The Catbird Seat Short Story

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In crime scene investigation, there are countless crimes that people can commit against the victim. Murder, manslaughter, grand theft, robbery, and conspiracy are just to name a few. In Thurber’s short story “The Catbird Seat,” the suspect, Mr. Erwin Martin, can charged on counts of conspiracy, and threatening of another person. Mr. Martin had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit these crimes against Mrs. Ulgine Barrows. In the story, it is shown that Mr. Martin has the opportunity to commit this crime. For example, there is physical evidence at Barrows apartment showing that he was there. When at Barrows, she states “This is perfectly marvellous. You with a drink and a cigarette” (p.3). He is leaving DNA evidence on the glass he was …show more content…
Martin’s firm, Mrs. Ulgine Barrows was not well liked Not by members of the firm, or by Mr. Martin himself. This serves as the motive for Mr. Martin in these crimes. Multiple employees were fired by her, and with changes to each department, employees also resigned. He was most annoyed of the way she used the old Red Barber Dodger expressions such as “Are you lifting the oxcart out of the ditch? Are you tearing up the pea patch? Are you hollering down the rain barrel? Are you scraping around the bottom of the pickle barrel? Are you sitting in the catbird seat?" Each of these statements she makes is actually either her making fun of him, or threatening him. For example, “lifting the oxcart out of the ditch” means to fight or defend somebody that is not there; “tearing up the pea patch” means to go on a rampage; “hollering down the rain barrel” means no one is listening to you; “scraping around the bottom of the pickle barrel” means to go through significant extra effort to find something of little value; and “sitting in the catbird seat” means to be in a good situation. She told all of these phrases to him while looking around his office, implying that she was criticizing his work without him knowing it. He already has despised the phrases without knowing what they meant, he could not have been happy if he realized she was insulting him. All in all, he certainly had enough motive to pull of this string of crimes against Ulgine
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Essay On The Catbird Seat

The point of view in the story “The Catbird Seat” is third-person limited, meaning the story is told from an outsider who can see into the thoughts and actions of one character, in this instance, a man by the name of Mr. Martin. The evidence of this in the story, is that the reader can see into the thoughts of this one character, hearing his amusing scenarios such as when “the gavel rapped in [his] mind”(Thurber, 1) starting the imaginary court case in his head. Moreover, the readers see into his…

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