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James Thurber's Little Man And The Battle Of The Sexes: The Humor Of Gender And Conflict, Andrew S. Jorgensen

Theses and Dissertations

James Thurber, along with others who wrote for The New Yorker magazine, developed the 'little man' comic figure. The little man as a central character was a shift from earlier nineteenth-century traditions in humor. This twentieth-century protagonist was a comic antihero whose function was to create sympathy rather than scorn and bring into question the values and behaviors of society rather than affirm them, as earlier comic figures did. The little man was urban, inept, frustrated, childlike, suspicious, and stubborn. His female counterpart was often a foil: confident and controlling enough to highlight his most pitiable and funniest features. Contradictory …