The author discusses the trickster figure in North American mythology in terms of duality of function. The trickster is both a polymorphously sexual buffoon and a heroic cultural innovator. Manson critically assesses Carroll's attempt to integrate Freud's theory of culture with Lévi-Strauss's structural analysis of the trickster as representing the dichotomous structure of mythical thought. Manson, in contrast, argues that sublimation is the mediating conceptual link that unifies the polarized personalities of the trickster. He concludes that the change from sybarite to culture hero represents the problem of ego development in psychosocial maturation.