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This is a study of literary and philosophical aspects of postmodernism in all of its underpinnings, especially psychoanalytic. Freud's book on Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious is a central text for Flieger, who sees postmodernism as intertwined with comic theory. Freud is interpreted through Lacan and the perspective of “French Freud,” and most of the writers and thinkers discussed in the book are French: Bataille, Blanchot, Lyotard, Derrida, Kristeva, and de Man. Samuel Beckett is used extensively as a literary example. The book is divided into four parts. Part One, Postmodernism: A Case of the Comic, serves as an introduction. Part Two is Psychoanalysis: Comic Theory as Text, with chapters on Freud and Lacan. Part Three surveys Post-structuralism: Comic Text as Theory, and Part Four is Postmodern Aesthetics: The Comic as Postscript, with a chapter on Beckett and a long conclusion.
Chapter 3 is a crucial positioning of Freud's book on comedy in relation to postmodern theory. Flieger emphasizes the wish fulfillment or release character of joking, like the related activities of dreaming and writing. Joking outwits conscious censorship and provides “an outlet for inhibited unconscious desire” (p. 57).