The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty Essay

Justin Gonska
Short stories
May 19, 2023

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

We have all wanted to be somewhere else in a situation where we are uncomfortable, bored, or even sad. In the short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty written by James Thurber, the main character Walter Mitty can do just that. Walter Mitty is an ordinary, boring guy who has almost all of the aspects of his life controlled by others around him, but when he daydreams he becomes an adventurous man who can do anything he wants and control everything he wants. In the short story we never get to see him improve his life outside of his imaginations but in the movie we get to see him both improve and also live out some of the adventures from his daydreams. We learn throughout

We see many examples throughout the story, one being when he is driving in the car with his wife and he imagines he is the captain of a navy hydroplane where he has complete control over both the whole ship and also a whole boat crew. In his imagination he says “ throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We're going through!” Then he is awakened from his daydream by his wife who is scolding him for going too fast while he is driving, she says “ you were up to fifty five “, “you know I don't like it when you go more than forty”. This interaction not only shows that he is using his imagination to give himself the power to control his own life but also he can control his own speed and go as fast as he wants. Another example is when he is sitting at the stoplight and the people around him are telling what to do, like when his wife said “ why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?” or when the police tell him to “ pick it up brother!”. He then jumps into his imagination and becomes a doctor who has to take over a operation and control a whole team, the crew asks him “ if you would take over, Mitty?” signaling that he is now in

We see this happen a couple of times but one example is when Walter imagines himself as an adventurer while he was daydreaming at work. He imagines himself as someone who is brave and climbs peaks and mountains and talks to a woman that he loves. This allows him to escape the boringness of his job and the uselessness of his life. Another example of this is when he imagines himself growing old with Cheryl Melhoff which gets him out of an uncomfortable conversation and makes him think about the thought of love and growing old with someone. Overall we see walter mitty use his imagination to find ways to live his