SOURCE: "The Comic Anti-Hero in American Fiction: Its First Full Articulation," in Thalia, Vol. 2, No. 3, Winter, 1979–80, pp. 11-14.

[In this essay, Gehring identifies Thurber's work for the New Yorker in the 1920s as one of the first instances of a new twentieth-century literary figure, the comic antihero.]

The comic anti-hero, who tries to create order in a world where order is impossible, is the dominant type in American humor today. Terms associated with anti-hero frustrations have entered our vocabulary, from Joseph Heller's "catch-22," from the book by the same name, to Kurt Vonnegut's "and so it goes," from Slaughterhouse-Five.

America's favorite cinema clown—Woody Allen—is based on the anti-hero mold, just as America's favorite cartoon character is—Charlie Brown. In today's American literature, the important comedy artists also draw equally from this mold, from Philip Roth and John Barth to the aforementioned Vonnegut and Heller. In fact, a Nobel Prize in literature has recently been given to one of the most distinguished creators of anti-heroes, Saul Bellow.

Credit for the full blossoming of the anti-hero in American humor is usually given to the early New Yorker magazine (1925–30s): "The magazine which was more responsible than any other medium for the rise of a new type of humor …" More specifically, this meant four writers—Clarence Day, Robert Benchley, James Thurber, and S. D. Perelman, Walter Blair has noted:

… though they did not entirely break with the past—no humorist is likely to do this—they wrote humor based upon assumptions quite different from those of older humorists and employed techniques contrasting with older techniques.

The real significance of the New Yorker was that it allowed the American comic-anti-hero to come to center stage. Though he was not new to American humor, few comedy figures ever are, he had generally played a secondary role (when he appeared at all) to the more capable figures of the 19th-century American humor, such as the practical New England Yankee or the crafty frontiersman of the southwest (both capable crackerbarrel figures). A sustained articulation of the contrast between the two types of heroes is to be found in The Biglow Papers of James Russell Lowell. These letters juxtapose Yankee Hosea Biglow against anti-heroic Birdofredum Sawin. The complete stupidity of Birdofredum underlines the capabilities of the Yankee Hosea Biglow.

It should also be noted that even the capable 19th century figure—the crackerbarrel type—could sometimes display anti-heroic characteristics. Norris Yates has labeled such case examples of the "wise fool":

… the humorous writers frequently made the country-store philosopher expound unwelcome truths behind a protective mask of character deficiency or of linguistic, logical or factual error … Thus Huck Finn notices that the hogs have the run of a certain country church, and he says, "Most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different."

Secondary characters like Birdofredum Sawin or "wise fools," such as Huck Finn, mark 19th century predecessors for the 20th century anti-hero. However, these anti-hero ancestors existed in a comedy world still considered to be rational. Thus, the dominant comedy type continued to be the capable, reasoning crackerbarrel philosopher. Yates implied just that when he noted that "… one important difference between them [the crackerbarrel philosophers] and the Little Man [the comic anti-hero] is that the latter is not certain of his identity."

As American comedy tastes began to find an increased affinity with the anti-hero, early in the 20th century, the antihero as well as anti-heroic traits became more visible in our comedy culture, from the cartoon strips of George Herriman ("Krazy Kat") and George McManus ("Bringing Up Father") to vaudeville comics like Joe Cook and Ed Wynn. Yet it still remained for the aforementioned New Yorker writers to create the first full articulation of the anti-hero.

A close analysis of this New Yorker work reveals five distinctive characteristics of the comic anti-hero. Each characteristic also constitutes a break with what was then still the dominant character type in American humor—the capable figure. Particular attention will be paid to the work of Benchley and Thurber, because it best exemplified the antihero and because they were most productive during this period.

First, the comic anti-hero of these New Yorker writers generally tends to have time on his hands. The use made of this leisure time is probably most often associated with Thurber (thanks to his "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty") and his protagonist's fantasy daydreams of bravery and high adventure. It is the free time fate of this figure to be a "hero" only in dreams:

… Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. "It's forty kilometers through hell, sir," said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. "After all," he said softly, "what isn't?" The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rattat-tatting of machine guns …

Something struck his shoulder. "I've been looking all over this hotel for you," said Mrs. Mitty. "Why do you have to hide in this old chair?"

