The plan succeeds swimmingly. All throughout the story Mr. Martin plots the "murder" of Mrs. Barrows in order to be rid of her and her irritating personality and intrusive manner. The reader is led down a primrose path of expectation of a horrible murder by use of a blunt object or sharp knife. But can this truly be the Mr. Martin of 22 years in the F & S firm? He smokes. He drinks. He plots. Yes, dear reader, he can even murder. Or can he? As he steps out of character it appears he loses his nerve, reverting to his true mild mannered self, blurting out secret plans as if drunk on one sip of whiskey. Poor Mr. Martin. He cannot go through with his plans, so he leaves as Mrs. Barrows orders him out promising to report him and his statements to Mr. Fitweiler. Mrs. Barrows faithfully reports the previous night's events to the incredulous boss. Every detail recounted by Mrs. Barrows is impeccably accurate, but so out of the character of Mr. Martin that they can be nothing but the ravings of a lunatic. She is dismissed and Mr. Martin is as free of her as if she were as dead as the same doornail Charles Dickens compared Marley to in "A Christmas Carol."Type your answer here...
Mr. Martin had a head for dates
Mr. Martin Mrs. Ulgine Barrows Mr. Fitweiler
The Catbird Seat is a short story written by James Thurber. While there are several things that happen in the course of the story, the main event is when Mr. Martin visits Miss Barrows apartment with the intent to kill her but instead decides to hatch a plan to get her fired .
In "The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber, Mr. Martin does not kill Mrs. Barrows. Instead, he devises a clever plan to eliminate her threat to his job by making it appear as though he is mentally unstable. His goal is to outsmart her rather than resort to violence. The story focuses on his cunning strategy rather than any physical harm.
The central theme in "The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber is the idea of revenge and justice. The story explores how the character Mr. Martin meticulously plans and executes his revenge on a colleague who he believes is disrupting his workplace. Through Mr. Martin's calculated actions, the story raises questions about morality and the lengths one may go to assert control in a situation.
"The Catbird Seat" takes place in an office setting in Nashville, Tennessee. The story centers around the main character, Mr. Martin, who works at the office of the firm F&S.
Mr. Martin was the head of the filing department. His position makes for a bit of irony when, after hatching his scheme to murder Mrs. Barrows, he worries that if someone sees him enter her apartment he would have to file away his plan in the inactive file. Had Mr. Martin been head of the mail room, he would probably have put his plan in the dead letter box.
In James Thurber's "The Catbird Seat," Erwin Martin's comedic plot to murder an opportunistic manager is a revenge story. Ulgine Barrows had insinuated herself into the company by using her charms on elderly boss, Mr. Fitweiler. Once in the door, she proceeded to wreak havoc, moving from department to department, firing numerous workers, and changing the way the work is done. When she starts making suggestions about Martin's department, he hatches a plan to get rid of her once and for all.
In "The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber, F stands for Mrs. Fitweiler and S stands for Mr. Martin. Mrs. Fitweiler is Martin's boss and represents the new efficiency expert threatening his job, while Mr. Martin is the protagonist who plans to get rid of her by acting suspiciously.
In "The Catbird Seat," the term "are you hollering down the rain barrel" is a Southern colloquial expression meaning that somebody is talking nonsense or exaggerating. It implies that the person's statements are not to be taken seriously or are meaningless. In the story, Mr. Martin uses this phrase to dismiss Mrs. Barrows' outlandish claims.
In the story "The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber, the antagonist is Mrs. Barrows, a new and disruptive employee at the F&S company who threatens Mr. Martin's comfortable routine and challenges his position within the company. She becomes a target of Mr. Martin's elaborately planned retaliation.
The surprise is that Mrs. Barrows is still alive at the end of the story when everyone in the story and reading it, except for Mrs. Barrows, wants to see her wearing a wooden kimono.Perhaps a better test question type answer would be that the meek mild Mr. Martin, having failed to carry out his intended murder, never the less prevails over the strong willed domineering Mrs. Barrows by deftly changing his plan. He does and says things so out of character and so outlandish that when Mrs. Barrows reports all to Mr. Fitweiler the next day, she is immediately fired and hauled bodily from the office for being insane. This use of brains against brawn, succeeds in Mr. Martin now being as free of Mrs. Barrows as if he had actually gone through with the planned murder.