Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/352

 comic pleasure lies in the comparison of two expenditures, both of which we must adjudged to the foreconscious. Wit and the comic can above all be differentiated in the psychic localization; wit is, so to speak, the contribution to the comic from the sphere of the unconscious.

Comic of Imitation

We need not blame ourselves for digressing from the subject, for the relation of wit to the comic is really the occasion which urged us to the examination of the comic. But it is time for us to return to the point under discussion, to the treatment of the means which serve to produce the comic. We have advanced the discussion of caricature and unmasking, because from both of them we can borrow several points of similarity for the analysis of the comic of imitation. Imitation is mostly replaced by caricature, which consists in the exaggeration of certain otherwise not striking traits, and also bears the character of degradation. Still this does not seem to exhaust the nature of imitation; it is incontestable that in itself it represents an extraordinarily rich source of comic pleasure, for we laugh particularly over faithful imitations. It is not easy to