James Grover Thurber was born on December 8, 1894, in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Charles Leander and Mary Agnes Thurber. He grew up in Columbus, where at the age of 6 his older brother put out his left eye while playing William Tell. Despite this handicap, he attended his hometown Ohio State University from 1913 to 1918. Due to his vision problems, however, he failed gym and biology, leaving the university in 1919 without taking a degree.
Thurber married Althea Adams on May 20, 1922, and they endured a stormy relationship until their divorce on May 24, 1935. One month later, on June 25, 1935, he married Helen Marie Wisner; they remained married until his death in 1961.
A long series of illnesses that placed him under great emotional pressure struck Thurber beginning in the 1940's. Following a stroke in October, 1961, Thurber developed pneumonia. He died on November 2 and was buried in his hometown of Columbus.
James Thurber's career began when he joined the staff of The New Yorker, where most of his work originally appeared, in 1927. He also began his cartooning while at The New Yorker when in 1931 E.B. White convinced his editor to publish some of Thurber's simple line drawings. By 1952, unfortunately, his vision had deteriorated to the point that he was forced to give up drawing entirely. Despite his physical and emotional difficulties, his writing continued to appear in The New Yorker up until his death. His work, consisting mostly of short stories, fables, and cartoons, has now been collected into over 30 volumes.
James Thurber published two collections of fables during his lifetime, Fables for Our Time (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956). Fantasy was his forte, and these remain among his most brilliant creations. Their morals show his ability to give age-old wisdom a new and humorous twist. This does not mean to say that all of the fables are upbeat, however; "mordant irony underlies much of his work, exemplified by the sardonic mottoes that conclude his fables..." Robert E. Morsberger asserts in James Thurber that the drawings Thurber produced to accompany the Fables represent the height of his skill; John Updike insists that "Thurber's genius was to make of our despair a humorous fable." Thurber did not always rely on humor, however; his failed first marriage and his declining health served to steadily darken his outlook on life as he grew older. The sharp contrast between Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time demonstrates how the romantic optimism of James Thurber's youth became gloomy pessimism in his later years.
First, the differences between Thurber's treatment of marriage in Fables and in Further Fables demonstrates the contrast between the two novels. As put forth by The Encyclopaedia Britannica, "his Fables for Our Time are deceptively simple and charming in style, yet unflinchingly clearsighted in their appraisal of human foibles." This is especially true of his viewpoint on marriage; perhaps due to his failed first attempt at matrimony, his fables depict wedlock as a series of power struggles between husbands and wives. However, in these early pieces, this conflict is lightened by touches of irony and idealistic optimism. An excellent example is the fable entitled "The Shrike and the Chipmunk." A female chipmunk leaves her husband and declares that he will never survive on his own; on the contrary, he carries along nicely until she returns and gets them both killed during a morning walk she insists on taking. The deeper meaning hinted at by this story-that marriage is not a good thing-is lightened by the humor in its moral, "Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead." Another fable, "The Crow and the Oriole," demonstrates a similar viewpoint. A male crow leaves his wife in order to court a Baltimore Oriole he has fallen in love with; she rejects him because of the fact that he is a crow. When he returns home, he discovers that his wife has run away with another crow and left a note telling him where to find the arsenic. While this is not a particularly cheerful tale, it does show Thurber's belief in the integrity of marriage and the necessity of keeping them intact. The moral, "Even the llama should stick to mamma," is similarly lighthearted in its insistence on faithfulness.
