James Thurber
By Rahul Patel/10

[pic]

Rahul Patel

Mr. Hurdle

Composition

11 May, 2012

James Thurber
Part I: “Authors of light pieces have, nobody knows why, a genius for getting into minor difficulties: they walk into the wrong apartments, they drink furniture polish for stomach bitters, they drive their cars into the prize tulip beds of haughty neighbors, they playfully slap gangsters, mistaking them for old school friends” (James Thurber). James Thurber was a cartoonist and an author. He was born on December 8th 1984 to his parents, Charles and Mary Thurber. Thurber’s father was a clerk and a minor politician, while his mother was a practical joker and very strong-minded. For example his mother would tell visiting guests that she was in love the post man and she had to be kept in the attic because of it. She would also tell people that she was a cripple and then she would suddenly stand up and tell everyone she had miraculously healed(James Thurber 1 of 5). James Thurber also had two brothers, William and Robert. When Thurber and William were little, they were playing with a bow and arrow, and William shot James in the eye. This led James to be partially blind and because of this injury he couldn’t participate in any sports or activities, but this injury developed a very creative imagination in Thurber’s mind. A neurologist at the time had a theory that he might have
Charles Bonnet Syndrome, which is a condition that causes hallucinations (James Thurber 1-2). Thurber began writing during secondary school. In 1909, Thurber got accepted to Ohio State University and in his junior year began writing for the campus newspaper. Thurber never graduated from college because he had to take the ROTC and he couldn't because of his poor eyesight (James Thurber 2 of 5). During the years 1918 to 1920, after he left college, the young author worked as a code clerk for the army at Washington D.C. during World War I. He would have joined the military to fight for the country but he could not, due to his poor vision (James Thurber 2 of 5). In 1921, Thurber started directing and writing for the Scarlet mask club of Ohio State University. Four years later Thurber went to France to write a novel which never got published, but he became a reporter for the Paris edition of the Chicago Times. The following year the young author ended up coming back to the United States to write a short parody but that also got rejected. Since this happened he took up a job to be a reporter for the Evening Post in New York. Also this year he got married to Althea Adams (Morsberger 13). In 1926, Thurber met E.B. White who is the famous author of The Charlotte's Web. With the help of White, Thurber began working for the staff of The New Yorker. In 1926, Thurber published his first cartoons and his daughter Rosemary was born. Two years later Thurber's first book, Is Sex Necessary, was published with the help of E.B. White (Morsberger13-14). In 1935, Thurber divorced Althea Adams and married Helen Wismer, and he also resigned from his job at The New Yorker. Four years later Thurber's father died (Morsberger 14). During the next seven years Thurber published many stories and cartoons, including his most famous work, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty. During 1941, Thurber had a series of operations for cataracts and trachoma. The following year he published My World and Welcome To and one of his earlier works The Mole Animal was filmed. Two years later he published Men, Women, and Dogs and Many Moons (Morsberger 14). In 1945, Thurber published The Thurber Carnival and The White Deer which also got a medal. He also drew several pictures this year. The following year he had an exhibition in Paris called American Cartoonists. The next year The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was made into a movie. In 1948, Thurber had The Beast in Me and Other Animals published (Morsberger 14). In 1949, Thurber received the Laughing Lions of Columbia University award for humor. The next year he got another award from Williams college. This was also the last year of his drawing career. Also the author was awarded the Honorary Doctor of Letters degree by Kenyon College, and he got his book, 13 Clocks, published (Morsberger 14-15). In 1952, he had "The Unicorn in the Garden" filmed. The next year he was awarded honorary Litt. D. by Yale University. During 1955 Thurber's mother died and he revisited France this same year. The following year Thurber stared on the Omnibus TV program. He also received another award from the American Cartoonists' society T-Square Award (Morsberger 15). In 1958, the author visited England and was one of the only Americans except Mark Twain to be "Called to the table" For Punch's Wednesday luncheon. The next year he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Press Cub in Ohio. Also this year, Thurber appeared on Small World. In 1961, He had a blood clot in the brain and underwent surgery. Then on November 4th 1961, James Thurber died from the blood clot (Morsberger 15).

