Essat the Catbird Seat

Alejandra Flores
Erica Lara
ELSI 1301-01
June 26, 2013
Major Essay #2
The Catbird Seat
Thurber’s “The Catbird Seat " is a story about a man named Mr. Martin who is an loyal employee of the company F&S, that seeing the horrors of reductions in employees, decides to take drastic measures against Mrs. Barrows, the new special supervisor, who is the one responsible for the layoffs. Mrs. Barrows is a loud and annoying lady who constantly humiliates the employees and she is also putting F&S at a very bad reputation and Mr. Martin is a hardworking, ethical and intelligent man who will not going to permit her destroy the company. Mr. Martin has been working for F&S Company for 22 years and also he was the right-hand man of Mr. Fitweiler, who was the president of the company, and Mrs. Barrows was only working for 2 years and she suddenly became the new special supervisor of the company. Although what Mrs. Barrows was doing was wrong, Mr. Martin’s actions were even worse because not only try to kill her but in the end he destroyed her career and her life. After a close reading of this story, it is evident that Mr. Martin’s actions, from the begging to the end, are not morally justified.
Mr. Martin’s behavior is seen early in the story when he takes it upon himself to permanently get rid of Mrs. Barrows after only knowing her for a couple of years. Mr. Martin decides that it is his obligation to “rub out” (Thurber 156) her because she was nothing but an error. For a week Mr. Martin planned the perfect way to get her out of the way call without raising suspicion. Apart from being a man with cold blood, Mr. Martin was a man who thought that a woman should not have a better job than a man. Mr. Martin was a man who always follows the routine and he was probably raised to believe that a woman was inferior to men. When Mr. Martin realized that a woman without his experience and talent was his new superior he thought the only way that a woman could have the supervisor position was in fact that Mrs. Barrows probably got the job with some unprofessional ways instead of knowing is she has the capability of being in that position. Since the beginning he did not take the chance to get to know her and prove that whether or not she deserved the position as the new special supervisor. He always judged her so harshly and never tried to change the way he thought about her.
The unjustified attitude that Mr. Martin shows began when Mrs. Barrows fired three loyal employees and made one to quit. Mr. Martin’s attitude just gets worst when he tried to convince the President Fitweiler that Mrs. Barrows was being unfair and discovered that not only the president would do anything about it but supported it because the President trusted her completely. Mr. Martin realized that the President was so thankful with Mrs. Barrows that the President would probably let her do what she wants in the company, even if that means let her ruin the company and that was never what she meant. Mr. Martin never knew what happened between the President and Mrs. Borrows and why the President decides makes her the new special supervisor so the only Mr. Martin can do is suggesting the worst thing he can imagine. That is the moment when Mr. Martin said to himself, “I demand the dealt penalty for this horrible person” (Thurber 158) because for him there were nothing more important than the company and his job, and certainly he did not care about killing another human being. Noteworthy that Mr. Martin was also motivated by personal emotions toward her such as annoyance and displeasure. He was also let her bring out the worst in him like lies and criminal thoughts. Mr. Martin also thought that he was more apt to the position of special supervisor because of his experience at the company and that he knew the company betters that everyone’s.