Trudy Ring is a reporter, editor, and frequent writer on literary subjects. In the following essay, Ring provides an introduction to "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", comments on the universal appeal of the main character, and examines the themes presented in Thurber's story.

Walter Mitty is one of literature's great dreamers. He spends much of his time escaping into fantasies in which he is brilliant and heroic, and his life is dramatic and adventurous. The enduring popularity of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is undoubted ly due in great part to readers' ability to identify With Mitty; after all, most of us find our lives at times mundane and unsatisfying, and use daydreams to enter a more interesting world.

Mitty is, of course, an extreme case when It comes to daydreaming. In the single afternoon covered by the story's action, he imagines he is a...