SOURCE: “Christian Parody in Thurber's ‘You Could Look It Up’,” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 15, No. 4, Fall, 1978, pp. 453–54.

In the following essay, May suggests that Thurber's short story “You Could Look It Up” is an Americanized version of the story of Christ.

A basic characteristic of James Thurber's short fiction is that many of his stories are ironic treatments of established literary conventions, fables, and tales. Thurber imposes his own brand of satire on the adventure story in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” the perfect crime story in “The Catbird Seat,” and the American success story in “The Greatest Man in the World.” Fables for Our Time represents a sustained effort in the ironic, modernized retelling of ancient stories and tales. Several critics have noted Thurber's technique of transferring the basic plot line of such legends and conventions to a modern milieu and then cluing the...