In contrast, Thurber displays a different outlook in his second collection of fables. The parable "Tea for One" describes the difficulties encountered by a young husband with his brideŃshe insists on getting up at five o'clock, baking a sugar cake, having him take it to the office, and having two children, all based upon the lyrics to her favorite song. The exasperated young bridegroom slips out the window to find a diner where he can get "a meal a man could eat." "If life went along like a popular song," says the moral, "every man's marriage would surely go wrong." This is not a pretty picture-the story seems almost incomplete, but one realizes that Thurber uses this to show that there is nothing else in their marriage. In short, it would be impossible for them to carry on as they are. Thurber presents another portrayal of a difficult marital relationship in "The Bragdowdy and the Busybody." A nosy female rabbit insists on "listening to the thumpings of her neighbors;" she eventually convinces another female to join her in her nosiness. The two rabbits' husbands become so fed up with their wives' harassment that they flee to Tahiti, never to return. Thurber warns that "Thou shalt not convert thy neighbor's wife, nor yet louse up thy neighbor's life," giving us one more example of a marriage gone hopelessly wrong. He points out further difficulties in love when he cautions "Laugh and the world laughs with you, love and you love alone," and "Love is blind, but desire just doesn't give a good goddam." All of these simple statements convey a deep sorrow and bitterness that was never a part of the original Fables. Therefore, the two varying opinions of marriage presented by Thurber in Fables and Further Fables reflect the distinctions between the two books.
Second, Thurber's views on politics as presented in these two books determines the contrast between Fables and Further Fables. Most of the themes are universally practical, but many of them have direct political significance. An excellent example is "The Rabbits Who Caused All the Trouble." A group of wolves blame a nearby rabbit colony for catastrophes such as a flood and an earthquake; their logic is hopelessly confused, but they convince the other animals to not interfere when they imprison and then eat the rabbits. One of Thurber's most developed fables, it has many implications and can be seen as an allegory protesting against the "Big Lie" among countries as well as a parody of paternalistic invasions. It does not, however, warn against doom and destruction; it merely suggests that one should "Run, don't walk, to the nearest desert island," making ample use of Thurber's talent for irony. "The Very Proper Gander" displays many of the same characteristics as "The Rabbits." It tells of a beautiful gander who receives the compliment of being "a very proper gander;" a neighbor overhears this as something about "propaganda." In the mob scene that ensues, the residents of the farm drive the gander and his family from the area. Wit and irony pervade the moral Thurber supplies: "Anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country." Thurber does not actually endorse such conduct; he merely points out its absurdity.
In comparison, darker meanings linger just beneath the surface of Further Fables for Our Time. Ten of the forty-seven pieces in Further Fables consist of lightly veiled essays supporting free speech. In fact, political pressure caused The New Yorker to refuse to publish of some of these fables despite the fact that they had just won the American Library Association's Liberty and Justice Award for 1956. The pessimism shown by these parables resulted from Thurber's revulsion towards the ongoing Red Scare of the 1950's; he composed the bulk of his political satire following the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In one example, Thurber's "The Peacelike Mongoose" details the persecutions facing a mongoose who decides that he does not wish to spend his life killing cobras. His neighbors and family treat this as deeply subversive and banish him from the colony. Its moral, "Ashes to ashes and clay to clay, if the enemy doesn't get you your own folks may," displays none of the humor and wit of the Fables. Thurber replaces them with some of his most direct attacks on hearsay and slander. He again proves his disapproval of blind hatred towards the enemy in "The Crow and the Scarecrow." Because a farmer devotes his days to destroying the crows stealing his corn, a bizarre set of circumstances leads to his death. Thurber's moral, "All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first," evidences his belief in the futility and danger of such uncontrolled hatred. Other fables contain such wisdom as "Thou shalt not blindfold justice by pulling the wool over her eyes" and "It is better to have the ring of freedom in your eye than in your nose." Hence, the differences between Thurber's treatment of politics in the Fables for Our Time and in the Further Fables for Our Time establishes the contrast between his message in the two books.
