1. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
By James Thurber ( )

2. Type of Work
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is a short story centering on the daydreams of a henpecked Connecticut husband.

3. Setting
The action takes place in the late 1930s in a car traveling to Waterbury, Connecticut, and in the city itself in the area of Main Street.

4. Characters (Real-Life)
Walter Mitty: Meek Connecticut man who retreats into daydreams in which he becomes a hero.
Mrs. Mitty: Mitty's domineering wife.
Parking Attendant: After Mitty pulls into the wrong lane in a parking lot, the attendant takes the wheel and parks the car.
Policeman: Officer who orders Mitty to pull away after a traffic signal turns from red to green.
Pedestrians: Woman and her companion who encounter Mitty on the street. When the woman notices Mitty talking to himself, she makes fun of him. 
Dr. Renshaw: Mitty's family doctor. Mrs. Mitty tells her husband to see the physician for a checkup. 
Garage Man: Person who removed chains from Mitty's tires.

5. Daydream 1 Commander Mitty: Pilot of a navy hydroplane.
Berg: Lieutenant. He cautions Mitty not to fly in stormy weather.
Crewmen

6. Day Dream 2
Dr. Mitty: One of the world's most eminent surgeons. Wellington McMillan: Millionaire patient and friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. McMillan requires immediate surgery.
Dr. Renshaw: One of the physicians attending McMillan. (Renshaw is Mitty's real-life physician.)
Dr. Benbow: One of the physicians attending McMillan.
Dr. Remington: Eminent New York specialist called in on the McMillan case.
Dr. Pritchard-Mitford: Eminent London specialist called in on the McMillan case.
Nurse
Intern

7. Daydream 3
Mitty: Suspect in a murder case. He is an expert marksman who is on the stand answering the district attorney's questions. Gregory Fitzhurst: Murder victim.  District Attorney: Prosecutor in the murder case. Woman: "Lovely, dark-haired girl," the narrator says, who throws herself into Mitty's arms. Judge

8. Daydream 4
Captain Mitty: Devil-may-care World War I pilot. Sergeant: Soldier who urges Mitty not to fly alone. Raleigh: Shell-shocked flier. Von Richtman: Allusion to Manfred von Richtofen, known as the Red Baron.

9. Daydream 5
Mitty: Disobedient prisoner about to be executed. Firing Squad

10. Point of View
Thurber tells the story in omniscient, third- person point of view, enabling the narrator to reveal the thoughts of Walter Mitty as they are in progress.
However, the narration does not peep into the mind of Mrs. Mitty.
Instead, it reveals what she is thinking through her spoken words.

11. Themes Escapism Boosting the Ego Vicarious Adventure
Henpecked Mitty deals with his everyday frustrations by escaping into daydreams. 
Boosting the Ego
Mitty is a submissive, accommodating guy.
But when he makes himself the hero of his daydreams, he becomes a man who is greatly admired and respected.
His daydreams help him put up with his ego against the nitpicking of his wife.
Vicarious Adventure
Even an ordinary man can become an extraordinary hero—with the help of his imagination.
And who is to say that the secret world of Walter Mitty is not a real world?
After all, daydreams are part of everyday reality.

12. Mitty's Uselessness
Mrs. Mitty bullies poor Walter, but it appears that his obvious incompetence and carelessness play no small role in provoking her nagging and the ill treatment he receives from others. 
Consider, for example, the matter of the gloves.
Next, consider the matter of the overshoes.
Consider also the following incidents that attest to his ineptitude:
(1) he pulls into the Exit Only lane at the parking lot;
(2) when attempting to remove snow chains from his car tires, he ends up getting them twisted around the axle and has to call a garage man to undo his bungling.
Mitty also tends to be forgetful

13. Climax
There is no climax in the story unless one interprets the final daydream as a turning point in Mitty's life.
However, given the tone of the story and the meekness of Mitty, it is likely that he takes no corrective action of any kind but simply continues to daydream and tolerate his wife's nitpicking. 

14. Symbols The car, the overshoes, the gloves, and the tire chains:
These all symbolize Mrs. Mitty's control over clumsy Walter.
She orders him to buy overshoes, wear gloves, and slow down from 55 to 40. In addition, she requires him to take his car to a garage to have the snow chains on his tires removed. 

15. Symbols Policeman, parking attendant, garage man:
They symbolize the control that the world forces over Walter.
Images of war and guns:
They symbolize the strong masculinity that Mitty lacks.

16. How It All Goes Down
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" tells the story of the aging Walter Mitty on a trip into town with his overbearing wife, Mrs. Mitty. Walter is useless at many things; he is an absent-minded driver, he can't handle simple mechanical tasks, and he forgets things easily. What makes Walter exceptional is his imagination.

17. While Walter goes through a day of ordinary tasks and errands, he escapes into a series of romantic fantasies, each encouraged on by some boring reality. As he drives his car, he imagines he is commanding "a Navy hydroplane" through a terrible storm (1). When he rides past a hospital, he imagines he is a world-famous surgeon saving a VIP's life. When he hears a newsboy shouting about a trial, he imagines he is a crack shot being interrogated in the courtroom.

18. As he waits for his wife to finish at the hairdresser's, Walter sees pictures of German plane and imagines he is a British pilot willing to sacrifice his life for his country. Lastly, as Mitty waits outside against a wall for his wife to buy something in a drugstore, he fantasizes that he is a bold and brave man about to be shot by a firing squad. The story ends with the inscrutable Walter Mitty awaiting this romantic death.

19. Identity:
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" raises interesting questions about how identity is crafted. How much of our identity is shaped by the opinions of those around us, and how much of it comes from ourselves?
Questions About Identity
1. Does Walter undergo any changes as the story progresses?
2. Is Walter "sane" or "insane"?
3. In this story, who gets to define who Walter Mitty really is: Walter, or the people around him?

20. Dramatic Irony:
The contrast depends upon the contradiction between what the character believes and what the reader knows to be true. Ex: Mitty has a fantasy about flying top, but the readers know from Mitty’s useless behaviour in the parking lot that he has trouble just parking the car.

21. Situational Irony
Walter Mitty constantly daydreams, "living in a daydream consisting of situations in which he is a hero." In reality, he lives a life of humiliation from his wife, police officers, etc. In truth, his wife is not to blame for his reality, because much of the humiliation Mitty feels results from his own incompetence. Although Mitty is attempting to escape his boring existence, his imagination ultimately defeats his ability to function as a normal adult and, therefore, "needs the mothering his wife gives him."

22. "Situational irony occurs when the results of a situation are far different from what was expected“. The reader expects that, if not all at least the last of, Mitty's dreams will have a happy conclusion. When indeed they do not end pleasantly, the reader feels unfairly treated at the most and surprised at the very least.

23. Mitty goes into a daydream whenever he passes a place or hears something. For example, as he leans against a brick wall smoking a cigarette, he imagines himself facing a firing squad. While driving his wife to appointment he imagines he is trying to beat a forthcoming hurricane. It is ironic as well that Walter is only able to be significant in his imagination.

24. The secret life of Walter Mitty story is full of literature elements such as symbolism and imagery. The sound of "pocketa-pocketa- pocketa" is imagery to the sound of pounding cylinders in the “Navy hydroplane". Imagery element is also portrait when Mitty imagined himself as a British pilot; flame-throwers made similar sounds of his car engine which he hears as he drives his wife into the town.