 1879-80. ) 24 Student dueling, Mensur, was done with broad-
swords and heavy protective clothing. The results were generally facial
scars that were proudly endured. The code of honor of military officers
(Ehrenkodex), however, required that offenses to honor be redressed
through a duel with deadly weapons with intent to kill. Any officer who
refused such a challenge lost his commission and sacrificed his social
prestige as well. 25 We do know that in January of 1885 Freud was ecstatic
over the success of his colleague and friend Dr. Carl Koller in a duel
against a surgeon who had called him a "Jewish swine" (Saujud). Koller
hit the man in the face ("We all would have reacted just as Koller did,"
wrote Freud). 26 Since both men were reserve officers, a duel was fought
with sabers. Koller acquitted himself well, giving his opponent two deep
gashes while he himself emerged unscathed.
At the time this duel was fought, Freud was a Sekundiirarzt (resident)
at the General Hospital. He had graduated from the university three
and a half years earlier (1881). Freud's tenure at the university had been
during a period of rampant anti-Semitism. In 1878, the German na-
tional student fraternities (Burschenschaften) began expelling their Jew-
ish members (Theodor Herzl among them). The Landsmannschaften,
composed of members who originated from the same provinces, often
had Jewish members, and many of them were excellent fencers. This
situation may have contributed to the declaration of the Waidenhofener
Verband (Waidenhofen Manifesto) in 1882, issued by the German-Aus-
trian student body of the University of Vienna and adopted by all the
Burschenschaften in the empire by 1890: 27
Every son of a Jewish mother, every human being in whose veins

flows Jewish blood, is from the day of his birth without honor and
void of all the more refined emotions. He cannot differentiate be-
tween what is dirty and what is clean. He is ethically subhuman.
Friendly intercourse with a Jew is therefore dishonorable; any asso-
ciation with him has to be avoided. It is impossible to insult a Jew;
a Jew cannot therefore demand satisfaction for any suffered insult. 28
The university, which had once been one of the main bulwarks of
liberalism, had become, during Freud's student days in the 1870s and
1880s, a hotbed of nationalistic and anti-Semitic agitation.
The transformations taking place in the university were also being
reflected in the larger political arena. Its first major manifestation was
the political career of Georg Schonerer. Schonerer was first elected to
The Complex 107

the Reichsrat (parliament) in 1873. He became increasingly disen-
chanted with his liberal colleagues and their indifference to social prob-
lems and rising Slavic nationalism. Schonerer was a vigorous anti-Sem-
ite and a pan-German nationalist who favored union with Germany,
and his views found support among groups of young university intellec-
tuals. In 1879 an anti-Semitic plank was formally incorporated into his
party platform. In 1887 Schonerer tried to arrest immigration of Russian
Jews into the empire. The liberal Reichsrat more or less ignored Schon-
erer's anti-Semitic ranting, which caused him to threaten the use of
more direct means of persuasion. That same year, he and a band of
followers broke into the offices of the Jewish-run newspaper Neues Wie-
ner Tagblatt and beat up the staff. Although Schonerer was sentenced
only to a brief prison term, he was suspended from all political activity
for a term of five years. Schonerer was finished as a political figure in
Austrian politics. He never had been a major political force, but he did
set the tone for the times to come. Into the decorous and dignified
proceedings of the liberal Reichsrat he introduced the discordant note of
threat, aggression, and anti-Semitism. 29
Where Schonerer failed as a national politician, Karl Lueger was to
succeed as a municipal one. Like Schonerer, Lueger was an anti-Semite
who began his political career as a liberal. Unlike Schonerer, Lueger
was not a pan-German nationalist and was strongly attached to an
Austrian monarchy. At that time, liberals governed on the basis of a
restricted franchise of tax-paying males. Lueger pushed strongly for an
extension of the franchise, and in 1884 it was extended to include 5
gulden taxpayers. This change in the law enfranchised many small
shopkeepers and artisans who were attracted to Lueger's anti-Semitism
because they felt threatened by the economic competition of Jewish
peddlers and entrepreneurs. Lueger found that under the aegis of Ca-
tholicism, he could unite the disparate elements of his political pro-
gram-socialism, democracy, and anti-Semitism-and enlarge his base
of support, so in 1889 he formed the Christian Socialist Party. In that
year Lueger's party united with the Reform Party to issue a manifesto
demanding that Jews be excluded from the civil service, the judiciary,
teaching, medicine, law, pawnbroking, and grocery and liquor sales. 30
In 1895 Lueger won enough votes in the city council to be elected
mayor of Vienna, but the emperor refused to ratify his election. A
deadlock developed as again and again Lueger was reelected without
imperial confirmation. Two years after his first election, in April of
1897, Franz Josef succumbed to the power of mass politics and confirmed
Karl Lueger as mayor of Vienna.
l 08 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

The election of Lueger sent shock waves throughout the jewish
community of Vienna. Fearing the mob violence associated with anti·
Semitic politics, the jewish com brokers moved the com market to
Budapest. Only a guarantee from the emperor prevented the flight of
greater numbers of wealthy jews from the city. 31 But Lueger's anti-
Semitism was never as strident as Schonerer's. Schonerer's anti-Semi·
tism was more deeply rooted in his psyche, whereas Lueger's seemed
more political and social. After his election, it manifested itself primar-
ily as rhetoric rather than political program. Nevertheless, the election
and ratification of Lueger formally marked the collapse of the liberal
order in Vienna. 32
Freud was not oblivious to the political events transpiring in Vienna.
Although he did not usually vote, he made it a point to vote against
Lueger in f895, and he relished Lueger's nonconfirmation by the em·
peror. 33 Although there is no reaction to Lueger's eventual confirmation
in Freud's published letters, two months after the event Freud began his
self-analysis and confessed to having made a collection of Jewish jokes.
Local politics were not the only events influencing Jewish affairs
that merited Freud's attention at the close of the nineteenth century. In
1897 pogroms were taking place against the Jews in Russia, and mob
violence erupted in Bucharest. 34 Between 1882 and 1900, ritual murder
trials of Jews were held in Hungary, Greece, Russia, Bohemia, and
Germany. The Dreyfus affair in France in 1895 (which was covered by
Herzl, who was the Paris correspondent for the Neue freie Presse at that
time) and the subsequent trial of Dreyfus's champion Emile Zola in
1898 were closely followed by all Jews including Freud. 35
Yet beyond the simple enumeration of the events that challenged
the Jewish community in fin-de-siecle Vienna, there is a need to assess
the psychological impact of such events, particularly as they may inform
our analysis of Sigmund Freud.
For the Jews who flocked to the ghettos of Vienna from the provinces
of Galicia and Bukovina and remained rooted in their traditional Jewish
culture, the rise of anti-Semitism was cause for concern but not alarm.
Rooted in the religion of their fathers, firm in their faith in a divine
plan and the injunction to fulfill divinely ordained commandments, the
success or failure of the liberal ideology held no profound significance
for them. Many were prepared, indeed accustomed, to endure the hard-
ships and inequality their ancestors had endured for almost two thou-
sand years as strangers in strange lands. It was precisely those Jews who
had believed in the liberal promise who were to pay the greatest psycho-
logical toll for its failure. Their efforts to assimilate often demanded the
The Complex 109

sacrifice of greater and greater portions of their identities. In their em-
brace of the cult of science and reason they relinquished their religion
and their culture. They hoped to emerge as good and accepted Austro-
Germans. Their confession should prove no barrier to their acceptance
and advancement, but if it did, conversion could eradicate this final
barrier. And thousands of Jews did convert to Christianity; rarely out of
religious conviction but rather in an effort to solidify their positions in
the dominant society of which they felt a legitimate part.
Undoubtedly, there were those for whom conversion achieved the
desired results socially and psychologically. For others, however, even
conversion failed to achieve the goals they sought, and in the face of
anti-Semitism, they discovered that their identities were ultimately ne-
gotiated by others rather than being the enactment of a free individual's
will to choose. Ultimately those who had believed the liberal promise
were caught betwixt and between an identity to which they aspired and
an identity to which they were condemned. The psychological toll of
such a dilemma was often staggering and sometimes led to extremes of
self-degredation and self-hatred.
jewish self-hatred seems to have blossomed as a general phenome-
non in the 1870s, although earlier manifestations of it are easily discov-
ered. 36 A popular slogan in Vienna of the 1880s stated: "Anti-Semitism
did not succeed until Jews began to sponsor it. " 37 This self-hatred took
a considerable range of forms and intensities. One of the more extreme
and dramatic examples is exemplified in the figure of Otto Weininger.
Otto Weininger was a Viennese Jew born in 1880. His father, Leo-
pold, was also born in Vienna, in 1854, two years before Freud. Otto's
grandparents came to Vienna from the eastern provinces of the empire.
Otto's father was a master goldsmith, a lover of Wagner, and a Jewish
anti-Semite. These last two characteristics Otto seemed to have inher-
ited. Otto was intellectually precocious and a self-proclaimed genius
who believed he was destined to become a great man. He was indeed
an excellent student, gifted in languages, and seriously devoted to the
study of philosophy. Otto entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the
University of Vienna where he studied all branches of philosophy and
psychology as well as literature, the sciences, and mathematics. In 1902
Weininger received his doctorate for his thesis "Geschlect und Charak-
ter" ("Sex and Character"), a psychobiological work in which various
aspects of human behavior were explained in terms of principles of
bisexuality, male and female principles being combined in each individ-
ual in different proportions. 38
Curiously, Weininger's bisexual thesis was derived from Freud through
ll 0 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

one of Freud's patients, Hermann Swoboda. Freud had discussed Fliess's
ideas of bisexuality with Swoboda, who apparently then conveyed them
to Weininger. Freud was also approached directly by Weininger for an
evaluation of his thesis in hopes that Freud would be able to recommend
him to a publisher. Freud claims to have been unimpressed with the
work although he was not unimpressed with the figure of Weininger: "A
slender, grown-up youth with grave features and a veiled, quite beautiful
look in his eyes; I could not help feeling that I stood in front of a
personality with a touch of genius. "39 (Unfortunately for Freud, his
direct and indirect contacts with Weininger were to involve him in a
scandal when Fliess later made the accusation that Weininger's pub-
lished thesis was plagiarized and identified Freud as the conduit for the
stolen ideas. )40
The very day Weininger received his doctorate, he converted to
Christianity. He had already begun to expand his thesis, and it was
published in 1903. In the published work, Weininger significantly in-
creased his criticism of the feminine principle and added a major chap-
ter on Judaism. This chapter provides ample insight into the depth and
scope of Weininger's self-hatred.
According to Weininger, the Jew is saturated with femininity. The
most feminine Aryan is more masculine than the most manly Jew. The
Jew lacks the good breeding that is based upon respect for one's own
individuality as well as the individuality of others. The Jew is more
concerned with sexuality than the Aryan and stands opposed to the
forces of culture and civilization. The Jew is impious and fundamentally
irreligious. He believes in nothing within himself or without. He is an
ardent materialist and bound by his attachment to material goods. Ju-
daism is not the fount of Christianity but the negation of it. Judaism is
the original sin, and Christ's triumph was the overcoming of the Judaism
within himself.
For Weininger, Judaism was not necessarily bound to a particular
race or creed but was rather a psychological constitution-a tendency
of the mind. Thus individual Jews and Christians might prove more
Jewish or Aryan in nature. A Jew through an unswerving resolution
might overcome his Judaism and become a Christian. A Jew who had
overcome his heritage should then be evaluated as an individual and
not as a member of the race into which he had been born. His baptism
was the outward sign of a profound spiritual triumph. 41
Sex and Character attracted a good deal of interest although it was
for the most part critically reviewed. Its anti-Semitic views probably
increased the attention it received, and the book went through nearly
The Complex 111

thirty editions in a variety of languages before 1940. 42 It should not be
particularly surprising that the Nazis later made use of some of Weinin-
ger's attacks on the Jews. 43
It is pitiful to see a man so full of self-hatred who at the same time
was so hopeful that conversion would improve his lot, for, without a
doubt, Weininger's work was a direct expression of his own emotional
conflict. Unfortunately, his conversion and his intellectualized anti-
Semitism were not sufficient to assuage the forces of his hatred either
against the Jews or himself. On the night of October 3, 1903, he wrote:
"Judaism means laying the blame on someone else. . . . In this respect
Judaism is the radical evil. . . . The Jew will take no blame. . . . The
Christian assumes all guilt. The Jew will accept no guilt. "44 That same
evening, in the very same house at Schwarzspanierstrasse 15 where
Beethoven had died, Otto Weininger shot himself. He died the follow-
ing morning.
Of course, Weininger's was an extreme case. Self-hatred and the
desire to escape one's Jewish identity only rarely reached such extremes.
Nevertheless, the same syndrome, in differing degrees of intensity, was
pervasive in fin-de-siecle Vienna.
Louis Friedmann, a friend of Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler,
was the son of a Jewish father (a liberal politician) and a Gentile mother.
He was handsome and affluent, a good dresser, an excellent fencer, and
he enjoyed an international reputation as a sportsman, particularly as
an Alpine climber. Yet Louis was a "convinced anti-Semite and was
determined to remain single, or at least have no children, so that the
hated Jewish blood flowing in his veins from his father's side might
not be propagated. " 45 A solution only slightly less radical than that of
Weininger.
Perhaps the most poignant example of the psychological pressures
under which the Austro-German Jews of Vienna labored at the close of
the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries is recorded
in George Clare's family history The Last Waltz in Vienna. In tracing the
history of his extraordinarily ordinary middle-class, assimilated, Jewish
family of Klaar, he recalled an incident that took place on a family
outing on the Danube during a visit to Budapest when he was six years
old:
I was happily kneeling on the polished wooden bench of a river

steamer a few hours later, looking out over the glittering water.
Everything was lovely-until the moment I turned around to ask
Father a question. Then disaster. . . . I had begun my question with
the words: "Tate, what is . . . ?" I felt a stinging slap on my right

cheek. . . . "Don't you ever dare to call me Tate," he hissed, "never,
you hear, never!" I have no idea what suddenly possessed me to call
him Tate, to use the Yiddish word for "Father," instead of the usual
"Daddy" or "Papa." I must have picked it up somewhere. 46
As the author perspicaciously observed, the entire conflict of Central

