Der Herrscher und sein Stiefbruder: Freud deutet einen Witz

The joke about the ruler and his stepbrother, to be found in Freud's book The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious (1905), is first interpreted, and then Freud's reading of the joke is critically reviewed. Freud seeks to understand jokes in a similar way as he did with dreams, but his hermeneutical approach is precarious. Dreams can sustain themselves only in hiding, while jokes are openly communicated. In the later parts of his book, Freud himself is doubtful about the way in which he attempts to link jokes to the unconscious. This may be one of the reasons why he has rarely referred to his early theory of jokes later on. In conclusion, it is shown that the quoted joke has been told for thousands of years; it is part of an extrovert, collective, and global memory.