Part II: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is fantastic tale of a man who is daydreaming and running errands for his wife. The story starts out as Walter Mitty being the commander of a war ship and trying to make it go faster by issuing orders by saying, "Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We're going through!" (Thurber 617). Then the story suddenly shifts over to the real life and his wife is yelling at him for speeding in the car (Thurber 617-618). He then arrives to the haircutters for his wife. As she is getting out she reminds him to get overshoes and gloves. Then she states that Mitty is not a child and shouldn't be reminded these things and then they get into a little argument, until a cop makes Walter leave (Thurber 618). Then the story shifts back over to Mitty being a doctor and performing on a millionaire banker named Wellington McMillan. In this dream he is a writer who wrote a book on streptothricosis. Then the machine that is giving the anesthesia is giving way. So then Walter Mitty pulls out the broken piston and gets a pen so that it can stay where the broken piston originally was. Then he continues with his surgery quickly because the pen is not supposed to hold for a very long time (Thurber 618-619). Then the story shifts back to Mitty backing up the car and then he messes up so the parking lot attendant does it for him. Afterward Walter goes to the shoe store to get the overshoes. After that was over he comes out the store and then he begins to wonder all the other item that his wife wanted him to get (Thurber 619). As he was thinking about what he forgot to get, Mitty starts daydreaming him being questioned about a gun. He tell the judge and the district attorney that it was his own gun (Thurber 619). He is being tried for shooting a man and then Mitty exclaims, "I could have killed Gregory Fizhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand" (Thurber 620). Then that daydream ends and Walter Mitty remembers that he had to get dog biscuits and goes to get the biscuits (Thurber 620). Then Mitty returns and then picks up a magazine and starts reading. Then he falls asleep and starts dreaming about him being in the air force. Mitty tells the sergeant to get a man to bed, and then he says, "With the others. I'll fly alone" (Thurber 620). As soon as he says that the sergeant tells him that he can't do that because it would take two people to fly the bomber. Mitty replied saying, "Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump" (Thurber 620). Then they drink a little and Mitty walks out to go fly the plane (Thurber 620). After that Mitty wakes up from his heroic dream to his wife yelling at him that she was looking all over the hotel for him. Then she asks him if got everything and he tells her that he did. As soon as he tells her that he got it she gets mad because he didn't use common sense to put on the overshoes when he got them. After she tells him that she will have to take his temperature when they get home. Finally as they were leaving Mitty's wife has to go back to get something. The story just ends abruptly, Mitty just waiting for his wife with a faint, fleeting smile (Thurber 620-621).

Part III: The Night The Bed Fell is a wonderful little short story written in first person and is a memoir. The story starts out with the narrator named James telling us, the reader that in the "High-water mark" of his youth was the night the bed fell on his father (Thurber 141). James starts from the beginning from how this all happened, when his father had decided to sleep in the attic one night. He wanted to do this because he thought that it would be a good place to sleep, but his mother thought that this was a terrible idea because the wooden bed up there had a wobbly and heavy head board which was not very safe. His father anyway went up to the attic (Thurber 141). Then the narrator starts telling us about how his nervous, first cousin was visiting. His cousin thought that he had a good chance to stop breathing. So to over come this doubt, his cousin would set an alarm every hour during the night until the morning. This was a problem for James though because his cousin was sleeping with him. So to overcome this continuous nuisance at night, James told his cousin, Briggs, that he was a very light sleeper and would be able to notice if Briggs stopped breathing. Naturally the first night Briggs tested the narrator by purposefully holding his breath. After a while Briggs started to believe him, but just to make sure he put a glass of spirits of camphor on his head table (Thurber 141-142). After talking about his cousin, James starts to tell us about his "Old Aunt Melissa Beall suffered premonition that she was destined to die on South High Street, because she had been born on South High Street and married on South High Street" (Thurber 142). Then there was Aunt Sarah Shoaf, who would go to sleep at night because she thought that a burglar would come in and blow chloroform into her bedroom while she slept. Her solution to this problem was to pile all of her valuables in a neat stack outside her room with a note saying, "This is all I have. Please take it and do not use your chloroform, as this is all I have" (Thurber 142). She claimed that she would scare a burglar every night by this method (Thurber 142). After explaining the problems of these three people, the narrator apologizes for straying of the topic of his father. He then says that they were all asleep by midnight. (Thurber 142) His bed was an army cot and at two o'clock he flipped over and the bed was on top of him. James did not wake up by this, but the racket caused by this woke up his mom to wake up and she exclaimed, "Let's go to your poor father" (Thurber 144) Then the rest of the family started yelling to go and help their father. After that Briggs drinks his glass of spirits of camphor instead of sniffing it to make sure he doesn't die, and James starts yelling for someone to get him out under his cot because he was suffocating. From drinking the glass, Briggs starts gasping, "Gugh" (Thurber 144-145). Meanwhile James's mother and his brother, Herman, are trying to get the attic door open because they think all this noise is coming from the attic. Then finally after gasping from drinking the glass and getting out under the bed, James and his cousin quickly run upstairs to help the father. Once they reach there the dog, who hates Briggs, assumes Briggs as the culprit and starts attacking him (Thurber 146). Finally Roy, one of James's brothers, opens the door and their father comes out asking, "What in the name of God is going on here" (Thurber 146)? Then the narrator and his family put the pieces together that James's mother heard him and Briggs, but she had assumed that it was there father making all the noise (Thurber 147).

