ПК 1 Англ яз 3,4 семестры / The secret life of Walter Mitty

I’m analyzing the story «The secret life of Walter Mitty», written by James Thurber. It’s a short story in a form of a dialogue. Thurber has carefully constructed the story's narrative to connect Mitty's "secret life" with his eternal life. The main idea of the story is about the life of a man, who is forced to lead a life of fantasies, he isn’t ready to deal with the realities of life. The story has the following themes: it’s a domination, because Mrs. Mitty is a domineering woman, who was power over her husband and issues instructions to him all the time. Another important theme is escape from reality. Mitty doesn’t like being bossed around by the wife. He has no way of taking control. The only option that he must hide in dreams to escape reality. Heroism is another theme, because even thought it was just Mitty’s fantasies, he expresses a desire to defend the country, or he wants to become the best surgeon to save lives.

In the first dream sequence, Walter is a naval commander who sells his hydroplane at full speed to avoid a hurricane. The dream abruptly and when his wife admonishes him for driving too quickly, implying that Walter's dream led to his speeding. In the second dream sequence, he gets into another fantasy. This time around he is a top surgeon who has traveled to the United States from the United Kingdom to help a millionaire friend of President Roosevelt. He is also an accomplished author of medical books and people are happy to be around him. He is a hero. The dream is temporarily interrupted by the realities of following the instructions of her wife. However, this does not last for long as he finds himself in another fantasy, this time around as an admired assassin with supernatural skills. He causes fear upon his enemies and admiration for his friends. Mitty's fourth fantasy comes as the United States Air Force Pilot who is ready to pilot a U.S. bomber and attack German forces. In his final daydream, Mitty is facing a firing squad, most probably the German forces, but he is brave and bullish, not thinking of the danger he is facing but the glory of saving his nation.

In this story, the author uses some stylistic devices. The first stylistic device used is a story within a story. The main story is about a journey by Mr. and Mrs. Mitty to a shopping center. However, numerous other stories come up such as that of Mr. Mitty being a brave military officer, a top doctor, and a murderer. The author also uses a simile to help in creating an image in the mind of the readers. “The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking,”. In this sentence, he compares the voice of the commander with a sound that comes out when breaking thin ice. It helps in creating an image in the mind of the reader. The simile also enables the author to emphasize his points. This is seen when he compares his wife with a strange woman who once yelled at him in the market. The reader can visualize how strange Mrs. Mitty was to her husband when he yelled at him. For a moment, Mitty was unable to understand that this was his wife. In this story, there are several cases where alliteration has been used to make the story colorful. There is the statement that refers to “the building where his wife went to have her hair done,”. In this sentence, the words where, wife, and went have the same initial sound and so do the words have, her, and hair. This style gives the story some form of poetic flow that makes it very interesting to the readers.

Everybody at times lives a fantasy in order to feel better about themselves. Everybody has a desire to escape though not necessarily with the same frequency of Walter. Walter finds happiness in his own world in where he is a man of importance unlike the reality he faces. In whereby he is henpecked by his wife and who remains oblivious to Walter’s fantasies. Walter is quite content to continue his life as he sees fit grabbing every opportunity, he can to fantasize that he is a man of great importance, and that people are relying on his opinion and actions.

I find the story quite interesting and think, that the ending of the story is closed, because it’s clear, that the man doesn’t want to change anything in his life, this position suited him. So, he tried to visit the world that would suit him, with the help of fantasies.