Comparative Study Of Strong Wives And Weak Husbands In Marietta Holley's And James Thurber's Works

The thesis attempts to discuss the similarities and differences of Marietta Holley's and James Thurber's humor in portraying powerful wives and weak husbands.Marietta Holley(1836-1926) is one of the immensely famous female humorists in the nineteenth-century and was dubbed as “the female Mark Twin”. She incessantly speaks for women's rights with the pseudonym of “Josiah Allen's wife” in her twenty one novels. James Thurber(1894-1961) gains his reputation in the famous magazine New Yorker about ten years after Holley falling into obscurity. Scholars have long focused on the research of Holley's wisdom and humor in fighting against patriarchy society and Thurber's humor in creating the classic image of the Little Man; however,they neglected a key factor that connects both of them, i.e. both Holley and Thurber paint humorous images of powerful wives and weak husbands in their works.On the basis of a comparative study of humorous characterization of strong wives and weak husbands, this thesis is going to discuss the the similarities and uniqueness in the humor of Marietta Holley and James Thurber. The comic theory of Arthur Schopenhauer, Henry Bergson and Sigmund Freud will be applied in the analyses.Both the common ground and differences demonstrate that they have created strong wives and henpecked husbands to reflect on the changes that happened to the American society and people's life. Meanwhile, this thesis reveals that the Americanhumor techniques develop from practicality, horse-sense and optimism in the nineteenth century to fantasy and pessimism-orientation in the first half of the twentieth century.