James Thurber and Humor - Essay Example

Thurber's letters cover the range of human emotions, he is outspoken as well as gentle - the letters give an unabashed look at Thurber's self. Thurber's letters, unfortunately, are repetitive at times and at times lack the emphasis on important aspects of Thurber's life(Gottlieb). Although Thurber has been compared to Mark Twain (Pritchard, William H. October 2003), his published letters for want of editing fail to sparkle appropriately. He was driven by the "satirist's itch", (Pritchard) which made his writing from exhibiting dry humor to being biting and bitter as he comes to the party to a host of health issues, including a brain tumor.

Laura Carroll has interpreted James Thurber's "My Life in Hard Times" using the vehicles of Freudian theory (Carroll, Laura, 101-103). Laura has presented the usage of humor to be analogous to Freud's theory of ego and psychic other self, the instances of offering humorous offerings to the reader are taken apart and dissected whereas other instances of gaiety are treated as looking on one part of the self to the other. The treatment critiques the structure of James Thurber's work and gives insight for researchers or critical readers.

Thurber successfully employs nostalgic reflection on his younger self, being bemused as if another entity is being watched, acting out the duo relationship between the Freudian ego and superego (Laura). Another aspect of humor is presented as a contrast to Thurber's by Rebecca Mead (Mead, Rebecca, Jan 2005). She traces the development of an online magazine "collegehumor.com" exploring the lives of four friends who moved to New York City and started this venture. This magazine was started in 1999 and is focused on being a repository of jokes, emails, and photographs that college graduates liked to share.

This magazine became the focal point of college life, added on with and bits and pieces of multimedia dormitory content, rowdy images (like girls kissing or without their tops) and basically anything of what college kids think would Thurber 3 be funny. Student's attraction to "loud" humor has been prevalent since the middle ages and this was exploited in this site famously.