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Marvin Vasquez September 11, 2013

ENG 333 – 005

Dilemma between Jobs

The story The Catbird Seat is set exclusively in New York City and written by James

Thurber. Its central conflict centers on activities at F&S, an establishment some of the characters

hope to make better. They think the only way to do so would be by using Mr. Martin to take Mrs.

Barrows out of the picture. Largely because of the manner in which Mr. Martin hopes to get rid

Mrs. Barrows, this is a conflict that seems to be an eternal journey. In his conflicted way, he

hopes that he will murder Mrs. Barrows, but by the end of the story, this does not happen.

The protagonist of the story is Mr. Martin himself, who has to face the antagonistic

Ulgine Barrows, and Fitweiler. At F&S, Mr. Martin has been noted as a hard worker, a man who

is also intelligent and ethical. Though Mr. Martin scared Mrs. Barrows through some astonishing

statements that he made whilst alone with her, his plan of murdering her is never realized. It so

happens that her allegations about Mr. Martin are not believed by co-workers, and for this reason

she is kicked out of work. The events are twisted to the extent that co-workers take to believing

Mrs. Barrows is going insane. After all she had always been a loud and annoying person.

The fact that Mr. Fitweiler is the president of the firm takes the story to an all new twist,

using his powers to assign Mrs. Barrows the opportunity to be his special adviser. His motive is

not known to the other workers in his firm. It is not out of jealousy of her position that Mr.

Martin would rather kill Mrs. Barrows, but because in her personality, she has put F&S in a

position which has garnered it some bad reputation.

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A very strong stylistic devise in this story is irony, and Thurber has used it quite

effectively. There is humor in how Mr. Martin’s character changes, from a man known for his

ethics to one willing to kill a colleague. Mr. Fitweiler feels that Mr. Martin would not really be

caught in the act of murder, stating “man may be fallible, but Mr. Martin is not” (Thurber). The

story has employed the use of real life metaphors borrowed from the legendary baseball

broadcaster named Red Barber. Such phrases like “scrapping the bottom at the pickle barrel, and

sitting in the catbird’s seat” were Red Barber’s catch phrases.

This is a story that intensely carries the theme of psychological damage, and it has

weighed heavily on the characters than any physical damage would. Mr. Martin has become so

flawed as to feel that he had rather kill Mrs. Barrows, an act that would have consequently

drowned him in his own guilt. Even so, Mrs. Barrows appears to be insane, indicative of a

damaged psyche. The normal consequence is that Mrs. Barrow becomes humiliated before her

colleagues, and that her reputation is further popped holes into. Physical death has not been

achieved, as no murder was committed, but Mr. Martin was able to attain what he wanted when

Mrs. Barrow was gotten rid of.

All in all, general readers will find this story quite hard to disseminate and understand.

However, an understanding will reveal this story as humorous and one that many people can

identify with. Many people become jealous of others, and some go to the extremes of even

sabotaging others as Mr. Martin did to Mrs. Barrows.

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Work Cited

Thurber, James. "The Catbird Seat."JamesHilston.com. James Holston, n.d. Web. 10 Sep 2013.

<http://jameshilston.com/pages/reading/catbird_seat.htm>.