Where lies the appeal of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty as a

Where lies the appeal of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty as a successful Story?

Ans.

The meaning of a story can be revealed in two ways one through plot, another through character. Thurber’s story is an example of meaning revealed through character. Walter Mitty’s inner life dominates the scene, and Thurber’s problem was to dramatize is credibly for the reader. The story becomes more serious and fable-like as we contemplate it. To regard Mitty merely as an absent minded clown is to miss Thurber’s real humour entirely. The readers should ask themselves why they laugh at Mitty and love him at the same time. The answer is, perhaps, because he is one of us, and we are all cut from the same piece of psychic cloth.

Thurber uses a sort of dramatic device to tell his story effectively. The narrator’s point of view is obviously omniscient, but somehow this method does not reduce the story’s credibility. There are some mitigating circumstances working here, the occasional return to reality, to the present when the reader’s attention is diverted towards half-accusing, half-pitying remarks of the wife, the mocking advice of the cop to pick up the gloves, to the vivid dramatic representation of the fantasies of Mitty.

There are also humorous situations, for example. Mitty’ repeating ‘Puppy biscuits’. Thurber is known to be a great humourist in his writings and cartoons. When, however, we look beyond humour, what do we find? Is Mitty merely a strange eccentric, or has Thurber dramatized some universal truth? The message which Thurber wants to get across his readers is, perhaps, that all of us crave for something glorious, adventurous, heroic, to happen in our life so as to bring some respite to the otherwise dull and dreary business of life, to the daily grind. For most of us such glorious moments are hard to find and we have to take resort to day dreaming, inventing them in order to haul up our self esteem. This question of salvaging our self esteem a universal truth about human nature goes beyond method into the realm of values.