Secondly, the New Yorker anti-hero virtually never seems to have the opportunity or the inclination to foster an interest in politics. His is a non-political but frustrating domestic life, occasionally punctured by an equally frustrating sortie to the store, or a small social gathering. These minor domestic chores must take first priority for him to maintain some hold on reality. This hold, which is slipshod at best, is put at a precarious imbalance by world events and political figures. Thus, when a comic anti-hero makes one of his very rare excursions into the political arena, reality begins to swirl down the drain:

Mussolini seemed to be a good man to interview; so I got an interview with him. "Mr. Mussolini," I said, "as I understand your theory of government, while it is not without its Greek foundations, it dates even farther back, in its essence to the Assyrian system."

"What?" asked Mussolini.

"I said, as I understand your theory of government, while it is not without its Greek foundations, it dates even farther back to the ancient Assyrian system. Am I right?"

"Assyrian here seen Kelly? K-E-double-L-Y. That was a good song, too," said Il Duce.

"A good song is right," I replied. "And now might I ask, how did you come by that beard?"

"That is not a beard," replied the Great Man.

"That is my forehead I am smooth shaven, as a matter of fact."

"So you are, so you are," I apologized. "I was forgetting."

We both sat silent for a while, thinking of the old days in Syracuse High.

The third characteristic of the New Yorker comic anti-hero is constant frustration. Any attempt to lead a rational life is destined to fail; it is an irrational world for him, and any attempt to bring order to it results in total frustration. The frustrations themselves, however, can be lumped into two main danger areas.

Women represent the first category of these potentially severe frustration spots for the man. The secret to this female power can be found in Thurber's "Destructive Forces in Life." Near the beginning of the story he pens a drawing of an unhappy man and smiling wife, entitling it "A Mentally Disciplined Husband with Mentally Undisciplined Wife." This domestic mugshot leads to the sad story of one more frustrated male. But the key at this point is the conclusion of the tale: "… the undisciplined mind [that of the woman] runs far less chance of having its purposes thwarted, its plans distorted, its whole scheme and system wrenched out of line. The undisciplined mind, in short, is far better adapted to the confused world in which we live today than the streamlined mind [the disciplined mind—that of the man]. This is, I am afraid, no place for the streamlined mind."

To have an "undisciplined mind" merely means that one can cope with life, make decisions, and proceed with living. This often invites eccentricity in the anti-hero woman. In a sense, this is an offensive maneuver—what better way is there to deal with an irrational world than by being irrational? Probably Thurber's best example of such a woman is his grandma:

who … lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. It leaked … out of empty sockets if the wall switch had been left on. She would go around screwing in bulbs, and if they lighted up she would hastily and fearfully turn off the wall switch … happy in the satisfaction that she had stopped not only a costly but a dangerous leak.

But the point remains that, as eccentric as Grandma Thurber may be, she makes decisions and does things—and then gets on with living. Meanwhile, the male attempts to make sense of it all (both women and the world) and goes near crazy in the process of trying. Moreover, he cannot proceed without understanding and since there is no understanding….

Machinery represents the other category of these potentially severe frustration spots for the comic anti-hero—something Thurber captures quite nicely in a story whose title says it all: "The Car We Had to Push." Yet, for the best capsule definition of the dangers of mechanization, one must turn to Perelman's attempt to put together a mothproof closet known as the Jiffy-Cloz—"The shortest, cheapest method of inducing a nervous breakdown ever perfected."

It should be kept in mind, moreover, that the frustrations of the anti-hero, be they precipitated by females, machines, or other irritants, are often seen in physical terms. As has been the case with earlier American schools of comedy, what is generally funny about the New Yorker anti-hero's predicament are descriptions of physical frustration, frequently displayed through physical discomfort. A glance at some typically anti-heroic titles underlines this: "The Dog that Bit People," "The Night the Bed Fell," "The Calf in the Closet," and "How to Break 90 in Croquet." Moreover, this visual sense is accented by the celebrated drawings of Thurber, the delightful caricatures by Gluyas Williams that grace the Benchley stories, and the cartoons of Day.

