A Brief Overview of Walter Mitty

A Brief Overview of Walter Mitty

In the short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber, many interesting fantasies occur in a way which brings the reader into a different world. The story switches back and forth from delusion to reality, dragging the reader into a life, perhaps similar to their own. In the beginning of this story, the first paragraph is a fantasy of the main character, Walter Mitty. It describes his life as a commander of an aircraft. An intense scene is displayed showing what Walter Mitty wishes would be reality. It is not until the next paragraph that one discovers this reality. His wife then interrupts the scene, bringing Walter Mitty back into his everyday life, one which is far less exciting to him. This happens several times throughout the story. Each time a different fantasy. From successful doctors too air plane commanders, each flashback was something that he obviously aspired too, however, was always interrupted with reality. This everyday life consists of dropping into town once a week to grab the regular household necessities. Throughout the story, his wife nags and reminds him about which items he must buy while he is in town. Through the paragraph’s of Walter’s reality world, the reader can see that he is sick of his wife’s constant nagging and wants to escape from this reality through his day dreams.

Formalistic Critical Approach for Walter Mitty

In the short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the formatting of the plot and the dialogue come hand in hand and are vital to making the story clear and concise but also interesting. Structure and organization is a key piece to the puzzle in this instance. When analyzing this story, the best critical approach would b...

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...st to make things more interesting for a moment or two. I think this story can be related to anyone, whether they are rich, poor, powerful or subtle. Everyone tries to imagine a life different to their own. I found that the way the author used the dialogue throughout the story made it very suspenseful for the reader to make sense of the plot. I also enjoyed how the author used little transitions between the flashbacks and reality, such as the ‘pocketa-pockeata-pocketa’ sounds which carries through as a nice transition from flash back to reality. I liked these subtle hints to the reader because I believe they were necessary to understand where the stories was going. The flashbacks were realistic and catchy and so was reality because of it’s probably familiarity with the audience. I personally really enjoyed reading this story and I loved the way it was written.