The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The protagonist of Thurber’s story, through whose eyes the reader sees all the action (real and imagined), is starkly drawn, more of a character sketch than a fleshed-out human with a complicated past. After all, the story is only five pages and unfolds over a couple of hours: The narrative succinctly provides the essential facts about Mitty, and anything more might detract from the character’s resonance and from the story’s humor. Mitty’s age is not given, nor his profession, nor any physical description—as befits his basic anonymity and unimportance in the world, of which Mitty himself is all too aware.

Based on how others treat him, he appears not to cut a very prepossessing or dynamic figure; the parking-lot attendant looks at him “closely” before shouting rudely at him. Mitty is probably middle-aged, since his wife reminds him that he is “no longer a young man” (Paragraph 4), and an elderly man would not likely receive the sort of disrespect that Mitty seems to attract with his minor missteps, like idling a few seconds at a green light. So, the possibility arises that Mitty is in the throes of a midlife crisis—an age-related waning of one’s confidence and sense of self, when missed opportunities, regrets, and fears about the future can prey on the mind and lead to depression or a restless disengagement with life as usual.