European Jewry was crystalized in this outburst of Ernst Klaar. The
assimilated Jews who felt themselves to be part and parcel of Austro·
German culture, whether they nominally retained their religious beliefs
or converted, never experienced the full inner equality they sought.
Deep down they knew that the Gentiles did not fundamentally distin·
guish between them and the Yiddish-speaking Jews with black frock
coats and side curls from the eastern provinces, and deep down they
loathed the thought of this identification.
Though each case we have cited is itself unique, they are all at the
same time commonplace. They were generated by a single set of forces,
a set of forces that molded the psyches of generations of Jews in Central
Europe. Sigmund Freud was molded by the same forces that produced
Ernst Klaar, Louis Friedmann, and Otto Weininger. Although the forces
were the same, they did not play upon each individual in the same way.
Sigmund Freud was neither a copy of nor a model for any of these
personalities, but there were elements of similarity with each of them.
Like Ernst Klaar, he had nominally retained his Jewish affiliation. Like
Louis Friedmann, he enjoyed an international reputation respected in
the Gentile world. And like Otto Weininger, he too, in his final crea·
tive work, would accuse the Jews of a failure to acknowledge their deep
and abiding guilt.
It would be premature to dismiss Freud's ambivalence concerning
his Jewish identity as a simple function of the more generalized socio·
cultural milieu, to regard it as one response in a set of a hundred
thousand similar responses. Sociocultural forces only operate in the
context of individual psyches, and so it would seem appropriate to try
to illuminate the particular psychological context in which Freud's am·
bivalence developed as well: to identify some aspect of his formative
years that may have conditioned his particular complex. Needless to
say, the documented sources are too weak to sustain any kind of com·
plete analysis. Nevertheless, Freud's scanty recollections of his child-
hood do provide us with the threads of a hypothesis that may augment
our understanding of his ambivalence about his identity in general, as
well as the themes and thoughts that underlie his Jewish jokes in partie·
ular.
Freud's intermittent childhood reminiscences keep returning to one
The Complex 113

unexpected figure, his childhood nurse. Four months after he began his
self-analysis, Freud wrote to Fliess that the "primary originator" of his
neurosis was:
an ugly, elderly, but clever woman who told me a great deal about
God and hell, and gave me a high opinion of my own capaci-
ties....
I still have not got to the scenes which lie at the bottom of all
this. If they emerge, and I succeed in resolving my hysteria, I shall
have to thank the memory of the old woman who provided me at
such an early age with the means for living and surviving. 47
Freud never fully explicates the significance of his nurse or reveals her
specific impact on his psychic life. It has been the subject of specula-
tion. 48 What is particularly intriguing about the figure of Freud's nurse
in our discussion is that she is in some way, directly or indirectly, related
to each and every one of the themes that we have explored in Freud's
repertoire of Jewish jokes! Our analysis of Freud's jewish jokes empha-
sized several different themes: the giving and receiving of money, sex
and marriage, dirtiness and cleanliness, traveling, religion, and Moses.
Freud's recollections of his old nurse have some connection with each
of these.
Freud's nurse was an old, Catholic, Czech-speaking woman who
served as his nanny in Freiburg during the first two and a half years of
his life. 49 In an analysis of one of his own dreams, Freud revealed that
she was "my instructress in sexual matters, and chided me for being
clumsy and not being able to do anything. . . . Also she washed me in
reddish water in which she had previously washed herself (not very
difficult to interpret)." 50 In both this and a later dream she is tied in
with Martha, although the nature of the connection is suppressed. 51
Thus there is a clear, although unexplicated, connection between Freud's
nurse and the theme of sex and marriage.
Freud also recalled that his nurse encouraged him to steal zehners
(ten-kreuzer pieces) to give to her. 52 When Freud questioned his mother
about this recollection, she told him that the old woman was actually a
thief who had stolen all the kreuzers, zehners, and toys that had been
given to him. When this pilfering was discovered, Freud's half-brother
Phillip was sent to fetch a policeman, and the nurse was arrested and
sentenced to ten months in jail. 53 So again we find a connection be-
tween the nurse and one of the joke themes: the giving and receiving
of money. It was Freud's recollection that he gave his nurse bits of

money. 54 His mother recalled that the nurse had stolen the money, that
is, behaved as if someone else's money were actually her own, like the
schnorrer in the jokes.
The connection of the nurse with the theme of dirtiness and clean·
liness is quite direct. In the "Going Up the Stairs" dream, analyzed in
chapter 4, Freud dreamt that he was going up a flight of stairs in a state
of incomplete dress and encountered a maidservant coming down. Freud
associated this dream with a maidservant of one of his patients who had
on several occasions caught him in the act of spitting on the stairs. 55
The staircase dream was one of a series of dreams, and, according to
Freud, these
were based on a recollection of a nurse in whose charge I had been

from some date during my earliest infancy till I was two and a
half. . . . From what I can infer from my own dreams her treatment
of me was not always excessive in its amiability and her words could
be harsh if I failed to reach the required standard of cleanliness.
And thus the maid servant, since she had undertaken the job of
carrying on this educational work, acquired the right to be treated
in my dream as a reincarnation of the prehistoric old nurse. 56
The connection of the old nurse to the theme of uncleanliness is thus

incontrovertibly established.
The themes of religion and travel may be linked similarly to the
nurse. It was this Catholic nurse who taught the young Freud "a great
deal about God and hell" 57 and who was always taking him with her to
church from where he would return home to preach "about how God
conducted His affairs. " 58 Our analysis of the theme of travel in chapter
5 was closely allied with Freud's ambition, his phobia of traveling by
train, and his longing to go to Rome. Freud described his nurse as the
first one "who gave me a high opinion of my own capacities, "59 thus
playing a part in his sense of ambition. When the Freud family left
Freiburg for Leipzig when he was three, it was his first trip by train. As
they passed through the station at Breslau, Freud saw the gas jets, which
reminded him of "souls burning in hell, "60 a concept he first learned
from his nurse. As Freud intimated to Fliess about this experience: "I
know something of the context here. The anxiety that I had to over·
come is also bound up with it. "61 This recollection is revealed in a letter
in which Freud discusses his Roman dreams, particularly the fourth
Roman dream, concerning the German placards and signs in Rome.
This letter is dated December 3, 1897; 1897 was the year that Minister
The Complex 115

Graf Badeni precipitated a crisis in the empire when he issued an ordi-
nance making the Czech language equal to German in the inner civil
service in Bohemia and Moravia. Since German speakers generally refused
to learn Czech, it would have put Germans at a distinct disadvantage
in these provinces. Reaction by German nationalists was strong, and
protests and riots followed, especially in German cities in Bohemia.
The emperor was forced to dismiss Badeni. 62 As Freud comments in his
letter, Prague was one of the cities in which there was a demand for
German street signs. 63 Thus Freud's fourth Roman dream is linked to
the language crisis and the Czech language particularly, the language
Freud spoke to his childhood nurse. 64 The female attendant or nun in
the "My Son, the Myops" dream analyzed in chapter 5 was also directly
linked by Freud to the figure of his nurse. 65
Thus far we have implicated Freud's nurse with every joke theme
save one: Moses. It is the nurse's connection with this theme that seems
pivotal and in effect establishes her relevance to all the other themes.
The ltzig joke about Moses revolves around the question of which of
two possible mothers was the real one: the Egyptian princess or the
Hebrew slave. (The Bible informs us that the princess merely adopted
Moses. His real mother was a Hebrew slave who was brought to the
house of the princess to nurse him [Exod. 2:8).) Freud's premise (which
mirrored the message of the joke) that Moses was an Egyptian was based
upon the analytic insight that the family into which a mythic hero is
born is the fictitious one and the family into which he is adopted is the
real one. 66 But it could also be said that Freud had two mothers. One
was Amalie Nathanson, married to Jacob Freud, though twenty years
his junior. But he had another mother: the old Catholic, Czech-speak-
ing woman who was his nurse-his adopted mother. Freud may have
succumbed to a childhood fantasy that it was his Catholic nurse who
was his true genetrix rather than the wife of Jacob. The discrepancy
between the ages of Amalie and Jacob would have made such a fantasy
all the more convincing. 67 Thus the notion that Freud was not genuinely
a Hebrew may have already been embedded in his fantasies about his
nurse from earliest childhood. Given the later forces of anti-Semitism
that he encountered, this early and unconscious fantasy may have played
a role in reinforcing his disaffections with his Jewish pedigree. 68
We are in a position to conclude, therefore, that Freud, a Jew raised
in Vienna at the time of the great liberal promise of equality, found
himself, like so many others, sorely disaffected with his heritage when
he discovered that this promise was never to be fulfilled. The desire to
escape his heritage, to relieve himself of this odious burden, was aided

and abetted by a childhood fantasy about his true origins and confes-
sion. Now it is clear why the figure of his nurse should be linked with
all the themes in Freud's repertoire of Jewish jokes. She was the symbol
of the conflict that laboriously manifested itself in each of Freud's joke
themes, for she stood as the most convincing, albeit unconscious, proof
that the Judaism with which he was burdened was not rightfully or
ultimately his.
Our consideration of the figure of Freud's nurse might be ended were
it not for one last reminiscence of Freud that is extraordinarily apropos.
Shortly after his nurse had been incarcerated, Freud recalled:
I was crying my heart out because my mother was nowhere to be

found. My brother (who is twenty years older than I) opened a
cupboard [Kasten] for me, and when I found that mother was not
there either I cried still more, until she came through the door
looking slim and beautiful. What can that mean? Why should my
brother open the cupboard for me when he knew my mother was
not inside it and that opening it therefore could not quieten me?
Now I suddenly understand. I must have begged him to open the
cupboard. When I could not find my mother, I feared she must have
vanished, like my nurse not long before. I must have heard that the
old woman had been locked, or boxed up [Eingekastelt: literally,
"boxed up"; colloquially, "imprisoned"), because my brother Phillip,
who is now sixty-three, was fond of such humorous expressions, and
still is to the present day. The fact that I turned to him shows that
I was well aware of his part in my nurse's disappearance. 69
We would hypothesize that Freud's recollection is perhaps somewhat

faulty and that the scene was probably played out following the disap-
pearance of the nurse herself rather than a momentary absence of Freud's
mother. Certainly brother Phillip's joke about being Eingekastelt works
much better in the immediate context of the disappearance of the nurse
rather than a later absence of his mother. Freud's perception of "two
mothers" in his childhood could certainly account for the later distor-
tion in his recollection.
In any event, this hypothesis is by no means crucial to our interpre-
tation. This scenario is connected with the figure of Freud's nurse ex-
plicitly enough. And what is the relevance of this scenario to our
analysis? Quite simply, Freud's awareness of the techniques of humor,
his first exposure to jokes, occurs in connection with the figure of his
childhood nurse. In other words, it is not only that the themes of Freud's
The Complex 117

Jewish jokes all link up with the figure of the nurse, but also the very
process of joking itself.
If Freud is correct in his claim that the emotional configuration of
an individual is conditioned in early childhood experience, we believe
that in the figure of Freud's nurse we have identified the root of the
conflict that was to emerge in subsequent years over his Jewish identity
and that would manifest itself so coherently and artfully throughout his
life in his repertoire of Jewish jokes.
In the first chapter of this study we used one of Freud's anecdotes to
serve as an example of his penchant for using jokes as glosses, as exem~
pla to illustrate some point or principle. We refrained from engaging in
any analysis of the text at that time. Now that our survey of Freud's
jokes has ended, it is appropriate to return to it because it is a synoptic
text, 70 one that embodies the entire conflict of Freud and assimilated
Jewry in his era:
A man in an insane asylum rejects the food there and insists on

having kosher dishes. His passionate demand is fulfilled and he is
served food prepared according to Jewish law. On the next Saturday
the patient is seen comfortably smoking a cigar. His physician indig·
nantly points out to him that a religious man who observes dietary
laws should not smoke on Saturday. The patient replies: "Then what
am I meschugge (nuts) for. " 71
When a man passionately proclaims his Jewishness and refuses to accept

the inferiority that is deemed his, yet secretly or unconsciously reviles
his heritage and is utterly convinced of his inferior status, then that
man is in a real sense meschugge. Perhaps the ambivalence of his situa·
tion, if it is not to result in tragedy, can be reflected only in the para-
doxical structures of jokes and anecdotes.
Ernest Jones wrote that, "A Gentile would have said that Freud had
few overt Jewish characteristics, a fondness for relating Jewish jokes and
anecdotes being perhaps the most prominent one. " 72 Jones's character-
ization was undoubtedly accurate. What he did not realize, however,
was that in these jokes and anecdotes the central conflict in Freud's
personality was played out.