Third, the tones of "The Green Isle in the Sea" and its counterpart, "The Human Being and the Dinosaur," confirm the contrast between the Fables and the Further Fables. "The Green Isle and the Sea" recounts the day of a hapless man who survives numerous potentially deadly pitfalls only to discover that the trees and fountain that made up a city park, his "green isle," have all died. As such, the bombers that appear overhead gain an excellent view of the poor fellow. Not a single positive event brightens the old man's day; however, Thurber uses the character of the man himself, the sunlight of the bright morning, and the once-proud forest grove to point out the positive aspects of life. He warns that life is not a paradise; in fact, it is ugly enough to make one wonder whether it is worth living. Thurber does not intend to show despair, only to demonstrate that man's life has an unpleasant side.
This changes when Thurber highlights a different aspect of humanity in "The Human Being and the Dinosaur." The first human and one of last dinosaurs stand toe to toe; in an arrogant and disapproving speech, the human declares his superiority over the dinosaur, who merely listens mournfully. "The missing link is not lost," replies the dinosaur. "It's hiding." The moral, "The noblest study of mankind is Man, says Man," is tempered by the sage dinosaur's observation that "There are worse things than being extinct, and one of them is being you." This fable shows Thurber's skepticism about the human race; it remains a sad summary of his outlook in his last decade. Thus, the differences between "The Green Isle" and "The Human Being" point out the changes in Thurber's viewpoint between the writings of Fables and Further Fables.
Fourth, the outlooks presented by "The Unicorn in the Garden" and "The Shore and the Sea" establish the differences between James Thurber's Fables for Our Time and his Further Fables. "The Unicorn and the Garden" relates the romantic story of a man's morning encounter with a placidly grazing unicorn; he informs his wife of its presence, but she scoffs. "The unicorn is a mythical beast," she says. When he insists on its existence and then goes to take a nap, she decides to call the police and attempts to have him committed. This backfires when he disavows knowledge of the unicorn and the police lock her up instead. Although this represents one of only three victories by a man over a woman in Thurber's entire published work, it would still make an excellent introduction to his writings as a whole. The fable justifies fantasy and its beauty by proving in its outcome that only those who can use their imaginations can truly appreciate reality. The husband is one of many Thurber characters who occupy their time with daydreams, but Thurber supports their seemingly wasteful escapist tendencies with his morals. This fable ends as a Thurber guidebook on how to truly enjoy life, not as a portent of doom to come.
The later parable "The Shore and the Sea" offers an entirely different viewpoint. A single scholarly lemming watches curiously as every other member of his species plunges frantically into the sea, but he does not follow them. Instead, he tears up his life's work, a study of lemmings, and begins it again. The last lemming's lonely devotion mirrors the desperation felt by Thurber as he watched his health and world break down. It seemed to Thurber that his world was crumbling during the 1950's as McCarthyism and Communism took hold; this altered how he viewed his work and forced him to rethink his motivation. The fable's moral, "All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why," echoes his plea against what he saw as the increasing futility of life. Thurber did not mask the despair evident in this fable with an ironic moral; he leaves its meaning plainly visible. Therefore, the contrast between "The Unicorn" and "The Shore" reveals the thematic distinctions between the Fables and the Further Fables.
In conclusion, the many differences between Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time verify that James Thurber's writings became sadder and more fatalistic in tone as his career progressed. The exaggerated sketches about his youth in Ohio presented in My Life and Hard Times (1933) look back with tongue-in-cheek nostalgia, while his later essays, such as those in Lanterns and Lances (1961), deem the present genuinely inferior to the past. Charles Holmes sums this up when he says that "Thurber's later work is darker in tone, harsher in judgment, and more penetrating in moral wisdom that in the work of his early and middle years... He saw the postwar world as a time of intellectual and moral confusion." This confusion and uncertainty prompted Thurber to create his second volume of fables; they ended up as his most violent and stinging satires. Underneath the morals of them all, however, Thurber presents a warning to mankind: "Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear-end collision, and Man will never know that what hit Man from behind was Man." He feared what he saw as the decline of civilization and tried to prevent it through his writings, although this attempt made many of his later writings somber and negative. In summary, James Thurber's early works show a positive, hopeful outlook, while his later pieces demonstrate his concern for the state of humanity.
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