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Eidelberg opens his paper by reporting a joke: A famous actress returns home and finds ten sailors in her bedroom. She says, 'I am tired, two must go'. The analysis of this joke shows that it can be divided into three parts: (1) serving the satisfaction of infantile sexual scoptophilic instincts; (2) serving the inhibition of these instincts, damming them up and mobilizing an aggressive tendency; (3) while superficially expressing inhibition of instincts, the joke actually favors their satisfaction. Furthermore, part (3) reveals: (a) a feeling of infantile omnipotence due to the easy victory over the infantile superego which is deceived; (b) a feeling of infantile omnipotence due to the easy victory over the infantile id which receives instead of scoptophilic pleasure an exhibitionistic one; (c) exhibitionistic and aggressive pleasure from the satisfaction of aggressive and infantile instincts in laughter. The laughter represents for the listener and the narrator a victory of the ego over the id and the superego.
While one may have missed the point of Eidelberg's complicated paper, it is obvious nevertheless, that the author overlooks the importance of surprise in the dynamics of witticism so brilliantly analyzed by Freud and Reik. In addition, he seems to overlook the specific rôle of latent aggressiveness: the actress in question symbolizes the (promiscuous) mother and the joke compensates us for incestuous frustrations by exposing mother as nymphomaniac and hypocrite.