9 : The Sublimation
Sind Christ und Jude eher Christ und Jude,

Als Mensch? Ah! wenn ich einen mehr in Euch
Gefunden ha.tte, dem es gniigt, ein Mensch
Zu heissen!
(Are Jew and Christian sooner Jew and Christian
Than man? How good, if I have found in you
One more who is content to bear the name
Of man!)
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan cler Weise
Having completed an analysis of Freud's most personally determined

jokes for the insights they afford into his unconscious, it is perhaps only
natural that we should be curious about the influence of Freud's Jewish
identity upon the development of psychoanalysis. To a certain extent,
Freud framed this question himself in a letter written to Oskar Pfister in
1918: "Why was it that none of the pious ever discovered psycho-
analysis? Why did it have to wait for a completely godless Jew?" 1 Freud
even attempted to offer a partial answer to this question when he
suggested that his perspective as a Jew enabled him to escape the prej-
udices of Christian thinkers and prepared him to withstand the assaults
and insults of the "compact majority. " 2
Of course, Freud's assessment only superficially considered the con-
tribution of his Jewish identity to the creation of analysis. At other
times Freud admitted that this identity was based upon "many dark
emotional powers" 3 that had been "inaccessible to any analysis. "4 It is
hoped that this book has made some contribution to the understanding
of the "dark," "emotional," "inaccessible" side of Freud's Jewishness,
but the question of how this identity may have contributed to or found
expression in psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic movement remains
to be explored. 5 The basic question is: can psychoanalysis in any way be
The Sublimation 119

viewed as a sublimation of Freud's conflict over his jewish identity?
The threads of an answer begin to emerge with the reconsideration
of Freud's identification with the figure of Moses. To my knowledge, one
dimension of this identification has not attracted sufficient attention,
namely, that Freud, like Moses, wanted to be the founder af a new religion.
At first sight, this interpretation would seem like pure speculation based
upon an elaboration of the Moses metaphor. Such is not the case,
however, for the interpretation of the identification with Moses as re-
lated to desires to found a new religion was precisely that offered by
Freud to Hilda Doolittle concerning her own dream-identifications with
the prophet. 6 Given this connection and the religious impulses that
were hypothesized for Freud in chapter 6, it seems justifiable to examine
psychoanalysis as the new religion that Freud qua Moses founded.
The recognition of similarities between psychoanalysis and religious
sects is hardly new. 7 This notion, however, has generally been restricted
to the recognition of formal similarities between the two and has not
been related to the possibility of an unconscious religious motivation on
the part of its founder. In what follows, this latter perspective will be
entertained as well.
Perhaps the most obvious manifestation of religious impulses in psy-
choanalysis was in the organization of the psychoanalytic movement
itself. Many of the participants in the early movement were filled with
what could be described as "religious enthusiasm" and characterized
these feelings with appropriate terminology. "I was the apostle of Freud
who was my Christ," wrote Wilhelm Stekel of his early encounter with
Freud. 8 Max Graf used religious metaphors to characterize the ambience
of the early days of the movement:
There was the atmosphere of the foundation of a religion in that

room. Freud himself was its new prophet who made the theretofore
prevailing methods of psychological investigation appear superficial.
Freud's pupils-all inspired and convinced-were his apostles. . . .
After the first dreamy period and the unquestioning faith of the
first group of apostles, the time came when the church was founded.
Freud began to organize his church with great energy. He was serious
and strict in the demands he made of his pupils; he permitted no
deviation from his orthodox teaching. . . . If we do consider him as
a founder of a religion, we may think of him as a Moses full of wrath
and unmoved by prayers. 9
Hanns Sachs similarly observed that Freud's concentration on psycho-

analysis "burned with a steady and all consuming flame. Like every
other faith, it imposed on the life of the believer severe restrictions and
regulations. " 10 Even those who were further removed from the central
circle of the movement in Vienna used terms like "exhilaration," "en-
thusiasm," "elation," "cause," and "fervor" to describe their involve-
ment and could compare their line-by-line reading of Freud's works to
the reading of the Bible. 11 The above characterizations were offered by
men who were nonreligious or antireligious and who were deeply in-
volved in or sympathetic to the psychoanalytic movement. Religious or
sectarian metaphors were employed by critics and enemies of psycho-
analysis as well. 12
When defections within the psychoanalytic movement began, Freud
founded "The Committee," a secret fellowship to defend the orthodox
doctrine that he had founded and to help keep it pure. Freud presented
each member of this committee with a Greek intaglio mounted in a
gold ring. 13 One can almost picture a Moses with a supporting coterie
of Levites, although this latter image has never, to my knowledge, been
employed. Freud preferred military metaphors to characterize the orga-
nization and struggles of his movement. 14 Nevertheless, Freud resorted
to religious imagery when he termed defectors from the movement as
"would-be Popes" 15 whose actions were a "pollution" (Beschmutzung) 16
of the psychoanalytic cause, or used the legend of the Devil and St.
Wolfgang as a parable for the development of psychoanalysis, with him-
self in the role of the Devil. 17
Beyond the religious enthusiasm of the membership of the early
psychoanalytic movement, religion was a phenomenon subjected to ex-
tensive analysis by Freud. Beginning in 1907 with "Obsessive Actions
and Religious Practices," Freud expanded and intensified his scrutiny of
religious belief and behavior with Totem and Taboo and The Future of an
Illusion, bringing his creative career to a close with Moses and Monothe-
ism in 1939. Religious behaviors were also discussed and analyzed in his
major monographs and case histories, as well as in numerous occasional
papers. In essence, Freud's analytic perspective on religious behaviors,
beliefs, and experiences was that they all were reducible to infantile and
early childhood experiences, particularly those experiences predicated
upon relations with parents. Philip Rieff has claimed that, "There was
no reason that Freud should have been so engaged by the problem of
religion," nor was there any obvious reason why he should have em-
ployed toward it the "reductive weapons of psychoanalysis . . . in such
open hostility. " 18 Yet given the strong probability of an unconscious
rejection of his Jewish identity and the further likelihood of repressed
The Sublimation 121

religious impulses, Freud's attention to and hostility toward religious
phenomena is less than startling. In fact, in attacking religion in general
and its Judea-Christian manifestation in particular, Freud behaved like
many a prophet of a new religion who feels compelled to obliterate the
old forms in order to make way for the new. For it is incumbent upon
the founder of a new religion to show how the old religion has failed
and how the new form provides the single road to salvation.
The perception of psychoanalysis as a new religion "complete with
substitute doctrine and cult" 19 was perhaps inevitable, given Freud's
efforts to replace all metaphysics with his own metapsychology. As the
science of man's "soul, " 20 psychoanalysis could scarcely hope to escape
such comparison. More specifically, psychoanalysis, like Judaism and
Christianity, possessed a mythological account of Original Sin in the
form of the primal parricide described in Totem and Taboo. 21 Likewise,
it envisioned the guilt for this crime by the ancestors as visited upon
their descendants in each generation, for the crime was to be relived
and reenacted, if only symbolically, by each individual. The uncon-
scious functioned as a "Hidden God," 22 a Supreme Other ("das Es"):
active, creative, all-knowing, and indestructible; rewarding, punishing,
and forever shaping the destinies of men.
Whereas the task of the Judea-Christian religions was to help man
atone for this sin, psychoanalysis conceived of atonement as a patholog-
ical mechanism. Instead, psychoanalysis offered to lead each individual
to confront guilt at its source and thereby become free from its onerous
burden. Salvation lay in recognizing the source of the guilt and divesting
it of its power. If the salvation that psychoanalysis offered ultimately
proved to be an unhappy one, lacking the paradisical characteristics
tendered by Judaism and Christianity, it was nevertheless in Freud's view
a truthful one. For in place of faith and charity, Freud's religion proferred
honesty as the single, cardinal, redemptive virtue. 23 The instrument for
achieving this honesty was the analytic encounter in which it was not
only permissible to say or admit anything, but incumbent upon the
patient to do so. The analyst served as a "secular pastoral worker"
(weltlichen Seelsorger), helping the analysand to overcome resistances
and direct great funds of unconscious energies to the ego for disposi-
tion. 24 This relationship between analyst and patient had no models in
the medical tradition of Freud's day. Its closest counterpart was perhaps
the relationship between priest and confessor in the rites of the church. 25
If elements of Freud's religious impulses may have been sublimated
in the foundation of a movement, a theory, and a therapy that bore
strong resemblances to religious organizations, doctrines, and rituals,

what of the ambivalence over his Jewish identity? Is there some funda-
mental aspect of psychoanalytic doctrine that may have served to sub·
limate this deep ambivalence?
If I were to reduce the entire body of psychoanalysis in all its com·
plexity to a single dictum, it would be: Men suffer frum their pasts. The
rest is commentary. A formulation of this dictum was present in Freud's
earliest work on hysteria. 26 Freud subsequently elaborated a system of
forces and mechanisms to explain how this suffering was engendered,
and he simultaneously developed and refined a therapy that was de-
signed to free men from their pasts by divesting that past of its "psycho-
logical resonance. " 27 It is this central point that should be emphasized
in assessing the sublimation function of psychoanalysis for Freud. Freud
suffered from a past in the form of an identity that was neither his to
freely choose nor his to freely relinquish. His own strong desire to escape
that past was to some extent gratified in the creation of a "science" that
would allow men to seek that freedom that he could never obtain for
himself.
Sigmund Freud devoted the last fifty years of his life to psychoanal·
ysis. Its theory and practice continued to absorb his attention until his
final days. When the agony of a long-endured cancer became unbear·
able, he asked his physician and friend Max Schur to fulfill an old
promise. Schur injected Freud with two centigrams of morphine, and
Freud fell into a peaceful sleep. Schur repeated the dose twelve hours
later, and Freud lapsed into a coma. At three o'clock in the morning
on September 23, 1939, Sigmund Freud died. It was the tenth day of
the Hebrew month of Tishrei: Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. 28
The SubUmation 123

Abbreviations
Freud/Abraham Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham, A Ps:yclw-Anal:ytic Dialogue:

The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham, 1907-1926.
Edited by Hilda C. Abraham and Ernst L. Freud; translated by
Bernard Marsh and Hilda C. Abraham. New York: Basic Books,
1965.
Freudl}ung Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung, The Freudl]ung Letters: The
COrTespondence between Sigmund Freud and C. G. ]ung. Edited
by William McGuire; translated by Ralph Manheim and R. F. C.
Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.
Letters Sigmund Freud, The Letters of Sigmund Freud. Edited by Ernst L.
Freud; translated by Tania and James Stem. New York: Basic
Books, 1960.
Origins Sigmund Freud, The Origins of Ps:yclw-Anal:ysis: Letters to Wil-
helm Fliess, Drafts and Notes, 1887-1902. Edited by Marie
Bonaparre, Anna Freud, and Ernst Kris; translated by Eric
Mosbacher and James Strachey. New York: Basic Books, 1954.
S. E. Sigmund Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Ps:yclwlog-
ical Works of Sigmund Freud. 24 vols. Translated under the
general editorship of James Strachey in collaboration with Anna
Freud. London: Hogarrh Press and the Institute of Psychoanal-
ysis, 1953-74.
124
Notes
Introduction
1. The tradition begins with Franz Wittels, Sigmund Freud: Der Mann, die Lehre, die
Schule (Leipzig: E. P. Tal and Co., 1924 ).
2. Frank j. Sulloway, Freud: Biologist of the Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1979),
pp. 445-95.
3. For the relationship between the invasion of privacy, social power, and mental
disease, see Peter J. Wilson, Oscar: An l114uiry into the Nature of Sanity (New York: Vintage
Books, 1975).
4. Sigmund Freud, The Letters of Sigmund Freud, ed. Ernst L. Freud; trans. Tania
and James Stern (New York: Basic Books, 1960), p. 4 30; henceforth cited as Letters.
5. Following Freud's abbreviation of Schiller's line in "Das Madchen von Orleans,"
which Freud used to justify his own biographical work on Leonardo da Vinci. See Sigmund
Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 24 vols.
Translated under the general editorship of James Strachey in collaboration with Anna
Freud (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1953-74), 11:63;
henceforth cited as S. E.
6. Letters, p. 350.
Chapter 1: Jokes and Freud

l. Even the editors of Freud's letters have implied that there are "secrets" to be
discovered. See Sigmund Freud, The Origins of Psycho-Analysis: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess,
Drafts and Notes I 887- I 902, ed. Marie Bonaparre, Anna Freud, and Ernst Kris; trans.
Eric Mosbacher and James Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 1954), pp. xxii-xxiii;
henceforth cited as Origins.
Z. It is something of a hyperbole to suggest that Freud's jokes have been overlooked
entirely. For example, Abraham Brill suggested that Freud "unconsciously utilized ...
Jewish jokes to disburden himself of the tension which was accumulated in him since early
childhood by some anti-Semitic experiences." Abraham Arden Brill, "Reflections, Rem-
iniscences of Sigmund Freud," in Freud as We Knew Him, ed. Hendrik M. Ruitenbeek
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1973), p. 159. Also see Theodor Reik, "Freud
and Jewish Wit," Psychoanalysis Z (1954):12-ZO. Neither Brill nor Reik essay any inter-
pretation of Freud's jokes, however. Immanuel Velikovsky has offered an insightful inter-
pretation of one of Freud's Jewish jokes in "The Dreams Freud Dreamed," Psychoanalytic
Review 28 ( 1941 ):494, and Alexander Orinstein has referred to some of Freud's jokes in
his book On Sigmund Freud's Dreams (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1968), pp.
71-73. John Murray Cuddihy has used a number of Freud's Jewish jokes to support his
thesis concerning Freud's confrontation with modernity in his excellent study The Ordeal
of Civility: Freud, Marx, Levi-Strauss, and the Jewish Struggle with Modernity (New York:
Delta Books, 1974), pp. 17-103. Nevertheless, there has been no sustained, in-depth
effort to analyze and interpret any significant portion of Freud's repertoire of jokes to date.
3. Joan Riviere, "An Intimate Impression," in Freud as We Knew Him, ed. Hendrik M.
Ruitenbeek (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1973), p. 129.
4. Franz Alexander, "Recollections ofBerggasse 19," in Freud as~ Knew Him, ed.
Hendrik M. Ruitenbeek (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1973), pp. 133-34.
Notes to Pages xi-2 125

5. Ernest jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Books,
1953-57), 1:22.
6. The use of a joke as gloss on conversation is a common type of jewish narrative
technique. See Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "The Concept and Varieties of Narrative
Performance in East European jewish Culture," in Exploratioru in the Ethnography of Speak.
ing, ed. Richard Bauman and joel Sherzer (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974),
pp. 287-88.
7. Origins, p. 121.
8. S.E., 5:485.
9. Reik, "Freud and jewish Wit," pp. 17- 18. The punch line would have been in
Yiddish: "Den far ws bin ich meschugge!"
10. On the idea of "base meaning" in relation to proverbs, see Barbara Kirshenblatt·
Gimblett, "Toward a Theory of Proverb Meaning," Proverbium 22 (1973):821-27; Peter
Seitel, "Proverbs: A Social Use of Metaphor," Genre 2 (1969):143-61; Francis A. de
Caro, "Proverbs and Originality in Modem Short Fiction," Western Folklore 37 (1978):30-
31.
11. Most prominent is Freud's revelation that the sexual etiology of hysteria was
suggested in a witticism made to him by the gynecologist Dr. Rudolf Chorbak. Chorbak
had asked Freud to assume responsibility for a patient who was suffering from attacks of
anxiety. Though she had been married eighteen years, she was still a virgin; her husband
was impotent. Chorbak added: "The sole prescription for such a malady . . . is familiar
enough to us but we cannot order it. It runs: 'Rx Penis normalis dosim repetatur!' [Normal
penis in repeated doses)," S.E., 14:15. 1t has been proposed that the concept of subli·
mation was first suggested to Freud by a humorous cartoon. See Hanns Sachs, Freud:
Master and Friend (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946), p. 100. Freud also
reported that the concept of sublimation was suggested to him by a witticism of Heine's;
see Richard F. Sterba, Reminiscences of a Viennese Psychoanalyst (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1982), p. 118. The idea that Moses was an Egyptian was first expressed
by Freud in a joke; see Reik, "Freud and jewish Wit," p. 18; and Freud recognized in one
of G. C. von Lichtenberg's joking remarks the discovery of "the secret of misreading,"
S. E., 8:93. I myself have always been curious whether one of Poggio's facetiae might have
suggested the sexual etiology of the neuroses to Freud. Freud was certainly familiar with
Poggio and cited him in his work. The relevant jest in question is as follows:
A woman of my country who seemed mad was brought by her husband and
relations to a cenain witch in the hope of curing her, and when the party came to
the Arno, which it was necessary to cross, they placed her astride the back of a
strong man.
But in this position she began to wriggle and cry out in her mad fashion: "l want
the man; give me the man!"
And all who were present saw what was the matter with her.
He who carried her burst out laughing so loudly that he fell with the woman
into the water. And all the others began to laugh, and perceived that there was no
need of magic or enchantment to remedy the woman's complaint, but of something
quite different, and that with this she would soon regain her saniry.
And turning to the husband, they said: "You are the best doctor for your wife."
And they all went home.
And after the husband went with her and contented her, she became quite sane.
And this, in fact, is the best remedy for women's madness.
The Facetiae of R>ggio and OtheT Medieml Story Tellen, trans. Edward Storer (London:
George Routledge and Sons, n.d.), pp. 98-99.
12. Origins, p. 211.
13. Ibid., pp. 210-11.
14. Ibid., p. 211, n.J.
126 -. Notes to Pages 2-3

15. Ibid., p. 297. James Sttachey has argued that Freud was interested in the rela-
tionship between jokes and dreams as early as 1895 because of Freud's citation of the
case in which a patient hallucinated that both Freud and Breuer were hanging from two
trees in the garden. The reason for this hallucination was that the patient had hoped
Breuer would give her a drug, and when he refused she hoped she would receive it
from Freud. When he likewise refused, she thought to herself: "There's nothing to
choose between the two of them; one's the pendant [match) of the other," pendant also
meaning "hanging." This hallucination certainly employs a technique of double
meaning characteristic of many jokes, but nowhere does Freud discuss it as a joke
or refer to its analogy with jokes. He employs it as an example to show how the hysteric
may ttansform a figurative linguistic expression into a concrete image. He mentions
the "ingenuity" of such transformations but goes no further. If Freud had actu·
ally been considering the relationship between dreams and jokes before 1899, it is
unlikely that he would have had to ask Fliess whether his observation concerning
the wittiness of dreams deserved a footnote in The Irucpretation of Drealll5. S. E.,
2:181, n.l.
16. See H. Stanescu, "Young Freud's Letters to His Rumanian Friend, Silberstein,"
The Israel Annals of Psychiatry and Related Disciplines 9 (1971 ): 196; Heinrich Heine,
Heinrich Heine's Ufe Told in His Own Words, ed. Gustav Karpeles; trans. Arthur Dexter
(New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1893), p. iii.
17. Letters, p. 141.
18. Jones, Ufe and Work, 2:51.
19. Ibid., 1:288.
20. Max Schur, Freud: UIJ.ing and Dying (New York: International Universities Press,
1972), p. 34.
21. Not to overlook "Screen Memories," S.E., 3:303-22, and "A Disturbance of
Memory on the Acropolis," ibid., 22:238-48.
22. I do not follow Freud's distinction between "jokes," "wit," "jest," "comedy," and
"humor." I tend to employ the term "humor" as a general category. I regard "jokes" and
"anecdotes" as context-independent humorous communications that tend to assume nar·
rative or riddle forms. I consider "wit" or "witticisms" to be context-dependent and
nonnarrative in form. The other terms I do not employ at all. The terminology is
somewhat problematical in casual usage, as what may be a "witticism" in one context may
be termed a "joke" when reported upon by someone else because the reporter must
describe the context as a part of his account. For the difficulty of translating Freud's
German terms into English, see "Editor's Preface," in ibid., 8:7-8.
23. Ibid., pp. 23, 92, 136.
24. Ibid., pp. 164-80.
25. Ibid., p. 25.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., p. 54.
28. Ibid., p. 16.
29. Ibid., pp. 17-20.
30. Ibid., pp. 140-42.
31. Ibid., p. 142.
32. There is one small example that Freud borrowed from Ernest Jones and included
in the 1912 edition of The Psychopathology of EtJeTyday Ufe. See ibid., 6:248-49. larry
Ventis has reported that humor occurred in 84 percent of the psychotherapeutic sessions
he observed; in 71 percent of those in which humor did occur, humor was initiated by the
patient. (W. Larry Ventis, "A Naturalistic Observation of Humor in Psychotherapy,"
paper presented at the Third International Conference on Humor, Washington, D.C.,
August 28, 1983.)
33. Ibid., 8:179. The purely social aspect of joking is discussed in Thomas A. Burns
with Inger H. Burns, Doing !he Wash: An Expressive Culture and Personality Study of a Joke
and Its Tellers (Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1975), pp. 14-18.
Notes to Pages 4-10 127

34. For an excellent study on the personal motivations in narrating traditional jokes,
see Bums with Bums, Doing the Wash.
35. A. A. Brill, "The Mechanisms of Wit and Humor in Normal and Psychopathic
States," Psychiatric Quarterly 14 (1940):731-49; Martin Grotjahn, "Laughter in Group
Psychotherapy," International Journal of Group Psychotherapy 21 (1971):234-38; Israel
Zwerling, "The Favorite Joke in Diagnostic and Therapeutic Interviewing," Psychoanalytic
Quarterly 24 (1955): 104-13.
36. S.E., 8:15.
37. Jones, Life and Work, 1:271
38. Gershon Legman maintains that a favorite joke is the key to personality but he
provides very little evidence to support his contention. See his The Rationale of the Dirty
Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor, First Series (New York: Grove Press, 1968), p. 16.
Chapter 2: The Schnorrer

l. For example, Nathan Ausubel, ed., A Treasury of Jewish Folklore (New York:
Crown Publishers, 1948), pp. 267-86; Henry D. Spalding, comp. and ed., Encyclopedia
of Jewish Humor (New York: Jonathan David Publishers, 1969), pp. 27-39.
2. S.E., 8:112. For other schnorrer jokes, see ibid., pp. 112-33.
3. Ibid., pp. 49-50.
4. Ibid., p. 62; 4:119-20.
5. Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Books,
1953-57), 1:60, 157.
6. Ibid., pp. 61, 64, 154-55.
7. For example, Letters, pp. 27-28, 44, 53, 127, 148-49, 168-69.
8. Jones, Life and Work, 1:155-59.
9. Letters, p. 49.
10. Ibid., p. 87.
11. Jones, Life and Work, 1: 161.
12. Ibid.
14. Jones, Life and Work, 1:166.
17. Ibid., p. 154; 2:92, 195, 388-91, 395. Also see Bruno Grinker, "Some Memo·
ries of Sigmund Freud," in Freud as We Knew Him, ed. Hendrik M. Ruitenbeek (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1973), pp. 266-68.
19. Joseph Wortis, fragments of an Analysis with Freud (New York: Simon and Schus·
ter, 1954), pp. 22, 62.
21. Most notably, the discovery of the self-regulative function of the vagus nerve
in respiration known as the Hering-Breuer reflex and the elucidation of the functions
of the semicircular canals in regulating posture, equilibrium, and movement. See
Frank J. Sulloway, Freud: Biologist of the Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1979), pp.
51-52.
22. Jones, Life and Work, 1:166-67, 223.
23. Ibid., p. 160.
24. Ibid., p. 167.
25. Ibid., p. 168.
26. Ibid., pp. 224, 226.
27. Origins, pp. 64, 95.
28. Sulloway, Freud, p. 85.
29. E.g. Jones, Life and Work, 1:255.
128 Notes to Pages 10-19

