The Secret Life of Walter Mitty " The Secret Life of Walter Mitty " ( 1939 ) is a short story by James Thurber . The most famous of Thurber ' s stories , it first appeared in " The New Yorker " on March 18 , 1939 , and was first collected in his book " My World and Welcome to It " ( Harcourt , Brace and Company , 1942 ) . It has since been reprinted in " James Thurber : Writings and Drawings " ( The Library of America , 1996 , ISBN 1 - 883011 - 22 - 1 ) , and is one of the most frequently anthologized short stories in American literature . The story is considered one of Thurber ' s " acknowledged masterpieces " . It was made into a 1947 movie of the same name , with Danny Kaye in the title role , though the movie is very different from the original story . The name Walter Mitty and the derivative word " Mittyesque " have entered the English language , denoting an ineffectual person who spends more time in heroic daydream s than paying attention to the real world , or more seriously , one who intentionally attempts to mislead or convince others that he is something that he is not . In military circles , this usually refers to people who try to fake an impressive career . The story had an influence on other humorists , notably " Mad " founder Harvey Kurtzman ( who borrowed the story ' s sound effects ) , playwright George Axelrod ( who employed Mitty - like fantasies in " The Seven Year Itch " ) and animation director Chuck Jones ( who created a Mitty - like child character for Warner Bros . cartoons ) . Plot . The short story deals with a vague and mild - mannered man who drives into Waterbury , Connecticut with his wife for their regular weekly shopping and his wife ' s visit to the beauty parlor . During this time he has five heroic daydream episodes . The first is as a pilot of a U . S . Navy flying boat in a storm , then he is a magnificent surgeon performing a one - of - a - kind surgery , then as a cool assassin testifying in a courtroom , and then as a Royal Air Force pilot volunteering for a daring , secret suicide mission to bomb an ammunition dump . As the story ends , Mitty imagines himself facing a firing squad , " inscrutable to the last . " Each of the fantasies is inspired by some detail of Mitty ' s mundane surroundings : Themes . The story depicts a man whose extremely mundane life is constantly interrupted by the character ' s escapist fantasies . Whereas the fantasy Mitty is not scared of anything , the real one protests feebly , if at all , at demands that he behave cautiously . Similarly , the admiration bestowed on Mitty in the fantasies contrasts with much less pleasant interactions with real people - aside from being ordered around by his wife ( who seems to genuinely worry about him , and wants to take his temperature to see whether he is sick ) , Mitty is yelled at by a policeman and a parking lot attendant , and laughed at by a woman who hears him say the words " Puppy biscuit " . None of the fantasies end with Mitty winning through in each dangerous situation ; the first four fantasies are interrupted , and the fifth ends with Mitty facing the firing squad . Sources . However , Mitty is very much a Thurber protagonist , so much so that he has been called " the archetype for dreamy , hapless , Thurber Man " . Like many of his male characters , such as the husband in " The Unicorn in the Garden " and the physically unimposing men Thurber often paired with larger women in his cartoons , Mitty is dominated and put upon by his wife . Like the man who saw the unicorn , he escapes via fantasies . A similar dynamic is found in the Thurber story " The Curb in the Sky " , in which a man starts recounting his own dreams as anecdote s as an attempt to stop his wife from constantly correcting him on the details . In his 2001 book " The Man Who Was Walter Mitty : The Life and Work of James Thurber " ( ISBN 0 - 930 - 75113 - 2 ) , author Thomas Fensch suggests that the character was largely based on Thurber himself . This is consistent with Thurber ' s self - described imaginative interpretations of shapes seen with his " two - fifths vision " in his essay " The Admiral on the Wheel " . Neurologist V . S . Ramachandran suggests that Thurber may have had Charles Bonnet syndrome , a neurological condition that causes vivid and bizarre hallucinations even in blind patients . Wordplay . Thurber ' s love of wordplay can be seen in his coining of several nonsense terms in the story , including the pseudo - medical jargon " obstreosis of the ductal tract " , " streptothricosis " , and the recurring onomatopoeia of " ta - pocketa - pocketa - pocketa . " The medical nonsense that " coreopsis has set in " uses the name of a flower which sounds just like a horrible medical condition . 1947 film . The story was made into a 1947 movie starring Danny Kaye as a young daydreaming editor of pulp magazine s . The film was adapted for the screen by Ken Englund , Everett Freeman , and Philip Rapp , and directed by Norman Z . McLeod . It was filmed in Technicolor , a rarity at the time . Thurber was repeatedly consulted about the film ' s script , but his suggestions were largely ignored by producer Samuel Goldwyn , who had the writers alter the original story to showcase Kaye ' s talents . In a letter to " Life Magazine " , Thurber expressed his considerable dissatisfaction with the script , even as Goldwyn insisted in another letter that Thurber approved of it . A 1947 radio adaptation of the movie , with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo reprising their roles , was performed on " The Screen Guild Theater " . Because the show was a half hour , including commercials , Kaye ' s extraneous routines are pretty much absent , making it more like the original story . Even closer to the original story is a 1944 radio adaptation from " This Is My Best " , with Robert Benchley as the daydreaming Mitty . Future film . At one time , producer - directors Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg planned to remake the film with Kevin Anderson as Mitty , but the project fell through . A different production is under way at 20th Century Fox , starring Ben Stiller as Mitty . Kristen Wiig , Shirley MacLaine , Patton Oswalt , Adam Scott and Kathryn Hahn will also appear in the film . Filming has been taking place in Manhattan in May 2012 and in Iceland from July to September ; the film ' s release is tentatively scheduled for Christmas 2013 . Stage adaptations . " The Secret Life of Walter Mitty " was adapted for the stage by Thurber as part of the 1960 Broadway Theater revue " A Thurber Carnival " . The sketch , which closed the show except for " Word Dance Part II " , was nearly identical to the short story , except that at the end he cleverly avoids being shot . The original cast for the sketch was as follows : The story was again adapted for the stage in 1964 , this time by Joe Manchester . This musical version of " The Secret Life of Walter Mitty " depicts Mitty at age 40 , tempted by " would - be chanteuse " Willa De Wisp to leave his wife Agnes and really live " the Secret Life " . It features 17 songs , with lyrics by Earl Shuman and music by Leon Carr . The musical opened off - Broadway at the Players Theatre on October 26 , 1964 , and ran for 96 performances . " Time magazine " referred to the musical ' s plot as having been " boldly extrapolated " from the short story , and called the result " a thoroughly pleasant musical evening " .