What literary device is used in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"? Conflict, parody or stream of conciousness.

Well, from your list you could argue that there are
actually two literary devices that are used. Certainly we can discount stream of
consciousness, which seeks to indicate the range of thoughts that a person has as
naturally as possible. This story is not told using this narrative device. However,
arguably there is definitely conflict in Walter Mitty in two senses. Firstly there is
the conflict that Mitty has with his wife, who is overbearing and horrid, which forces
him to retreat to his world of daydreams, and secondly there is conflict in the way that
Mitty battles between his daydreams and the real world, with the real world always
imposing on his daydreams, reminding him of how insignificant he is and how mundane his
life is.

However, although we cannot deny the existence of
conflict, it seems that the literary device that we see used far more is that of parody,
which is a work that ridicules another genre of literature by imitating various aspects
of its style and content. Note the way that the element of parody is clear from the very
beginning of the story:

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"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 grey
eye.

Note the way that an
officer would never normally wear a dress uniform whilst in combat, and if we continue
to read the first daydream of Walter Mitty we see that the hydroplane is said to have
eight engines, whereas a real hydroplane is a small, lightweight motorboat with
hydrofoils, and would never have eight engines or a turret. We see that parody is used
to exaggerate the fantasy life of Mitty and the unreal, larger-than-life adventures that
he seeks in his daydreams. Of course, the element of parody on serves to heighten the
contrast even more between his real life and his fantasy life.