This paper discusses the short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” James Thurber’s humorous classic about a man who fantasizes himself as a hero.
The paper states that Thurber’s 1947 story ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ was put in a British medical journal as a clinical condition, which manifested itself in compulsive fantasizing. The paper discusses that in his “real” life, Walter Mitty lives an ordinary, plain life under the control of an overbearing, critical wife. This paper concludes that story shows that fantasy is often a good alternative to reality.
“Walter is both fun and entertaining, he’s easy to like and he lives in every one of us. Compared with Walter Mitty, his wife is more realistic. Unlike the female characters in much of literature, she is an independent lady and to some extent, controls Walter Mitty’s life. She is no longer an oppressed figure. By creating an oppressed husband and a domineering wife, Thurber humorously and ironically criticizes the social system (under) which women should obediently do as men tell them.”