The short story that I choose to analyze and write the critical essay on, is “The Unicorn in the Garden” by James Thurber. The story is about a man having his breakfast, who saw a unicorn in the garden and proceeds to tell his wife about it as the story progresses in an unusual way. This story appeals to me in many ways namely in the aspects of themes, the plot, characters and the language used. Thus, this essay will be based on the aspects mentioned previously. I would like to begin with the themes and explain why it is appealing to me. The first is man versus woman. In my view, the man represents the blissful fantasy and the woman represents the harsh reality. At the beginning of the story, the man is having breakfast alone when he sees the unicorn in the garden and immediately reports his unusual discovery to his wife where she responds by saying the unicorn is a mythical beast. This is rather interesting to me because the mind of the woman is still in reality and man in fantasy. Another theme I found in this short story is deception. It is possible that while having breakfast, the man suddenly had an idea to get rid of the wife and initiate that plan by making up a story about a unicorn. He probably knew that she will tell on him to the authorities and would try to capture him. However, the wife is also finding an excuse to split from the husband and decides that this is the perfect opportunity and calls the authorities. Little did she know, that her plan would backfire and the man a victor. It is hard to predict what the man had in mind thus it kept my interest in check. Besides that, the plot also appeals to me. The exposition is when the man was having his breakfast and the story immediately turns into a conflict when the man sees a unicorn in the garden and hurries to tell his wife about it but his wife does not believe what he says. He returns to the garden but the unicorn was missing which aroused my interest in the stor