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Kris, discussing at some length caricature and the comic, speaks of these as “regression in the service of the ego” and, elsewhere, states: “The compromise achieved by the comic is the foundation of a phenomenon well-known to psychoanalysts: The comic as a mechanism of defense. We know it from clinical experience: Here it can appear in various guises to master and ward off emotions, above all anxiety.” (1, Pp 177; 215).
In the present paper, an attempt will be made to test Kris's hypothesis in an informal way. First, some popular magazines of wit and humor will be searched for humorous cartoons which relate to contemporary situations thought to be anxiety-producing to Americans. Second, representative examples of these cartoons will be discused with particular attention to any, obvious ways in which they might be conducive to reducing or mastering hypothetical anxiety.
The magazines to be explored are The New Yorker and Punch, American and English publications with some reputation for their humor, and apparently well accepted as such judging from their rather stable and large circulations. To these will be added The Saturday Review, a popular American weekly which, though not primarily a humor magazine, carries a few, timely and humorous cartoons, sometimes by cartoonists who contribute also to The New Yorker. The issues to be searched are those appearing in the spring and especially the summer of 1958.
Situations which will be considered as anxiety-provoking to Americans during this period will be: first, American foreign relations in general, but particularly relations with