Mr. Martin quietly plots to "rub out" Mrs. Barrows. He realizes that, given the opportunity, Mrs. Barrows will eventually deprive him of gainful employment.

Mr. Martin visits Mrs. Barrows in order to carry out a strategic assault against his colleague's plans. Mr. Martin initially plots to kill Mrs. Barrows but soon hits upon a better idea. During the visit, we can see Mr. Martin's methodical and cunning nature at work. He accepts a scotch-and-soda from Mrs. Barrows and puffs nonchalantly on a cigarette. Mr. Martin also reinforces the image of himself as an unstable man by asserting that he smokes and drinks regularly. At the right moment, he also proclaims that he will be high on heroin as he kills off Mr. Fitweiler. Mr. Martin carefully sets the stage to manipulate Mrs. Barrows's perspective, and he succeeds.

Incensed by everything she's heard, Mrs. Barrows reports Mr. Martin's disturbing words to Mr. Fitweiler the next day. Mr. Fitweiler finds it difficult to believe his advisor's fantastic story about the usually stoic Mr. Martin. In the end, Mr. Fitweiler concludes that Mrs. Barrows has overworked herself and is suffering from a persecution complex of sorts.

So, ironically, it is Mrs. Barrows who is ousted rather than Mr. Barrows. While Mrs. Barrows's crude and coarse nature becomes her undoing, it is Mr. Martin's cunning and methodical nature that allows him to frame his actions to his advantage.

The two main characters of James Thurber's "The Catbird Seat" are nearly polar opposites, a difference that eventually plays an important part in the climactic ending of the story. Erwin Martin is small and quiet, a "drab, ordinary little man," while Ulgine Barrows is large and loud, with a commanding presence. Martin doesn't smoke or drink; he prefers milk. Mrs. Barrows smokes Luckies and drinks scotch-and-soda. Martin has few friends and has worked with the company for 22 years. Mrs. Barrows quickly made friends with the president of the firm, Mr. Fitweiler, and became his "special advisor"; she has forced many changes during her eighteen months on the job--change being something that Martin detests. Mrs. Barrows is a big sports fan--Martin is not--and she delights in repeating various sports terms made popular by the Brooklyn Dodgers announcer, Red Barber. Most importantly, Martin is a man who lives by an orderly lifestyle of routine--something that is so unchanging that it becomes the defining characteristic of the individual, and the trait that leads to Mrs. Barrows' undoing.

Mr. Martin genuinely believes that Mrs. Barrows is planning to reorganize the company's filing department where he works. It's a perfectly reasonable assumption. Since wheedling her way into Mr. Fitweiler's life she's cut a swathe through F & S, turning the whole company upside down and generally getting on everyone's nerves with her ridiculous, meaningless jargon. Mr. Martin is at a loose end. Thoughts turn to murder. Thankfully, though, he realizes that there's more than one way to skin a cat. So at Mrs. Barrows's apartment one night, Mr. Martin makes up an incredibly tall story, saying that he's going to get high on heroin and kill Mr. Fitweiler.

It's a completely ludicrous story, but Mrs. Barrows is much too stupid and gullible to realize this. She also sees what she thinks is an unguarded comment as a great opportunity to remove Mr. Martin from the company and consolidate her power. So she spills the beans to Mr. Fitweiler. He may be old, but he still has all his marbles. The very idea of Mr. Martin doing such a thing is too ridiculous for words; Mrs. Barrows must be mad, he thinks. So he fires her. Mr. Martin is now in the catbird seat, and he didn't need to spill so much as a drop of blood to get there.

The main differences between the two characters are that Mrs. Barrows is female and aggressive, while Mr. Martin is male and both passive and defensive. Related to the latter are that she is outspoken and straightforward, to the point of offensive. Mr. Martin is introverted and secretive, so much so that no one suspects him of being manipulative.

