The story begins with a short introductory paragraph that prepares readers for the more colorful events that will unfold in the pages to come-his mother throwing a shoe through a window, his grandfather shooting a policeman-and then goes right into the events of that night. “The Night the Ghost Got In” is one such story where the farce is evenly spread from character to character. Despite Thurber’s affinity for exaggeration, the flat, funny characters doing much of Thurber’s bidding each share that their depictions (though diverse) are always palpable, always backhandedly complimentary and reinforce one another’s identity with confirmation and delight. Columbus, a town in need of confirmation, can effectively overcome its imperfections as long as they are addressed, made to look charming, and delivered through comedy and laughter. Being at odds with the conventions of the commonplace becomes a positive value for the city, the neighborhood, the family, and ultimately the self in Thurber’s case. Yet through it all, he portrays eccentricity of character and situation as a life enhancing quality rather than something to be reconciled.
His ongoing presence of certain palpable social qualities, often mistaken as flaws, Thurber effectively brings to focus through his characters. Certainly, such passages bring us to question: how does a writer so willing to address the insecurities of his region become such a glorified image of the city? The answer lies in the combination of what the city demands and what Thurber supplies.
For example, “In the early years of the nineteenth century, Columbus won out, as state capital, by only one vote over Lancaster, and ever since then has had the hallucination that it is being followed, a curious municipal state of mind which affects, in some way or other, all those who live there” (Thurber 67). He personifies his city for its collective inferiority complex, stocking his text to the brim with accounts of superstition, boredom, fear of the weather, and unique mental unrest.
Inspired by the life and “struggles” of his own adolescence on the East Side, this farce provided an identity for his hometown that has long been the subject of appropriate pull quoting and name dropping for columnists of the area for decades.5 Yet for a hometown hero, Thurber’s portrayal of Midwestern life is far removed from the usual sugar-coating you see in a lot of regional literature. Surely the unofficial spokesperson for Columbus, Ohio since the publication of his autobiographical farce My Life and Hard Times is James Thurber.
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