The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber

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For complete copyright information on these eNotes please visit: http://www.enotes.com/secret-life/copyright eNotes: Table of Contents
1. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Introduction
2. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: James Thurber Biography
3. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Summary
4. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Characters
5. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Themes
6. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Style
7. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Historical Context
8. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Critical Overview
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Topics for Further Study
12. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Media Adaptations
13. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: What Do I Read Next?
14. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Bibliography and Further Reading
15. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Pictures
16. Copyright

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Introduction
James Thurber is one of America 's best known humorists, and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is his best known story. The story was first published in 1939 in the New Yorker magazine to great acclaim. It was reprinted in Thurber 's 1942 collection, My World—And Welcome To It and in Reader 's Digest in 1943. The story 's main character is a middle-aged, middle-class man who escapes from the routine drudgery of his suburban life into fantasies of heroic conquest. Upon the story 's publication, Walter Mitty became an archetypal American figure. Today, people still describe a certain kind of neurotic, daydreaming man as a
"Walter Mitty type. ' ' In 1947, Hollywood released a movie of the same title, starring Danny Kaye and Virginia
Mayo.
Although his humorous stories, sketches, and illustrations were well-known during his lifetime, Thurber
His writing has been compared to that of modernist writers such as William Faulkner, James
Joyce and T. S. Eliot. His use of wordplay, integration of different narrative consciousnesses, and treatment of the absurdity of modern life connect Thurber 's fiction to modernism. Robert Morseberger, in his monograph,
James Thurber, characterizes Thurber as a Romantic writer, one who opposes technological advances and rationality and believes in the mind 's ability to provide an escape from the destructive forces of society. In an essay in the English Journal, Carl Sundell discusses the "architectural design" of "The Secret Life of Walter
Mitty." He notes that Thurber addresses four of the five major types of conflict found in fiction: Man vs. Man,
Man vs. Society, Man vs. Self and Man vs. Nature. Sundell compares Thurber 's ability to elicit the sympathy of the reader in "Mitty" to J. D. Salinger 's portrayal of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in the novel Catcher in the Rye. He notes that, like Holden, Walter seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Unlike the adolescent Caulfield, though, Walter is an adult, and thus his chronic daydreaming merits less sympathy