Because Mrs. Barrows looks before she leaps, she does not spend time assessing her situation, much less understanding other peoples' personalities or motivations. Mr. Martin, in contrast, sits back and assesses the situation. By taking the time and figuring out what makes others tick, Mr. Martin in the long run makes more careful decisions.

That he might have a devious side occurs neither to her or to his boss, so Martin successfully pulls off his coup.

The personalities of the two main characters of James Thurber's short story, "The Catbird Seat," could not be more different. Ulgine Barrows is loud and pushy, and she connives her way into the good graces of the F&S boss, Mr. Fitweiler. She "quacks" and "brays" in an irritating manner, at least to Erwin Martin. Martin is a typical Thurber man--meek, quiet, and withdrawn yet competent. The two characters begin the story in gender role reversals: Barrows is the domineering character, headstrong and confident in her new position in which she fires both men and women. She smokes, drinks scotch and soda and is a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Martin remains in the background, gossiping about the changes but maintaining a subservient stance. He is a non-smoker, drinks only milk or the occasional ginger ale, and he apparently is not a sports fan. In the end, the two reverse their roles: Martin, usually painstakingly precise, alters his plan at the last minute and becomes the loudmouth braggart who stuns the unsuspecting Barrows, pulling her into his quickly concocted yet thoroughly successful scheme.

Erwin Martin is head of the filing department at F & S, a firm located in Manhattan. This fact is of prime importance to the story because Ulgine Barrows, who has recently been hired as a special assistant to the owner, Mr. Fitweiler, apparently intends to reorganize Martin's department and probably create havoc. Martin realizes her intention when she visits his department and starts snoopiing around.

"Do you really need all these filing cabinets?" she had demanded suddenly. Mr. Martin's heart had jumped. "each of these files," he had said, keeping his voice even, "plays an indispensable part in the system of F & S."

His department is precious to him. It is his whole life. He has been with the firm for twenty-two years. It is because of Ulgine Barrows' threat to the filing department that Martin decides to murder her, then changes his mind and devises a different plan for getting rid of her.

According to the e-Notes Introduction to the story in the Study Guide (see reference link below), "The Catbird Seat" was first published in 1942. This was a time when the business world was almost entirely a man's world, but some women were moving into executive positions partly because of the labor shortage occasioned by America's entrance into World War II. Actually the American defense preparations had been draining men into the military and war industries since at least 1939 when the war began in Europe.

"The Catbird Seat" is significant because it illustrates the animosity that was beginning to be felt by male executives towards female competitors, who had previously been restricted to clerical and secretarial jobs in the business world. Miss Ulgine Barrows is a caricature of female executives of the period. She is intrusive, destructive, and incompetent. She doesn't understand how the system works. She tries too hard to be "one of the boys" by using slang expressions she has picked up from listening to a baseball announcer on the radio (television was not yet available to the Ameridan public).She may have been trying to cultivate an interest in baseball just because she had ambitions to upper echelons in the male-dominated world of big business.

"The catbird seat" is one of her expressions. Martin's assistant explained:

"Tearing up the pea patch" meant going on a rampage; "sitting in the catbird seat" meant sitting pretty, like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him.

One of Thurber's pet subjects in both his stories and his cartoons was what he called "The War Between Men and Women." Another story in which he presents an unflattering portrait of an overbearing woman is "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," which was also republished in his best anthology of stories, essays, memoirs, and cartoons, The Thurber Carnival.

A foil is a person who sets off or enhances another by contrast. Because Erwin Martin and Ulgine Barrows have such opposite personalities and conflicting work ethics for F & S, they make perfect foils for one another. It is easy for readers to see why a major conflict will have to happen between these two characters.

