The Poor Relation by Charles Dickens and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber – Compare the Treatment of a “Fictitious World” by Both Authors

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The Poor Relation by Charles Dickens and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber - Compare the Treatment of a "Fictitious World" by Both Authors

In both The Poor Relation and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the main story revolves around the main character's tendency to live in a fantasy world. In this way the two short stories are very similar. However, the way the two authors, Dickens and Thurber, have treated this main theme is quite different.

Firstly, the two stories are not the same. In The Poor Relation, Dickens has told the pitiful and yet undeserving story of a poor relative who's life has mostly been a disaster, though which he has lost everything, including his friends and companions. The story is set in the 19th Century, at a middle-class family's gathering. The "poor relation" stands up and tells his "story". He starts by reminding the family about what they have seen of his life. He then goes on to claim that this is not the truth and that his real life is far different to anything they could have imagined. This is when he explains about this real life in great detail. However, Dickens adds a twist in the end. It turns out that the poor relation's claim that he leads a secret life is actually false and it is simply his fantasy life; the life he wished he had led. His real life was in fact the one he had described at the beginning, a miserable and unlucky one. The life he wished he had led is the opposite of everything in his real life. The poor relation is a modest, shy, unlucky and dull character that is clearly feeling sorry for himself.
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In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the story is told in the past tense. It is a simple story, about a Mr. and Mrs. Mitty and their everyday life. Walter Mitty, however, has a strange habit of daydreaming. He is capable of turning the most boring of everyday situations and sights into a dramatic, action packed and humorous scene. For example, when he drives past a hospital, he imagines he is in charge of a complicated surgical operation in an operating theatre and when he sees a newspaper boy talking about a recent trial, he imagines he ...

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