Part IV: Anthony Kaufman said that the "Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is one of the best short stories by an American author. He then goes on with his essay with saying that, "Walter Mitty as a character has penetrated the popular imagination we speak of a person inclined to daydreaming" (Kaufman 386). After stating that Kaufman says that Mitty represents the American man who lives in a comfortable suburban environment, but he is very bored by his middle class lifestyle. He also states that Walter Mitty's life offers a little chance to the way of opportunities of romance and heroism. Kaufman then says that the story is set within his context of life and his career. He believes that story could be thought differently because of Thurber's comical imagination. Kaufman also believes that the story was charming and the critics did not do justice to what lies below the surface of the laughter. He then goes on saying that Mitty's real world keeps on becoming more and more distant to him. He believes that Walter Mitty "is a changing character" (Kaufman 386). By this quote he means that Mitty is coming to the reality of the real world, and that these daydreams aren't just escapes from dull reality but are a way of Mitty's, "Anger, desperation, and willingness to escape permanently into the more satisfying dream world of his imagination" ( Kaufman 386). These daydreams were also a commonplace to Walter Mitty. Kaufman then says in his essay that in these dreams there is an element of revenge in these dreams. Anthony continues saying that Thurber always has fun with the conventional situations and dialogue of popular fiction, and Thurber's creative imagination of the comedy is directed to Mitty. Kaufman then says that the daydreams may be revealing or heroic, but much of the delight comes from our perception from how superficial they really are. Kaufman also believes that Mitty's fantasies are "Cardboard, predictable, and synthetic" (Kaufman 386). Then the secondary source says that Mitty represents a social condition of the "real world," and Mitty could choose an ordinary point in life and make it extremely better. Then he says that Mitty doesn't like his wife at all. Kaufman believes that the final lives of the story are also ironic because one would think that by his dreams he conquers the unsatisfactory world. He then says that Mitty has a secret inner life which is a defensive but aggressive tactic at the same time while it also suggests Mitty's universality, but increasing awareness of the truth. (Kaufman 386-390). Kaufman then concludes with saying that Mitty was not the simple little man who was a representative of our desire to dream of glory in reaction to the dull world, but he was more like his "Disgust with the banality of his everyday life was unbearable"
(Kaufman 390). Another writer named Trudy Ring also had short essay about James Thurber. She started out saying that Thurber is recognized as one of America’s leading humorists. Then she goes on saying that his stories are engaging, which often lead to chuckles of wry reminisce. Then she goes on saying that, when Thurber wrote The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, “He had touched upon one of the major themes in American literature-the conflict between individual and society. Mitty’s forerunners are readily observable in native folklore and fiction” (Ring 9). She believes that Mitty is kind of like a descendent of Tom Sawyer of Rip Van Winkle. Then she goes on with the essay comparing the two different characters and Walter Mitty (Ring 9). Norris Yates is another person who wrote an essay about James Thurber. He starts out his essay by saying that Thurber’s short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is very rarely subjected toward scrutiny. Yates then continues on with the essay addressing the different conflicts: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Society, Man vs. Self, Man vs. Nature, and Man vs. God. He starts of by saying that the man vs. man conflict is shown by Mitty’s encounters with the walk on characters who remind him of his alienation from the real world. Yates then addresses the man vs. society conflict which appears in Mitty’s dreams about him getting accused for shooting someone and the dream with him being in the air force. The man vs. self conflict was kind of told throughout the story about his dreams. The man vs. nature conflict is exemplified by Mitty trying to go faster in the ship because of the hurricane. Finally Yates tells the reader that the man vs. God conflict was not exactly addressed (Norris Yates).

Part V: James Thurber in my opinion was a very excellent writer who face many hardships, such as his eye. I also believe that Thurber has a very sense of humor which is portrayed in many of his short stories and his drawings.

Works Cited
"James Thurber Quotes." James Thurber Quotes (Author of My Life and Hard Times). Web. 15 May 2012. http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/16839.James_Thurber "James Thurber." Www.kirjasto.sci.fi. Web. 02 May 2012. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/thurber.htm
Morsberger, Robert Eustis. James Thurber,. New York: Twayne, 1964. Print.
Norris, Yates. "James Thurber's Little Man and Liberal Citizen." A Collection of Critical Essays. Prentice Hall, 1974. 1-16. Print.
"Ohio Reading Road Trip | James Thurber Criticism and Reviews." Ohio Reading RoadTrip | James Thurber Criticism and Reviews. Web. 16 May 2012. http://www.orrt.org/thurber/criticism.html
Ring, Trudy. Short Stories for Students. Gale Research, 1997. 6-8. Print.
Schwiebert, John E. Reading and Writing from Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Print.
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty | Themes." BookRags. BookRags. Web. 15 May 2012.http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-waltermitty/themes.html
Thurber, James. Writings and Drawings. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1996. Print.
"World Biography." James Thurber Biography. Web. 04 May 2012.
"World Biography." James Thurber Biography. Web. 04 May 2012. http://www.notablebiographies.com/Sr-Tr/Thurber-James.html