30. Ibid.
31. Paul Roazen, Freud and His Followers (New York: New American Library, A
Meridian Book, 1971), p. 80.
32. Jones, Ufe and Work, 1:255-56.
33. Ibid.
34. S.E., 6:137-38.
35. Ibid., 11:9.
37. S.E., 14:8.
38. Ibid., pp. 8-9.
40. S.E., 19:280.
42. Letters, pp. 234-35.
43. S.E., 4:107-ZO.
44. Ibid., p. 107.
45. Ibid., Z:xv.
46. Ibid., 4:112.
47. Ibid., pp. 115, 119.
48. Ibid., 8:56.
49. Ibid., p. 58.
50. Ibid., p. 113.
51. Ernst Freud, Lucie Freud, and Use Gubrich-Simitis, eds., Sigmund Freud: His Life
in Pictures and Words (New York: Harcourt Brace jovanovich, 1976), pp. 56-57.
52. Ibid., p. 61.
53. Ibid., p. 64.
54. Ernst Freud, "Some Early Unpublished Letters of Freud," International journal of
Psycho-Analysis 50 (1969):421.
55. Maryse Choisy, Sigmund Freud: A New Appraisal (New York: Citadel Press, 1963),
p. 25; William M. johnston, The Ausman Mind: An lnteUectual and Social History, 1848-
1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 222; Friedrich Heer, "Freud, the
Viennese Jew," trans. W. A. Littlewood, in Freud: The Man, His World, His Influence, ed.
Jonathan Miller (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), p. 6.
56. Ernst Freud et al., Sigmund Freud, p. 46.
57. Jeffrey L. Sammons, Heinrich Heine: A Modern Biography (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1979), pp. 42-46.
58. He was baptized Christian Johann Heinrich Heine. Ibid., p. 107.
59. Heer, "Freud, the Viennese Jew," p. 6.
60. In the chapter immediately following the "famillionairely" joke in "Die Bader
von Lucca," the character Hirsch-Hyacinth is questioned as to his religious preferences.
He points out that Catholicism is good for a wealthy man of leisure but not for a practical
man like himself who must earn a living. Protestantism he finds devoid of spirituality.
And the old Jewish religion, says Hyacinth, "l don't wish it to my worst enemy. It brings
nothing but abuse and disgrace. I tell you it ain't a religion, but a misfortune." See
Heinrich Heine, Pictures of Tra~~el, trans. Charles Godfrey Leland (Philadelphia: Schaefer
and Koradi, 1882), p. 331.
61. Sammons, Heinrich Heine, p. 51.
62. Ibid., p. 108.
63. Heinrich Heine, Heinrich Heine's Ufe Told in His Own Words, ed. Gustav Kar-
peles; trans. Arthur Dexter (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1893), p. 130.
64. The idea of free association may have been suggested by Borne's essay "The Art
of Becoming an Original Writer in Three Days." See Jones, 1:246.
65. Ibid.
66. S.E., 8:47-48.
67. Ibid., p. 114.

68. Enc:yclopaedia ]udaica, ed. Cecil Roth, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), s.v.
"auto-da-fe."
69. Heine, Heinrich Heine's Life, p. 145.
Chapter 3: The Schadchen

I. For other schadchen jokes, see S.E., 8:55, 61-65, 108. For other jokes with
marriage themes, see ibid., pp. 11, 21, 36, 37, 78; 5:485; Ongins, pp. 218, 284, 296.
2. S.E., 8:64-65.
3. Ibid., pp. 62-63.
4. Ibid., p. 104.
5. Ibid., pp. 106-8.
6. Ibid., p. 110.
7. Ibid. , p. 111.
8. I cannot resist pointing out that Freud had a special aversion to umbrellas and
once told Ernest Jones's wife that "all an umbrella did was keep its stick dry!" Ernest
Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Books, 1953-57),
2:383.
9. Ibid., p. 386.
10. Ibid., 1:323; S.E., 4:107.
I I. S.E., 21:103-4.
12. In 1895, Freud wrote Fliess thirry·seven letters. He had written only a total of
furry-one letters in the previous eight years. His correspondence through 1900, the year
that saw the publication of The lmerprelilrian of Dreams, was equally high; see Origins, p.
xxiii. The frequency of Freud's "congresses" with Fliess similarly intensified; see Jones,
Life and Work, 1:30 I.
13. Origins, p. 284, n. I. The joke is not completely presented. It is alluded to in
several letters by variants of the punchline: pp. 284, 290. The whole text is presented in
one letter but without Uncle Jonas as the protagonist (p. 296). Apparently Freud had
forgotten his allusions to the joke in previous letters.
14. Ibid., p. 281.
15. Jones, Life and Work, 2:482, n.6. Also see Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung, The
Freudl]ung Letters; The Con-espandence between Sigmund Freud and C. G. ]ung, ed. William
McGuire; trans. Ralph Manheim and R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton Universiry
Press, 1974), pp. 455-57; henceforth cited as FTeudl]ung.
16. S.E., 6:175-76.
17. Ibid., 4:169.
18. Alexander Grinstein, On Sigmund Freud's Dreams (Detroit: Wayne State Uni·
versity Press, 1968), p. 49.
19. S.E., 4:170-71.
20. Ibid., 20:14-15.
21. An Aurobiographical Srud:y was first published in 1925. Koller's discovery was
publicized in 1885. Freud published On Coca in 1884.
22. S.E., 6:65.
23. Ibid., p. 100.
25. S.E., 6:153. Grinstein points out another instance of Freud's hostility toward
his wife in his consideration of the "Frau Doni" dream (Grinstein, Sigmund Freud's
Dreams, p. 359).
26. S.E., 17:237.
27. Jones, Life and Work, 1:106-8. Freud actually refers to Martha as his "jewel";
Letters, p. 23.
29. S.E., 6:203. Also see examples on pp. 204-5, 258.

30. Ibid., 8:21.
31. Hanns Sachs, Freud: Master and Friend (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1946), p. 153; Jones, Life and Work, 2:152-54.
32. Samuel Rosenberg, Why Freud Fainted (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1978),
pp. 111-35.
33. Letters, pp. 7-9.
34. See Types 425 and 425A in Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, The Types of the
Folk!ale (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1961). See also Donald Ward, ed. and
trans., The Gennan Legends of the Brothers Grimm, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Institute for the
Study of Human Issues, 1981), 2:148-51,289-90.
35. Sabine Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (New Hyde Park, N.Y.:
University Books, 1967), pp. 471-523.
36. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "The New Melusina," in The Pennanent Goethe,
ed. Thomas Mann; trans. Thomas Carlyle (New York: Dial Press, 1948), pp. 475-93.
37. Rosenberg, Why Freud Fainted, pp. 124, 125.
38. Jones, Life and Work, 1: 17-18.
39. For example, Letters, pp. 44, 74, 77.
40. Rosenberg, Why Freud Fainted, pp. 132-33.
41. Ibid., p. 126.
42. Goethe, "The New Melusina," pp. 486-87.
43. Martha was brought up in an observant Jewish family. Her grandfather, Isaac
Bernays, had been chief rabbi of Hamburg. Martha's mother adhered to the customs of
Orthodox Judaism, and Martha was taught to do the same. They "little know what a
heathen I am going to make of you," was Freud's remark to Martha (Jones, Life and Work,
1:100-101, 116). Martha abandoned all Jewish observances when she married Freud, but
after his death she became reinterested in Jewish holidays and customs; see Earl A.
Grollman, Judaism in Sigmund Freud's World (New York: Appleton Century, 1965), p. 71.
44. Letters, pp. 13-15.
46. Ibid., p. 149.
47. Letters, p. 17.
48. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan the Wise, trans. Bayard Quincy Morgan (New
York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1972), pp. 75-77. The entire episode is derived
from "The Third Tale of the First Day" in Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans.
Richard Aldington (New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1930), pp. 29-31.
49. Lessing, Nathan the Wise, p. 148.
50. Many schadchen jokes portray the potential bride with a variety of physical
deformities, such as a hunchback or a limp that would result in a severely diminished
stature. One can only speculate as to whether Theodor Reik learned the following joke
from Freud:
A young man for whom the Schadchen had arranged a marriage insists on it that he
has to see the girl nude before he makes his final decision. The objections of the girl
are at last overcome and she appears before him stark naked. The young man says: "I
don't like her nose."
Note that the suitor rejects the girl on the basis of that part of her anatomy that is
stereotypically regarded as defining the Jewish physical type. See Theodor Reik, Jewish
Wit (New York: Gamut Press, 1962), pp. 98-99.
Chapter 4: The Ostjude

l. S.E., 8:49.
2. Ibid., p. 72. For the other jokes in this series, see ibid., pp. 72, 78.

3. Ibid., p. 111.
4. Ibid., p. 72.
5. Ibid., p. 53.
6. Ibid., pp. 80-81.
7. Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Cecil Roth, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), s.v.
"Galicia."
8. Ibid., s. v. "Dress: Eastern Europe."
9. For a discussion of this joke in the context of Freud's confrontation with moder·
nity, see John Murray Cuddihy, The Ordeal of Civility: Freud, Mmx, Uvi·SITauss, and the
Jewish SITUggle with Modernity (New York: Delta Books, 1974), pp. 21-23.
10. Ronald W. Clark, Freud: The Man and the Cause (New York: Random House,
1980), pp. 5, 8.
11. Martin does go on to point out that these Galician Jews alone stood up to the
Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; Martin Freud, Sigmund Freud: Man and Father (New
York: Vanguard Press, 1958), p. II.
12. S.E., 4:197.
13. Ibid.
14. Leuers, p. 78.
15. Ibid., pp. 78-79.
16. Martin Freud, Sigmund Freud, pp. 70-71.
17. Ibid., pp. 100-101.
18. Ibid.
19. S.E., 4:238.
20. Origins, pp. 206-7.
21. S.E., 4:238; Origins, p. 207.
22. S.E., 4:239. Immanuel Velikovsky has also hinged his interpretation of this
dream on Freud's Jewish identity, but he did not lind any significance in the most impor·
tant elements of the dream and Freud's associations, namely, Freud's disordered appear·
ance and the charges of uncleanliness made by the servants. See Immanuel Velikovsky,
"The Dreams Freud Dreamed," Psychoanalytic Review 28 (1941):503.
23. S.E., 4:242-43.
24. Ibid.
25. Ernest Jones, The Ufe and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Books,
1953-57), 1:156; 2:388.
26. Lecrers, p. !95.
28. S.E., 8:81. The joke presented here is a combination of the English translation
in The Scandard Edition and the original German.
29. Ibid.
30. Theodor Reik, Jewish Wic (New York: Gamut Press, 1962), p. 34; also see
Cuddihy, Ordeal of Civility, p. 24.
31. Theodor Reik, "Freud and Jewish Wit," Psychoanalysis 2 ( 1954 ):20.
32. Ibid.
Chapter 5: Fahrenheit
1. Origins, p. 258.
2. S.E., 4:229-30.
3. Ibid. , p. 231.
4. French carriere (racecourse) from Late Latin carraria (via), road for carriages from
Latin carrus (wagon). Funk and Wagnall's Scandard C~llege Diccionary (New York: Harcourt
Brace and World, 1963), s.v. "career."
5. Freud employs the metaphor of a horse and rider for the Ego and the ld in "New
Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis"; see S.E., 22:77.