Mr. Martin is the head of the filing department. By the descriptions used in the text, we can tell that he is a quiet, steady, and reliable employee who does a good and thorough job. He has been with F & S for twenty-two years. He works with a “cautious, painstaking hand.” His boss and the president of the company, Mr. Fitweiler, once praised his accuracy by saying, “Man is fallible but Martin isn’t.” Fitweiler’s late partner, Sam Schlosser, once noted, “Our most efficient worker neither drinks nor smokes.” Mr. Martin’s favorite beverage is milk. He fits the stereotype of being an introvert.

In contrast, Ulgine Barrows is a loud and aggressive extrovert. She is new to F & S and has recently been brought in as a special advisor to Mr. Fitweiler. She has a “quacking voice and braying laugh.” She constantly asks annoying and baiting questions, like “Are you sitting in the catbird seat?” She seems to have been hired to make changes in the operation. In the nineteen months since her arrival, three people have been fired, and another one resigned, all because of her influence and recommendations. Now Ulgine Barrows has set her sights on the filing department and on Mr. Martin. When she begins by asking him if he needs “all these filing cabinets,” he knows that drastic measures must be taken to stop this woman. At first, he considers murder. Then he accidentally lands upon an even better strategy to discredit her. He uses his own meek and mild reputation – as well as her brash and outspoken one -- to his best advantage. And his plan works.

Erwin Martin is described as a "cautious, painstaking" man in the second paragraph of James Thurber's "The Catbird Seat." That is how everybody perceives him. He is well regarded by his employer Mr. Fitweiler, who once said "Man is fallible but Martin isn't." Towards the end of the story, Fitweiler tells Martin, "In that time [twenty-two years] your work and your--uh--manner have been exemplary." The whole point of the story is that Martin has built up such a reputation for being conservative, dependable, accurate, studious, dedicated, and quiet that Mr. Fitweiler cannot believe Ulgine Barrows when she bursts into his office and tells him how Martin behaved in her apartment the night before. Fitweiler thinks she must be crazy. He consults his psychiatrist Dr. Fitch, who, he tells Martin, "made enough generalizations to substantiate my suspicions." In Thurber's world everybody is a little crazy. Martin's boss is evidently being psychoanalyzed, and Ulgine Barrows seems crazy enough even before she explodes in Fitweiler's office and has to be forcibly removed by two men.

Mr. Martin has been with the same firm in Manhattan for twenty-two years, which shows that he is a man who values security, permanence, regularity, and organization, among other things. It is significant that he is the head of the filing department because this department requires accuracy and dependability. Martin is quiet, patient, intelligent, ultra-conservative, abstemious, mild-mannered, and inhibited. He does not show his thoughts or feelings. Ulgine Barrows annoys him because she is such a different type and because he is afraid she may be thinking of reorganizing his department after she gets through wrecking a few others. However, he does not betray his feelings. One of his assistants tells him, "Why, I even believe you like the woman." (This sounds like Montresor in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado.) His assistant's observation comes at a time when he is actually beginning to think about murdering Ulgine Barrows, and is intended to suggest that no one would ever suspect him of the crime. All of Martin's character traits work in his favor when he abandons his initial murder scheme and pretends to be a dissolute drinker, smoker, and  dope addict who is planning to kill their employer with a bomb.

Mr. Martin perceives Ulgine Barrows as a threat to his filing department and possibly a threat to his own job. He knows he has a reputation of being a very meek, conservative man with regular habits and no vices. He puts on a big act with Ulgine Barrows, knowing that she is going to report everything he says and does to their employer Mr. Fitweiler as soon as possible. When she tells their boss about Martin's behavior the night before, her report, as expected, sound so outlandish that Mr. Fitweiler thinks she has lost her mind and not only discharges her but has to have her taken away to an asylum when she becomes enraged and seems about to attack Martin, who naturally has denied everything.

This kind of psychological warfare between men and women is one of James Thurber's favorite humorous themes in his stories, essays and cartoons. Another good example in a short story is Thurber's "The Unicorn in the Garden." He was a contributor and staff writer for the New Yorker magazine almost from its inception, and he is generally regarded as one of America's best humorists.