The Catbird Seat | Historical Context

Humor in the Modern Period
Although Thurber has often been compared with the nineteenth-century humorist Mark Twain, this has more to do with their importance than with their subjects or styles. American humor in the nineteenth century and earlier featured rural or western heroes like Huck Finn, Davy Crockett, and Uncle Remus, slow-talking but clever country folk who made up in ‘‘horse sense’’ what they lacked in education. A staple of this kind of humor was the humiliation of the conniving ‘‘city slicker’’ who thought he could use his education and...

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