The fourth characteristic of the New Yorker's anti-hero is the fact that he is portrayed as a childlike figure. This is most effectively shown in the eight stories comprising "Part One: Mr. and Mrs. Monroe" of Thurber's The Owl in the Attic—especially in "Mr. Monroe and the Moving Men." In this story, once the wife leaves, the husband is helpless. This helplessness occurs despite the fact that before she left" … little Mrs. Monroe had led her husband from room to room, pointing out what was to go into storage and what was to be sent to the summer place …" But now, "little Mrs. Monroe was away, unavoidably away, terrifyingly away," and he cannot remember where things should go and what she had said. And he certainly has no ready answers for the moving men's questions. The names they use to address him progressively indicate a loss of respect for him, and range from "chief" and "mister," to "buddy" and "pardner," to the child nickname of "sonny." By the end of the story, he is reduced to tears.

The fifth and final characteristic is that the anti-hero is an urban dwelling animal. In fact, the New Yorker was founded literally on an attack against the old value system—as a "magazine which is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque … a magazine avowedly published for a metropolitan audience …" Thus, the New Yorker focuses on the city. Yet, what is written about metropolitan living hardly constitutes a love letter.

The trials of city living are nicely sketched by Benchley. He has a poor sense of direction and the complex modern city only compounds this—in "Spying on the Vehicular Tunnel," he becomes lost on a walking tour of the Holland Tunnel. When he attempts to leave the driving to someone else (especially on formal dress occasions) by taking a taxicab, he invariably enters a musty vehicle that more closely resembles "… the old sleigh which used to stand up in the attic at Grandpa's barn in Mullbury" than an automobile. Moreover, there are so many people squeezed into the city that he must stand in long lines for everything. For Benchley, this is best exemplified by the post office—"It has been estimated that six-tenths of the population of the United States spend their entire lives standing in line in a post office."

Ironically, despite the fact that the New Yorker anti-hero is based in the city, he is a loner, either playing by himself or hiding. The city is full of eccentric people and he wants to avoid them. Yet, despite the fact that he avoids them, and possibly because he avoids them, his behavior also takes on something of an eccentric nature. For Benchley's hero this eccentricity might be diagnosed as seeing little animals, while Thurber's has a tendency to hide in boxes or let his mind wander a bit too far. Despite the fact that these visions become plausible when explained as merely momentary harmless regressions to childhood or as typical fleeting daydreams, they are dangerous if too much time is spent in these nether conditions, for they might lead the hero to be institutionalized. Thus, like Thurber's "A Unicorn in the Garden" (where a wife tries to get her husband committed for seeing this mythical animal, but is committed herself), the anti-hero must be careful to whom he relates these phobias.

These, then, are the five main characteristics of the New Yorker comic anti-hero. Though each one was not necessarily new to American humor, as a group they represented a distinct break with the more traditional (and capable) figure of American humor, such as the Yankee crackerbarrel philosopher. There is no easy explanation as to why the transition, from capable hero to incompetent, has taken place. Yet, if a consensus were necessary, it would no doubt focus on Wylie Sypher's statement: "The comic now is more relevant, or at least more accessible, than the tragic."

In a world that seems every day more irrational, the antihero is fated to be forever frustrated. He is frustrated because he tries to create order (as his 19th century comedy counterparts did) in a world where order is impossible. But the scope of today's crises goes beyond the common-sense platitudes of any updated crackerbarrel philosopher. The anti-hero is "… incapable of inventing homespun maxims about hundred-megaton bombs, or of feeling any native self-confidence in the face of uncontrollable fallout." He eventually deals with this frightening outside world by not dealing with it at all. Instead, he focuses: "microscopically upon the individual unit … that interior reality—or hysteria … In consequence, modern humor deals significantly with frustrating trivia." Thus, the non-political, domestically frustrated anti-hero comes to represent that old cartoon of the ostrich with his head in the sand. Initially the audience laughs at him (instead of with him, as was the case with the capable hero) both with a feeling of superiority and with surprise (that anyone could be so incompetent)—embracing two classic comedy axioms. Yet, at heart, it is an audience that is only too aware of the closeness, even parallels, existing between the anti-hero's frustrations and their own lives—frustrations that are often mere microcosms of greater fears.

Anti-heroes help us cope (through laughter) with this absurd modern world, where our only good defense seems to be a humor founded in absurdity.