the time. If he is happy most of the time, why would we feel sorry for him? It's true that he is not happy in his "real life," but who's to say that his "real life" should be more important than the life of his mind? This is just a philosophical point to complicate the argument. Clearly, if everyone just lived in his/her own mind, the world would be a chaotic mess. But for miserable dreamers like Walter, the imaginative retreat might be a good alternative. 

Also consider the notion that if Walter is miserable in his "real life," it is his fault. If he committed himself to the external world, he would be more aware. He would be more focused and would be more successful. Less mistakes would lead to less criticism. If he became more diligent in pursuing his dreams in real life, he might actually achieve them. So, in this analysis, I can't really feel bad for Walter if he is miserable in his real life because he is the one holding himself back. 

The answer to this question is subjective and is up to individual readers to decide. On one hand, I do feel sorry for Walter Mitty. I don't feel bad for him because of his wife or his life situation. I feel bad for him because of how much discontent he has about his life. There's a lot to be said about a person that can choose to be happy and content each day that he or she wakes up, and Mitty is not this kind of person. Things could be a lot worse for him. He has a job, his marriage is intact, and they don't appear to be hovering below the poverty line. Mitty has a lot to be thankful for, but he isn't. He is so discontented with his life that he chooses to live inside of fantasy after fantasy. That's sad, and I feel sorry for him in that he can't see the good in his life that he does have. He chooses to be unhappy with his life and not do anything about it. That is one way in which I don't feel sorry for him. He's a grown man, but he is unwilling to take action and choose a better attitude.

This is a personal reaction question, asking you how you feel about the main character.  You should answer with your own opinions, putting evidence from the story into your response.

You could say that yes, you feel sorry for Walter.  He is trapped in a job he doesn't enjoy.  He is bossed around by his wife.  He wants so much to have adventures and to be heroic, but he can't seem to get beyond his daily responsibilities.  He is doing his duty, but unfortunately, he isn't happy and people don't seem to care about his feelings.

Or you could say no, you don't feel sorry for him.  Walter allows himself to remain trapped.  He could choose to enjoy his wife and his job, but instead he daydreams about a fantasy world that can't really exist.  If he wants change so badly, he should make one; and if he doesn't like how he's being treated, he should stand up for himself.

You make the call!

Whether or not the reader feels sorry for Walter Mitty depends on whether or not they think he is happy and content. It is possible that Walter chooses this life for himself so that he can disappear into a world of fantasy when and where he wants. Unfortunately, the suggestion is that he dreams up all these adventures, of course making himself the hero, to block out how much he dislikes reality and how everyone seems to be trying to control him. For example, his wife nags and berates him:

“Remember to get those overshoes while I’m having my hair done,” she said.
“I don’t need overshoes,” said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag.
“We’ve been all through that,” she said, getting out of the car.
“You’re not a young man any longer.”
He raced the engine a little.
“Why don’t you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?”
Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves.

A policeman at the traffic lights tells him rudely to hurry up:

“Pick it up, brother!” snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead.

And, finally, a woman laughs at him for talking to himself:

“Puppy biscuit,” said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed.
“He said ‘Puppy biscuit,’ ” she said to her companion. “That man said ‘Puppy biscuit’ to himself.

The reader knows that Walter is not happy with all this, because after the parking lot attendant patronizes him, he says to himself,

They’re so damn cocky . . . they think they know everything.

While the writer doesn't give away too much about his life and character outside this short shopping trip, he does seem to suggest that Walter is your stereotypical henpecked husband with very little going for him outside his marriage. Whether or not a reader empathizes with this type of character depends on their own belief system. Like all great stories, this one is open to interpretation.

I have read "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" many times over the years, including once just recently to refresh my memory for answering one or two eNotes questions. I don't remember ever feeling particularly sorry for Walter Mitty, although I can understand why younger people might. There are many Walter Mittys in the world, but they are probably all middle-aged and married.

The time of life when most people experience adventures in reality has passed. Mitty has settled into a humdrum existence which is all too common once a man has passed the age of forty. The story wouldn't have been so popular if a lot of people had not identified with Walter Mitty. It occurs to me that it is significant that his fantasies all involve a man who would have to be middle-aged in order to experience them. Take the opening one, for example:

"We're going through!" The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold eye."

"The Old Man'll get us through," they said to one another. "The Old Man ain't afraid of Hell!"

Mitty would have to be in advanced middle-age in order to be a Commander. It is significant that the young crew members call him "The Old Man." Mitty is not compensating for a lack of adventure in his life. He is too old to be enjoying real adventures; he can only enjoy them in his imagination. One must envy him for having such a rich imagination--but since Mitty is really James Thurber himself in disguise, he could be expected to have a rich imagination and to live a lot of his life in fantasies. That's how Thurber really was. And in his day the people in America and England loved him for it.

When Mitty lets his wife off at her hairdresser's, she tells him:

"Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having my hair done....You're not a young man any longer."

Mitty is not a caged animal. He couldn't be leading any other life than the one he is leading. His wife only mothers him because he is the type of man who needs mothering (and probably enjoy mothering). He lives in his imagination, and therefore he is incompetent in real-life situations.

While he is imagining himself as a world-renowned surgeon performing a tremendously difficult operation, he can't handle the job of parking his car. Here again we have the fantasy of a middle-aged man. It would take many years to acquire such surgical expertise and to acquire such a reputation. This fantasy is interrupted when he hears:

"Back it up, Mac! Look out for that Buick!"

On the other hand, it is easy enough to feel sorry for Mitty's creator. James Thurber was hit in the eye by an arrow while playing Cowboys and Indians as a boy, and he had increasing trouble with his vision all his life. In his old age he was completely blind. He was unable to draw any more of his wonderful cartoons, and of course he was completely dependent upon other people. He lost most of his sense of humor because of his depression. The stories he wrote took on a caustic tone, and he had to suffer the humiliation of having them rejected by The New Yorker, the magazine he had helped to create.

"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is well known because it is one of the few stories he allowed to be published in other people's anthologies. But he published countless other stories and essays in his own collections, including The Thurber Carnival, and many of them are as good as "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"--or better.

If your definition of the 'start' of the story is the first paragraph then no, there is no need to sympathise with Mitty. In this opening sequence he is at his peak: a handsome, well respected flying ace with a zest for life in an adrenalin-fuelled escapade. It is the break from this fantasy which takes us quickly from zenith to nadir - 

"Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs. Mitty. "What are you driving so fast for?"

It is the intervention of his wife, puncturing his dream and bringing him crashing -almost literally - to reality where our pity begins.

To a certain extent, there is a level of empathy that is felt for Mitty at the start of the story.   He seems to live a very uninspired existence which consists of a wife telling him to buy overshoes and battling with others for a sense of acknowledgement in the world.  Mitty's own sense of personal voice is not truly authenticated in his world, which might be why his dreams are a stark contrast to his own existence.  In his dreams, his voice is validated and his experience has relevance.  One feels some level of sadness about the fact that his dreams are the only vehicle where his life holds meaning.  The argument can be made that it is on his shoulders to change this existence, but at the opening of the story, there is a strong note of sadness and empathy struck upon initially reading about Walter's state of being in the world at the start of Thurber's story.