The Unicorn in the Garden by James Thurber is one of the most famous of his humorous modern fables. The story is a piece of prose writing that is belletristic in style, and its main aim is to entertain and also make people think and appeal to their emotions. It has both the characteristics of a fable (one main plot, simple language and other elements), and a fairy tale (mythical elements, one upon a time and happily ever after). The protagonists of this story, the man and his wife, are obviously opposed to each other — and both plotted evil plans to rid of each other (on which in this case, only the husband lived happily ever after.
The moral of the story is you should not make plans that depend on something good happening before you know that it has actually happened. Also, be careful not to fall into your own trap, because evil people are always punished for their deeds.
The modern fable penned by James Thurber is a humorous prose written in bellestristic manner depicting the struggles of marriage in a comedy approach.
By analyzing the prose using historical/ cultural criticism, we will understand that Thurber’s “The Unicorn in the Garden” depicts how married couple problems were such a norm during the 1940 American life to the point that humor became an important coping strategy.
Under the lens of reader-response approach we analyze the the piece by how might the reader make meaning of the text to their personal experience, and/or explicate personal philosophy. The reader may agree with the story character of husband (but not to the extent of sending partners in the “booby hatch”) , since there are people with an exaggerated authoritarian and domineering sense (in this case, the wife) who will always cause harm to both themselves and others, and that self-defense is a must.
The gender criticism approach will let us view that there is a long history of feud between man and woman, and that the gender roles influenced the creation of the story with women portrayed as individuals that may make men live miserable lives. The author, James Thurber, whose primary audience is the middle-class men, “preaches” their collective agreement of wives’ misconducts in this humorous prose. Some critics even believed that the author is a misogynist who likes to portray weak men who loathe strong women.