Press, 1946), p. 69.
7. One could speculate that the formula "No food-no work" is a disguised expres-
sion for the idea that without conversion there can be no employment. The idea of
partaking of the host in the Mass would be symbolized in the dream by "food." Thus
Freud's failure to enter the chapel door and partake in the Mass could lead to a situation
of "no work." Freud's swift mounting of the stairs in the "Going Up the Stairs" dream
cited in the previous chapter might also be considered a symbol of his professional career.
In that dream, Freud is identified as a Jew and feels ashamed. He becomes frozen in the
midst of his remarkable ascent because his origins are recognized.
8. This dating is based upon the dating of Freud's "Nan Vi.xit" dream and the
reference by Freud to the fact that he was "the victim of a painful complaint which made
movement of any kind a torture." This can only have been a reference to his boil; see
S.E., 5:480-81. The "Nan Vi.xit" dream occurred "a few days" after October 16, 1898,
after the unveiling of the memorial to his friend Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow; see ibid., p.
423.
9. Ernest Jones, The Ufe and Work af Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Books,
1953-57), 1:339.
11. Amos Elon, Her~l (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1975), p. 120.
12. Jones, Ufe and Work, 1:339. Frank Sulloway has argued that the delay in Freud's
appointment to the rank of Extmordinarius was the result of a secret ministerial decree
limiting the number of promotions to that rank. Sulloway admits, however, that the
reason why Freud was the only one repeatedly passed over is something of a mystery. More
to the point, the secret decree was unknown to Freud, and we must concern ourselves
with assessing Freud's perspective on his failure to achieve EXI'IliOidinariu rank; see Frank J.
Sulloway, Freud: Biologist af the Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1979), pp. 464-67. Freud
clearly saw "denominational considerations" as being the cause; see S.E., 4:137.
13. Jon~s, Ufe and Work, 1:101.
14. S.E., 8:54.
15. Sachs, Freud, pp. 156-58. Somerset Maugham turned this joke into a short
story. See "The Verger," in The Best Short Stories af W. Somerset Maugham, selected and
with an introduction by John Beecroft (New York: Modern Library, 1957), pp. 40-47.
16. Letters, pp. 164-66.
17. Jones, Ufe and Work, 2:4, 56, 59-60, 78, 83, 183, 391, 396.
19. S.E., 4:194-95.
20. Ibid., pp. 196-97.
21. Heinrich Heine, Heinrich Heine's Life Told in Hi5 Own Words, ed. Gustav Kar-
peles; trans. Arthur Dexter (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1893), pp. 181-82.
22. S.E., 4:195.
23. Max Schur, Freud: Uving and O,ing (New York: International Universities Press,
1972), p. 255.
24. Alexander Grinstein, On Sigmund Freud's Dreams (Detroit: Wayne State Uni-
25. S. E., 4:195.
26. Velikovsky has noted that this joke hinges on Judaism being a "constitutional
disease"; see Immanuel Velikovsky, "The Dreams Freud Dreamed," Psychoanalylic Review
28 (1941):494.
28. Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham, A Psycho-Analytic Dialogue: The Letters af
Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham, 1907-1926, ed. Hilda C. Abraham and Ernst L. Freud;
trans. Bernard Marsh and Hilda C. Abraham (New York: Basic Books, 1965), p. 34;
henceforth cited as Freud/Abraham.
29. One can only imagine what was running through Freud's mind in 1936 (while

working on Moses and Monotheism) when he confided to the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig
Binswanger, in response to Binswanger's comment on being free to take refuge in neurosis
or maintain one's psychic balance, that "Constitution is everything" (Konstitution ist
alles); see Ludwig Binswanger, Sigmund Freud: Reminiscences of a Friendship, trans. Norbert
Guterman (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1957), p. Z1n.
30. Jeffrey L. Sammons, Heinrich Heine: A Modem Biography (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1979), p. 109.
31. In Heinrich Heine, Heine's Prose and Poetry, trans. Margaret Armour (London:
J. M. Dent and Sons, 1934), p. 103.
32. S.E., 23:30-31.
33. See Kelly M. West, Epidemiology of Diabetes and Its Vascular Lesions (New
York: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., 1978), p. 198; also Frederic V. Grunfeld, Prophets
Without Honor: A Background to Freud, Kafka, Einstein and Their World (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1979), p. 56.
34. S.E., 4:195.
35. Grinstein, Sigmund Freud's Dreams, pp. 72-73.
36. S.E., 4:195.
38. Save for a brief Christmas visit to Martha in Wandsbek; see Jones, Ufe and
Work, 1:207.
39. Lettm, p. 172.
40. Ibid., p. 174.
41. It would seem that even at the age of seventy-nine, Freud still evidenced some
concern about the understandability of his French. When he quoted a French motto to a
patient, the patient requested a translation, and Freud assumed that it was his French that
was not understandable rather than the patient not understanding French; see Smiley
Blanton, Diary of My Analysis with Sigmund Freud (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1971),
p. 66.
43. jones, Ufe and Work, 1:339-41.
H. Origins, pp. 342, 344.
45. Freud/Abraham, p. 146.
46. S.E., 5:441-42.
47. Elon, Her:tl, pp. 122, 123, 254.
48. Sachs, Freud, p. 81.
49. Ernst Simon, "Sigmund Freud, the Jew," Leo Baeck Institute of Jews from Germany
Yearbook 2 (1957):274.
50. Elon, Hml, p. 215.
51. Simon, "Sigmund Freud," p. 274.
52. Ibid.
53. S. E., 5:444.
54. Grinstein, Sigmund Freud's Dreams, p. 322.
55. Charles Algernon Swinburne, The Best of Swinburne, ed. Clyde Kenneth Hyder
and Lewis Chase (New York: T. Nelson and Sons, 1937), p. 155.
56. The reference in the psalm to the right hand losing its cunning articulates with
Freud's contention that the dream related to a discussion he had with his friend Fliess
about the biological significance of bilateral symmetry; see S. E., 5:443. Incidentally, the
dooms generated by the forgetting of Jerusalem resemble hysterical symptoms. Did Freud
interpret this passage to mean that forgetting one's Jewish origins resulted in hysteria?
After all, in Freud's terms, hysterics always suffer from reminiscences, from something
they have tried to forget (ibid., 2:7).
57. Ibid., 5:443.
58. Grinstein, Sigmund Freud's Dreams, pp. 325, 326; Origins, pp. 238-42.
59. Jones, Ufe and Work, 1:143; Ronald W. Clark, Freud: The Man and the Couse
(New York: Random House, 1980), p. 83.

60. Suzanne Ca.ssirer Bemfeld, "Freud and Archeology," American Imago 8 (1951):122.
62. S. E., 5:442.
63. Jones, Life and Wark, 1: 101.
64. Swinburne, Best of Swinburne, p. 156.
65. Elon, Herzl, p. 124.
66. S.E., 5:442.
67. Ibid.
68. Elon, Herzl. pp. 114-17.
69. Jones, Life and Work, passim; Elon, Herzl, passim.
70. Earl A. GroHman, Judaism in Sigmund Freud's World (New York: Appleton Cen·
tury, 1965), p. 89.
71. Max Graf, "Reminiscences of Professor Sigmund Freud," Psychoanalylic Quarterly
11 (1942):473.
72. S.E., 18:121.
73. Heine, Prose and Poetry, p. 103.
74. Blanton, Diary, p. 68.
75. Grinstein, Sigmund Freud's Dreams, p. 387.
76. Jones, Life and Work, 1:152, 163.
77. Ibid., 2:33.
79. Jones, Life and Work, 1:181; Origins, pp. 214, 219.
81. S.E., 22:239-48.
83. S.E., 5:433-34.
84. 1bid., p. 434.
85. Ibid., 4:210.
86. Ibid., 8:115.
87. Ibid., 20:7-8.
88. Jones, Life and Work, 1: 177.
89. Lett:ers, p. 187.
90. S.E., 4:261-64.
91. Lett:ers, p. 424.
92. John Murray Cuddihy, The Ordeal of Civility: Freud. Marx, Uvi·Strauss, and £he
Jewish Struggle with Modemicy (New York: Delta Books, 1974), pp. 48-57.
93. Sophocles, "Oedipus, the King," trans. Sir George Young, in Plays of £he Greek
Dramatists (Chicago: Puritan Publishing, n.d.), p. 194.
94. Ibid., pp. 194-95.
95. The scene upon the road is not presented dramatically in the play but is recalled
by Oedipus in narrative form. Similarly, Freud's experience of his father's humiliation was
not experienced by Freud first-hand but learned from a story his father had related; see
Cuddihy, Ordeal, p. 53.
96. S.E., 20:7.
Chapter 6: The Kiick

1. S.E., 8:63.
2. Ibid., pp. 64, 114.
3. Ibid., p. 70.
4. Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Books,
1953-57), 3:375. Jones devotes an entire chapter of his biography to Freud's views on
the occult; see ibid., pp. 375-407.
5. S. E., 8:92.

6. Ibid.
7. Letters, p. 158.
8. S. E., 6:260.
9. Ibid., p. 261.
10. Ibid., p. 169.
12. Ibid., p. 310.
13. Freud/lung, pp. 218-20.
14. Fliess charged Freud with having divulged his ideas on bisexuality to Otto Wein·
inger who plagiarized them in his book Sex and Character. For a complete account of this
fascinating incident, see Frank J. Sulloway, FTeud: Biologist of the Mind (New York: Basic
&oks, 1979), pp. 223-32.
16. Paul Roazen, FTeud and His Followers (New York: New American Library, A
Meridian &ok, 1971), p. 238.
17. S.E., 18:177-93.
18. Ibid., p. 175.
20. S.E., 18:197-220.
21. Ibid., p. 197.
22. Ibid., p. 219.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., p. 179.
25. Ibid., pp. 175-76. The case is presented in S.E., 22:47-56.
26. S.E., 18:183.
27. Ibid., p. 188.
28. Ibid., p. 184.
29. Ibid., p. 189.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., 22:47; 18:175.
32. Ibid., 22:4 7-56 passim. For the publishing history of Jones's book, see Ernest
Jones, On the Nighr.mare (New York: Grove Press, Evergreen Edition, 1959), pp. 5-6.
33. Nandor Fodor, mud, ]ung, and Occultism (New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University
&oks, 1971), p. 85.
35. S.E.• 22:34.
36. Ibid., 18:193. The mot is identified by Strachey as that of Madame du Deffand
in a letter to Walpole (ibid., n.2).
37. C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, and Reflecticms, ed. Aniela Jaffe; trans. Richard
and Clara Winston (New York: Vintage &oks, 1965), pp. 155-56.
38. FTeudl]ung, p. 216.
39. Ibid., p. 218.
40. Jung, Memories, p. 150.
41. Ibid., p. 151.
42. FTeudl]ung, p. 82.
43. S.E., 3:48-49.
44. Ibid., pp. 51-52.
45. Ibid., 9:126-27.
Chapter 7: The Egyptian Moses

l. The form of the joke presented here follows Theodor Reik, "Freud and Jewish
Wit," Psychoanalysis 2 (1954):18; Freud presents a slightly different version in S.E.,
15:161; Jones identifies the main protagonist not as "ltzig" but as the Viennese character

"der Kleine Moritz"; see Ernest Jones, The life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New
York: Basic Books, 1953-57), 3:363.
2. S. E., 20:8.
3. Ernst Freud, Lucie Freud, and lise Grubrich-Simitis, eds., Sigmund Freud: His
life in Pictures and Words (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 134.
4. Freudl]ung, pp. 196-97.
6. S.E., 13:213.
7. Ibid., pp. 229-30.
8. Jones, life and Work, 2:366.
9. Ibid.
10. S.E., 8:70.
11. Ibid., 13:213.
12. Ibid., 18:74.
13. Ibid., 13:233.
14. Ibid., 23:103.
15. Ibid., p. 4.
16. Ibid., pp. 103-4.
17. Ibid., pp. 4-5.
18. Ibid., p. 3.
19. Sigmund Freud and Arnold Zweig, The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Arnold Zweig,
ed. Ernst L. Freud; trans. Elaine and William Robson-Scott (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, A Harvest Book, 1970), p. 97.
20. S. E., 23:55.
21. Ibid., p. 7.
22. Ibid., p. 58.
23. Jones, Life and Work, 3:234, 237.
24. Ibid., p. 242.
25. S.E., 23:10-15.
26. Reik, "Freud and Jewish Wit," p. 18.
27. Samuel Rosenberg has made a similar argument; see his Why Freud Fainted
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1978), pp. 183-84. Incidentally, Amalie Freud's He-
brew name was "Malke," which means "queen"; see Willy Aron, "Notes on Sigmund
Freud's Ancestry and Jewish Contacts," YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 9 (1956-
57):286.
28. Berggasse 19: Sigmund Freud's Home and Offices, Vienna 1938, photog. Edmund
Engelman; intro. Peter Gay (New York: Basic Books, 1976), pl. 15.
29. Alexander Grinstein, On Sigmund Freud's Dreams (Detroit: Wayne State Uni·
30. S.E., 23:27-31.
31. Ibid., 23.
32. C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffe; trans. Richard
and Clara Winston (New York: Vintage Books, 1965), p. 157.
34. Max Schur, Freud: living and Dying (New York: International Universities Press,
1972), p. 265.
35. In August 1909, Freud, Jung, and Ferenczi met in Bremen from where they were
to embark on their voyage to the United States. Freud and Jung were scheduled to deliver
lectures on psychoanalysis at the twentieth-anniversary celebration of Clark College in
Worcester, Massachusetts. Freud hosted Jung and Ferenczi at lunch, and Freud and Fer-
enczi prevailed upon Jung, who was a strict teetotaler, to imbibe some wine. Jung began
to talk about the peat-bog corpses that were found occasionally in Holstein, Denmark,
and Sweden, confusing them with the mummies that were discovered in the lead cellars
of Bremen. Freud got upset with Jung and asked, "Why are you so concerned with these
corpses?" and then suddenly fainted. When he revived he accused Jung of harboring death
wishes toward him (Jung, Memories, p. 156; Jones, life and Work, 2:55).

