In the next chapter I will concentrate on the story’s two narrative levels. In addition, I will name some hints where the reader realises Walter Mitty’s various daydream episodes. What are the reasons for Walter Mitty’s escapist daydreams and how is Mitty’s character presented in the story?įirstly, I will describe the garden path phenomenon and applied to “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” I will analyse the beginning of the short story. Can “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” generally be regarded as a garden path story? What is of particular interest is whether the reader is misled by Thurber’s narrative technique especially at the beginning of the story. Manfred Jahn analysed this short story with respect to his garden path short story theory.

The expression “to lead someone up the garden path” means “to deliberately deceive someone”. Walter Mitty became an archetypal American figure.īy reason of the structure of the short story and “Thurber’s own narrative style – economical, lightly ironic, and wonderfully expressive” (Holmes 218) it seems that this short story can be seen as a garden path story. Today the name “Walter Mitty” also exists in the English language and is used for people who are daydreaming and not paying attention to the real world. Thurber tells the story of a Walter Mitty, a man who lives in a dream world to escape from the routines and humiliations which he suffers in everyday life. In the following pages I want to focus on James Thurber’s famous short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” which was first published in 1939 in the magazine The New Yorker.

James thurber walter mitty