
During the 1920s and 1930s, Thurber wrote for the popular and influential literary magazine, The New Yorker. James Thurber was a prolific writer and artist who published over twenty books of stories, biographies, drawings, sketches, essays, poetry, fables and cartoons. Mitty, and unhappy, ineffectual men, like Walter, fault his treatment of women and views of marriage. Others, referring to his tendency to portray domineering women, like Mrs.

They have also discussed the darker themes of his work which lurk underneath the hilarity. More recently, critics have become attentive to Thurber’s literary prowess, such as his use of wordplay and attention to narrative form.

Some critics dismissed his work as little more than formulaic and whimsical. 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.Īlthough his humorous stories, sketches, and illustrations were well-known during his lifetime, Thurber has received little scholarly attention. Upon the story’s publication, Walter Mitty became an archetypal American figure. 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. It was reprinted in Thurber’s 1942 collection, My World- And Welcome To It and in Reader’s Digest in 1943. The story was first published in 1939 in the New Yorker magazine to great acclaim.

James Thurber is one of America’s best known humorists, and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is his best known story.