It is interesting that the conversational context surrounding this earlier fainting
episode in Bremen concerned the topic of mummification (an idea that would immedi·
ately suggest ancient Egypt) and that Freud first interpreted his fainting attack as a
"reaction to }ung's apostacy from anti-alcoholism" (my emphasis). (See letter from Fer·
enczi to Freud in Schur, Freud, p. 26 7.) Thus thoughts of Egypt and apostacy may have
been on Freud's mind during his Bremen attack, as they most certainly were during his
fainting episode in Munich three years later.
36. Little is known about Freud's previous fainting episodes that supposedly took
place in Munich years prior to the 1912 attack (Jones, Ufe and Work, 1:317), but Max
Schur has pointed out that the alleged dates in no way accord with Freud's trips to that
ciry (Schur, Freud, p. 269).
38. Ibid., 2:146.
39. S.E., 23:34-37.
40. Ibid., p. 51.
41. Ibid., p. 86.
42. Ibid., p. 88.
43. Ibid., p. 90.
44. In Jones, Ufe and \l'rlrk, 3:3 70.
45. It is perhaps significant that Freud sympathetically regarded Paul as a "genuinely
Jewish character"; Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister, Psychoanalysis and Faith: The Letrers
of Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfisrer, ed. Heinrich Meng and Ernst L. Freud; trans. Eric
Mosbacher (New York: Basic Books, 1963), p. 76.
46. See Lydia Oehlschegel, "Regarding Freud's Book on 'Moses': A Religio-Psycho·
analytical Study," Psychoanalytic Review 30 (1943):75.
Chapter 8: The Complex

1. Encyclopaedia ]udaica, ed. Cecil Roth, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), s.v.
"Austria"; "Oath More Judaico."
2. Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Vintage
Books, 1981), p. 117.
3. Encyclopaedia ]udaica, s. v. "Austria."
4. Ibid.; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., 30 vols. (Chicago: Helen Hemingway
Benton Publisher, 1972), s.v. "Austria, History of."
5. Emen Jones, The Ufe and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Books,
1953-57), 1:17.
6. Ibid., pp. 4-5.
7. S.E., 4:192-93.
B. Jones, Ufe and Work, 1:20, 27-28. For a discussion of Freud's career change see
Schorske, Vienna, pp. 181-207.
9. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., 29 vols. (Cambridge: The Universiry of Cam·
bridge Press, 1910-11), s.v. "Austria"; see also Schorske, Vienna, pp. 27-46.
10. Schorske, Vienna, p. 25.
11. Martin Freud, "Who Was Freud?" in The Jews of Austria: Essays on Their Ufe,
History, and Destruction, ed. Josef Fraenkel (London: Valentine, Mitchell, 1967), p. 209.
12. For another interpretation of Freud's constitutionals, see Samuel Rosenberg, Why
Freud Fainted (Indianapolis: Bobbs·Merrill Co., 1978), pp. 100-108.
13. Arthur Schnitzler, My Youth in Vienna, trans. Frederic Morton (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1970), p. 63.
14. S.E., 4:197-98.
15. William M. Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social Hisrory
1848-1938 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 27.
16. Letters, pp. 4-5.

17. Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 15th ed., s. v. "Austria, History of."
18. These figures are extrapolated from those presented in Arieh Tartakower, "jewish
Migratory Movements in Austria in Recent Generations," in The Jews of Awuia: Essays
on TheiT Ufe, His£ary, and Des£TUC£ion, ed. josef Fraenkel (london: Valentine, Mitchell,
1967), p. 287.
19. At one point, of 3,268 physicians in Vienna, 2,440 were jewish and of 2,163
advocates, 1,345 were jews (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s. v. "Vienna").
20. P. G. j. Pulzer, "The Development of Political Antisemitism in Austria," in The
Jews af Ausuia: Essays on Their Ufe, His£ary, and Destruction, ed. josef Fraenkel (London:
Valentine, Mitchell, 1967), p. 436.
21. Ibid.
22. S.E., 20:9.
23. Schnitzler, My Youth, p. 77.
24. jones, Ufe and Work, 1:55.
25. johnston, Awtrian Mind, pp. 54-55.
26. Letters, pp. 131-32.
27. Schnitzler, My Youth, p. 128; Pulzer, "Development," p. 436.
29. Schorske, Vienna, pp. 120-33.
30. Pulzer, "Development," p. 434.
31. Ibid., p. 433.
32. Most of the information concerning Lueger's career comes from Schorske, Vi-
enna, pp. 120-33.
33. Origins, pp. I 23-24, 133.
34. Earl A. Grollman, Judaism in Sigmund Freud's World (New York: Appleton Cen-
tury, 1965), pp. 72, 86.
35. That Freud followed Zola 's trial is confirmed in a letter to Fliess (Origins, p.
245).
36. Peter Gay, Freud, Jews, and Other Germans: Masters and Victims in Modernist
Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 195; see his portrait of Hermann
Levi, pp. 189-230.
38. David Abrahamsen, The Mind and Death of a Genius (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1946), pp. 6-9, 14-15, 38, 44, 45.
39. Ibid., pp. 54-55.
40. For a discussion of the plagiarism episode, see jones, Ufe and Work, 2: 13; Frank j.
Sulloway, Freud: Biologist of the Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1979), pp. 223-32.
41. Otto Weininger, Sex and Character (london: William Heinemann, 1906), pp.
301-30.
42. johnston, Ausman Mind, p. 159.
43. Abrahamsen, Mind and Death, p. 122.
44. Quoted in ibid., p. 183. Among Weininger's anti-jewish aphorisms were several
that his friend and editor M. Rappaport omitted from all but the first edition of the
posthumously published Ober die let~en Dinge because they were so vicious and would
reflect badly on Weininger (ibid., p. 184).
46. George Clare, Last Walt~ in Vienna: The Rise and Destruction of a Family, 1842-
1941 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981), p. 85.
47. Origins, pp. 219-20.
48. See Kenneth A. Grigg, " 'All Roads Lead to Rome': The Role of the Nursemaid
in Freud's Dreams," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 21 (1973):108-26;
Alexander Grinstein, On Sigmund Freud's Dreams (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
1968), pp. 75-76, 191, 208, 323-24, 441; Immanuel Velikovsky, "The Dreams Freud
Dreamed," Psychoanalytic Review 28 (1941):487-511.
49. She has been identified as Monika Zajic; see Ronald W. Clark, Freud: The Man
and the Cause (New York: Random House, 1980), p. 11. It is difficult to believe that Freud

could have maintained many vivid memories from the first two and a half years of his life.
It might be more reasonable to suppose either that his recollections were full-blown
fantasies or that the chronology of his early life was far from accurate.
51. Ibid., p. 245.
52. Ibid., p. 220.
53. Ibid., p. 221-23.
54. Perhaps young Freud had been giving her his own money and only the family
thought she had been stealing it. In such a case Freud may have felt guilty because he
sensed he was responsible for her incarceration.
55. S.E., 4:238-40.
56. Ibid., pp. 247-48.
58. Ibid., p. 221.
59. Ibid., p. 219.
60. Ibid., p. 237.
61. Ibid.
62. Encyclopaedia Britranica, 15th ed., s. v. "Austria, History of."
64. S.E., 4:196.
65. Ibid .. 5:442-43.
66. Ibid., 23:10-15. Of course, Oedipus also had two mothers: Jocasta and Peri·
boea.
67. Perspicacious readers will note that in chapter 7 we argued that in a dream Freud
dreamt at the age of six or seven, he tried to cast his own mother in the role of an
Egyptian princess. This was years after Freud's separation from his nurse, and the fantasy
of "two mothers" may have encouraged his splitting Amalie into two aspects-an Egyp-
tian princess and a Hebrew mother-in accordance with the biblical account he had just
then discovered.
It should also be noted that the published form of the paper Karl Abraham delivered
on Amenhotep IV at the Psycho-Analytical Congress in Munich in 1912 includes a
reference to Akhenaten's neurotic attachment to his nurse. If this reference was also made
in the oral presentation, it might have contributed to Freud's hysterical fainting episode
at the Park Hotel during the discussion of Abraham's paper. See Karl Abraham, "Amen-
hotep IV: A Psycho-Analytical Contribution toward the Understanding of His Personality
and the Monotheistic Cult of Aton," in his Clinical Ebpers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis,
ed. Hilda C. Abraham; trans. Hilda C. Abraham and D. R. Ellison (London: Hogarth
Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1955), pp. 268-69.
68. Admittedly, there is something of a chicken and egg problem here. It cannot be
determined whether it was his childhood fantasy that came to reinforce the desire to
escape his Jewish heritage or whether it was this desire to escape that conditioned his
childhood recollections and his belief that his nurse was the "primary originator" of his
neurosis. Freud himself was aware of the problem. See Origins, p. 221.
69. Origins, pp. 222-23; also S.E., 6:49-51.
70. For the idea of synoptic texts, see Elliott Oring, Israeli Humor: The Content and
SlrUCture of the Chi~oot of the Palmah (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981),
pp. 126-29.
71. Theodor Reik, "Freud and Jewish Wit," Psychoanalysis 2 (1954):17-18.
Chapter 9: The Sublimation

I. Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister, Psychoanalysis and Faith: The Letters of Sigmund
Freud and Oskar Pfister, ed. Heinrich Meng and Ernst L. Freud; trans. Eric Mosbacher
(New York: Basic Books, 1963), p. 63.

2. Letters, p. 3 76.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 428.
5. David Bakan did explore this question in his book Sigmund Freud and the Jewish
Mystical Tradition (New York: Schocken, 1965) where he attempted to characterize psy-
choanalysis as an outgrowth of kabbalistic tradition. Alternately, John Murray Cuddihy
viewed psychoanalysis as the assault of an angry Jew on the conventions of Christian
culture in The Ordeal of Civility: Freud, Marx, U11i-Strauss, and the Jewish Struggle with
Modernity (New York: Delta Books, 1974), pp. 3-102.
6. H[ilda) D[oolittle), Tribute to Freud (Boston: David R. Godine, 1974), p. 51.
7. Ronald W. Clark, Freud: The Man and the Cause (New York: Random House,
1980), p. 293; Mortimer Ostow, "Judaism and Psychoanalysis," in Judaism and Psycho-
analysis, ed. Mortimer Ostow (New York: Ktav, 1982), pp. 17 -18.
8. Wilhelm Stekel, The Autobiography of Wilhelm Stekel: The Life Story of a
Pioneer Psychoanalyst, ed. Emil Gutheil (New York: Liveright, 1950), p. 106.
9. Max Graf, "Reminiscences of Professor Sigmund Freud," Psychoanalytic Quarterly
11 (1942):471- n.
Press, 1946), p. 72.
11. Richaril F. Sterba, Reminiscences of a Viennese Psychoanalyst (Detroit: Wayne
State University Press, 1982), pp. 7, 37, 81, 127-28.
12. For example, Franz Alexander and Sheldon T. Selesnick, "Freud-Bieuler Corre-
spondence," Archi11es of General Psychiatry 12 (1965):5; also see Clark, Freud, pp. 412-
13; Martin D. Kushner, Freud: A Man Obsessed (Philadelphia: Dorrance and Co., 1967),
pp. 124-30; Alfred A. Kroeber, "Totem and Taboo in Retrospect," in Reader in Compar-
atil!e Religion, 4th ed., ed. William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt (New York: Harper and
Row, 1979), p. 27.
13. Ernest Jones, The Ufe and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Books,
1953-57), 2:154.
14. Clark, Freud, p. 218.
15. Ludwig Binswanger, Sigmund Freud: Reminiscences of a Friendship, trans. Norbert
Guterman (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1957), p. 9.
16. Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome, Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Sa-
lome: Letters, ed. Ernst Pfeiffer; trans. William and Elaine Robson-Scott (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), p. 18.
17. Sachs, Freud, pp. 169-70.
18. Philip Rieff, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, 3d ed. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1979), p. 257.
19. Ibid.
20. Bruno Bettelheim, Freud and Man's Soul (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983).
21. Theodor Reik later demonstrated that the biblical narrative of the Garden of
Eden was a disguised representation of this parricide; see Myth and Guilt: The Crime and
Punishment of Mankind (New York: George Braziller, 1957).
22. Rieff, Freud, p. 35.
23. Ibid., pp. 300-328.
24. S. E., 20:255.
25. Clark, Freud, p. 123.
26. S.E., 2:7.
27. Rieff, Freud, p. 44.
28. Max Schur, Freud: Uving and Dying (New York: International Universities Press,
1972), p. 529.

