No. There is no flashback. The story unfolds in a straightforward fashion from the time Mitty is driving his wife into Waterbury, Connecticut, on a mundane shopping trip to the end when they are about ready to drive home and he is waiting for her outside a drugstore. The five episodes in which Mitty indulges in fantasies about being a much more important man than he is in reality are not flashbacks but precise excerpts from his stream of consciousness. A flashback might seem out of place in this story because it would conflict with the fantasies. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is only easy to follow because James Thurber was such a gifted and dedicated writer. The reader quickly understands that there are two stories--one objective, and the other subjective; one mundane, and the other melodramatic.
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