Birnbach explores the contempt and the antagonism which underlie humor (wit) in the writing of Karl Marx. He contends that Marx's debt to Hegel and his defense of this legacy are partly responsible for the polemical nature of Marx's writing. In terms of oedipal conflict, Birnbach hypothesizes that Marx, whose early work was, in fact, appreciated by the critics, unleashed unbridled hostility toward his contemporaries, the objects of his fratricidal wishes.