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148 Bibliography
Index
Adler, Alfred, 73-74 Conversion of Jews to Christianity, 24-

Anna 0., case of. See Breuer, Josef 25, 26, 39, 59, 63, 69, 70, 74, 110
Anti-Semitism, 44, 100, 101; in Vienna, Cuddihy, John Murray, 77
105, 106-12, 116
An Autobiographical Study (Freud), 31-32, Diabetes, as a Jewish disease, 60
78 "Dirty" Jew, as theme in jokes, 42, 45,
47, 49
Baptism, as cure for disease of Judaism, "Disturbance of Memory on the
54, 59, 63, 71, 72. See also Conversion Acropolis, A" (Freud), 73
of Jews to Christianity Dreams: being naked, 47-48; "The
Bernays, Martha (wife of Freud), 4, 29, Botanical Monograph," 31; "Going Up
l31n.43; Freud's resentment of, 29-30, the Stairs," 47-48, 49, 115; inhibited
31-32,33-34,37,41,81. See also thoughts in, 7; "Irma's Injection," 14,
Freud, Sigmund, letters to Martha 21-22, 29; "My Son, the Myops," 64-
Bernays 68, 69, 71, 72, 76, 116; "My Son, the
"Botanical Monograph, The." See Dreams Myops," as conversion fantasy, 65-68;
Brentano, Franz, 6 and relationship to jokes, 4, 7, 10, 21-
Breuer, Josef: and case of Anna 0., 19, 22, 72, 127n.15; "Riding on a Horse,"
20-21; relationship to Freud, 18-21, 52-54, 60, 69, 72; "Rome Series," 56-
22, 23; and rift with Freud, 19-20 57, 58-59, 60, 63, 72, 92; techniques
in, 7
CiviUzarian and lts Discontents, 29 "Dreams and Telepathy" (Freud), 83
Clare, George (The Last Waltz in Vienna),
112-13 "Famillionairely." See Jokes
Cleanliness (dirtiness), 43; as theme in Fleischl-Marxow, Ernst von, 16, 17, 18
jokes, 42, 43, 44, 115. See also Jokes, Fliess, Wilhelm, 3, 4, 5, 29, 82; "theory
Jewish, characters in: the Ostjude of periodicity," 82
"Committee, The," 34-35, 121 Freud, Sigmund: and avoidance of
"Constitution" joke. See Karlsbad joke personal determinants of joking, 10-
Index 149
Freud, Sigmund-Continued "Irma's Injection." See Dreams
11; burning of manuscripts, 4-5; "ltzig the Sunday Horseman." See jokes
childhood nurse as second mother, 116;
childhood nurse of, 113-18; concern
about appearance, 48-49; conllict Jew, as foreigner, 62
between marriage and career, 29, 30, Jews, Galician, 43-44
32, 34-35, 37, 41 (see also Bemays, Joke: technique of, 6-7, 8, 42; underlying
Martha; Marriage); father's death, 3; substance of, 6, 7-8, 55, 80
fondness for joke telling, 2; and Jokes: as approach to character of Freud,
identification with Jewish joke 1-7, 12, 14-23, 62, 125n.2; examples
characters, 12, 17, 18-19, 22-23, 29- of, 3, 8, 13, 14, 22, 25-26, 27, 28, 29,
30, 47-48; identification with Moses, 34, 42, 43, 49, 52, 54-55, 58, 61, 75-
58, 120; and inlluence of Jewish 76, 79, 80, 91, 118, 126n.11, l3ln.50;
identity on the development of "famillionairely," 8-9, 10, 23, 24, 25,
psychoanalysis, 119-20, 122; and 59; inhibiting thoughts in, 6-7;
Jewish identity, 23, 24, 26, 38-41, 44, interpretation of, 8, 9; "ltzig the
54, 56, 59, 71' 72-73, 75, 76, 78, 89- Sunday Horseman," 52, 63, 72;
90, 93-94, 96, 98, 101, 102, 113, Karlsbad, 58-59, 61-62, 72; Karlsbad
116-17, 118, 119, 121-22, 123-24; joke, relationship of, to rue Richelieu
jokes, themes in, 114, 116; letters to joke, 61-62; Kiick, 79, 84, 85; mystical
Manha Bemays 4-5, 15-16, 33-34, or occult, 79; personal determinants in,
35-36,39-40,44-45,48,56,62,76, 9, 10-11; personal significance of, for
81; name change of, 23-24, 98; and Freud, 3-4, 12, 62; and relationship to
names of children, 71 -72; and the personality, 9-10, 11, 12, 22, 23; rue
occult and superstition, 80-81, 83, 84- Richelieu, 60-62, 72; rue Richelieu
86, 87, 88, 89; Oedipus complex of, joke, relationship of, to Karlsbad joke,
75, 76; privateness of, 4-5, 10-11; 61, 72; uses of, by Freud, 2-3, 11, 30,
problems in career advancement, 54; l26n.6
relationship of, to Oedipus drama, 76- Jokes and TheiT Relation 10 rhe Unconscious
78; relationship of childhood nurse to (Freud), 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 22, 23, 25,
Freud's joke themes, 114-1 8; and ring· 27, 34, 42.44, 50-51,54,79,80, 81;
breaking episode, 33-34, 35, 37, 38- as framework for interpretation of
40; role of childhood nurse in conflict Freud's jokes, 6; as major source of data
over Jewish identity, 116-18; self- for Freud's jokes, 5-6
analysis of, 3, 4, 12, 29, 114; theory of Jokes, Jewish, characters in: Hirsch-
humor of, 6; visit to Paris, 61, 62; visit Hyacinth, 8-9, 23, l29n.60; the
to Rome, 63, 92 Ostjude, 42, 43, 47, 49, 51; Schadchen
(marriage broker), 27-28, 131n.SO;
"Going Up the Stairs." See Dreams Schnorrer (beggar), 13-14, 16, 17, 18,
22, 23, 115; collection of, by Freud, 3-
Hammerschlag, Samuel, 16, 18 5, 6, 12; destruction of manuscript of,
Heine, Heinrich, 5, 8-9, 23, 25-26, 58, by Freud, 3-5, 6, 12
59-60, 72; Freud's jokes about, in ]olcls Jones, Ernest, 2, 5, 11, 21, 28, 39, 41,
and Their Relation ... , ZS-26 80, 92, 118
Herzl, Theodor, resemblances to Freud, Judaism, as a disease, 59-60, 71
68-70 Jung, Carl Gustav, 35, 89, 99; as non-
Hirsch-Hyacinth. See Jokes, jewish jewish heir, 72, 92; relationship to
characters in Freud, 72, 90, 92
Indebtedness, and Freud, 14-21, 22-23; Karlsbad joke. See Jokes

asthemeinjokes, 13-14,22,114. See Kraus, Karl, 6
also Jokes, jewish, characters in: Kiick. See jokes
Schnorrer
Interpretation of Dreams, The (Freud), 4, 5,
29-30,31,52,75,96-97 Lueger, Karl, 108-9
lSO Index
Marriage: jokes about, 27-28, 41; reasons "Psycho-Analysis and Telepathy" (Freud),
for Freud's ambivalence about, 31-32, 83-84, 86, 88
38-39, 41. See also Jokes, Jewish, Psychopathology of Everyday Life, The, 5,
characters in: Schadchen; Schadchen 20,30-31,34,81,83
jokes
Moses, 58, 91, 94, 101, 116, 120. See also Reik, Theodor, 49-50, 96
Freud, Sigmund, identification with Religion, analyzed by Freud, 121-22. See
Moses; Moses and Morwtheism; "Moses also Psychoanalysis, as new religion
of Michelangelo, The" "Riding on a Horse." See Dreams
Moses and Morwtheism: Three Essays "Rome Series." See Dreams
(Freud), 60, 94, 96, 101; as expression rue Richelieu joke. See Jokes
of conflict within Freud, 95; publication
history of, 94-95, 99; theses in, 96,
Sachs, Hanns, 120-21
97, 99-100
Schadchen jokes: kinds of, 27-28;
"Moses of Michelangelo, The" (Freud),
underlying substance of, 28, 41. See
92, 93, 94
also jokes, jewish, characters in
"My Son, the Myops." See Dreams
Schnorrer jokes, relationship of, to Freud,
14-21, 22-23. See also jokes, Jewish,
Nathan the Wise (Lessing), 40 characters in
New Ghetto, The (Herzl), 64-65, 68 Schonerer, Georg, 107-8
"New Melusina, The" (Goethe), 35-38,
Strachey, James, 94-95
39 Studies on Hysteria (Freud), 19, 22
Nurse, childhood. See Freud, Sigmund,
childhood nurse of
Totem and Taboo (Freud), 98-99
Oedipus complex. See Freud, Sigmund, Traveling, meaning of, for Freud, 62, 68-
Oedipus complex of; Freud, Sigmund, 69, 72, 73-76, 115. See also Jokes,
Karlsbad; Jokes, rue Richelieu
relationship of, to Oedipus drama
On Coca (Freud); 31
Ostjude. See Jokes, Jewish, characters in Vienna, liberal spirit in, 104-5, 116
von Lichtenberg, G. C., 5-6
Paneth, Josef, 16, 17, 18
Psychoanalysis, as new religion, 92, 98- Weininger, Otto, 110-12; "Sex and
99, 120, 121, 122-23 Character," 110-12
Index lSl
About the Author
Elliott Oring received his Ph.D. in Folklore from Indiana
University in 1974, and is now Professor of Anthropology,
emeritus, at California State University, Los Angeles. He
has written extensively about folklore, humor, and cultural
symbolism. His books include Israeli Humor (1981), Humor
and the Individual ( 1984), Folk Groups and Folklore Genres:
An Introduction (1986), Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: A
Reader (1989), and Jokes and Their Relations (1992). His
most recent book, Engaging Humor, was published by Uni-
versity of Illinois Press in 2003. He served as editor of
Western Folklore and is currently on the editorial boards of
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research and Jour-
nal of Folklore Research. Dr. Oring is a Fellow of the
American Folklore Society and a Fellow of the Finnish
Academy of Science and Letters.

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THE JOKES OF

A JASON ARONSON BOOK

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

ROWMAN & LITILEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America

Copyright © 1997 by Elliott Oring

The author gratefully acknowledges permission to use the following:

Nathan the Wise, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Translated by Bayard

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oring, Elliott, 1945-

Printed in the United States of America

1 Jokes and Freud 1

There are many contributors to a project such as this whose names

(A name made great is a name destroyed.)

Doch, was man ist, und was

There is something enigmatic about the photographs of Sigmund Freud.

Jokes and Freud 1

2 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

The ability to employ jokes in such a focused fashion indicates that

Jokes and Freud 3

4 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

Jokes and Freud 5

6 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

Jokes and Freud 7

A horsedealer was recommending a saddle-horse to a customer. "If

Freud correctly described the displacement technique operating in

8 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

The presence of similar subjective determinants may be suspected

It is one thing to claim that it is not easy to establish the personal

Jokes and Freud 9

10 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

Jokes and Freud 11

12 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

Nur darum eben leiht er keinem,

The character of the schnorrer, or beggar, figures prominently in Jewish

A Schnorrer, who was allowed as a guest into the same house

The schnorrer presumes upon the largess of his benefactor in order to

An impoverished individual borrowed 25 florins from a prosperous

A. borrowed a copper kettle from B. and after he had returned it

Again we see the denial of what is otherwise an obvious indebtedness.

14 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

I intend to compensate for it by being charitable myself when I can

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Heine is said to have made a definitely blasphemous joke on his

26 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

A Schadchen had brought an assistant with him to the discussion

The would-be bridegroom complained that the bride had one

As we noted in chapter 2, it is precisely when Freud seems to be

28 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

women soon come into opposition to civilization and display their

Perhaps it would not be overextending our interpretation to suggest that

30 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud

It is clear that Freud is somewhat disappointed that he was unable to

32 The Jokes of Sigmund Freud