Life choices define who one truly is, whether they are right or wrong. In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, an adventure film of dreams and confinement, these choices are explored in depth by the director Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller shows us a plethora of unique topics throughout the story, such as the influence of people and the longing for others. As the movie progressed onwards, the protagonist, Walter Mitty, transformed. Eventually Walter becomes a dynamic character and develops a greater sense of self awareness. His transformation was largely in part due to the influence of those around him. Peer pressure can be a great factor in interpersonal growth. Ben Stiller discussed the impacts of others on one’s life choices through Walter Mitty’s …show more content…
life, specifically implemented in his interactions with his father, Cheryl Melhoff, Sean O’Connell and Ted. Long before Walter's life turned into a daily routine of monotonous labouring, Walter was a boy with dreams.
He was unique, had a mohawk, and rode a skateboard. This all changed when his dad passed away. It was an unfortunate incident that carried with it much sorrow and discomfort; a catalyst that would critically alter Walter’s very being. The day Walter's dad died, Walter immediately took the initiative to cut his hair and dedicate all his time to work, starting with acquiring a job at Papa John’s. This event had left lasting effects on Walter. He mentioned he was poor and as such had to balance a checkbook every month, this habit has continued to his present life, as shown throughout the story. The death of his father had put Walter in a shell, one that kept him as a captive to false constrictions. His childhood had been locked inside this shell and he was merely a facade of his true self. By the end of the film, he was able to break free, free to live the way his true-self would have desired. He became the true Walter …show more content…
Mitty. Cheryl Melhoff, Walters love, was one of the most significant influences on Walter. Cheryl gave the Walter the push he needed so he could reach new heights. An example of this was when Walter was reluctant to even search for Sean at first, but after Cheryl encouraged him he became empowered. Near the beginning of his adventure he was afraid to board the helicopter, but after he envisioned Cheryl singing “Space Oddity,” he gained both the courage and insanity needed to venture forth alongside the questionable pilot. Boarding a helicopter with a drunkard, is a task in itself, but Walter takes the next step and leaps off the helicopter into the freezing sea below is a different story. Ben Stiller shows us how hard we are able to work for someone we love, doing things one would have never dreamed of. Sean O'Connell, Walter’s business partner and friend, was also a great influence on Walter.
He represented Walter’s dormant ideals, one whom Walter strived to become. Throughout the story Walter was always chasing Sean, searching frantically for him. At the beginning of the story Walter states he has never met Sean. Sean being a sort of role model, this meant that Walter never came to face his ideals until the end of the movie. Sean was an inspiration to Walter. Everyone needs an inspiration to strive forward, and so Walter was moved by Sean. He made Walter stronger. All the hardships Walter went through to find Sean made Walter the person he is now. Walter often dreamed of being like Sean, throughout the story his dreams become less frequent as he himself becomes like Sean. Sean is used by Ben Stiller to represent an ideal, or end goal. Walter tried his best to reach this goal, causing him to change as a person. A push and a pull can work together to bring about transformation on one’s
path. Another character influencing Walter was Ted, Walter’s boss. Ted verbally abused Walter throughout the story. Along with constantly making fun of him, he also said some unruly comments. Walter became fed up with all this and retaliated by the end of the movie. He struck back at Ted with a similar, yet clever statement. Ted gave Walter both courage and some necessary crudeness. To move forward Walter had to adapt to Ted along with others like Sean. This caused Walter to become more assertive; he stopped being a simple doormat. Ben Stiller used Ted to depict how one would react to a bully, Walter slowly built up the courage to stand up for himself. Over the course of the movie Walter has tremendously changed. He passed through the circle of rebirth, and became adventurous once more. Ben Stiller used the characters in a Secret Life of Walter Mitty to cause a transmogrification in Walter. Each individual contributed to forming different attributes within Walter, and remodeled him into his true self. The dreams that lay both within Walter and which surrounded him became invigorated; burst forth as the influences of others heightened. He dreamed of being unique, someone who stood out of the crowd regularly, this dreaming slowly transformed into his life. In conclusion, Walter has broken free from the shell that has encapsulated him over the course of his life, and a new but familiar path has been laid forth.
He struggles every day to achieve his dream of getting more money. When the $10,000 check came in, it was his shot at success. His mother gave him a big chunk of it and he invested it in a liquor store and lost the money. After that, Walter became very depressed. He had lost the trust and respect of his family.
that a discontented individual is often unable to take ownership of his life until he realizes that he must set a good example for his children. Walter is a protagonist who seems to only care about himself. He is really dependent on his mama's huge insurance check. Walter wants his mama's check so he and Willy Harris can open up a bar. This character continues to go down the wrong path until something tragic happens.
In the story of Walter Mitty by James Thurber, Walter Mitty is a static character and in the movie Walter Mitty by Ben Stiller, Walter is made a dynamic character so that the movies is more exciting than the book. In the story Walter stays a boring character who doesn’t do much at all, while in the movie he becomes the adventurous character he has dreamed about. In the end of the story Walter was happy about “facing the firing squad”. Since Walter never had the life he wanted he just wanted to die, unlike the movie where he had done so many things that he got himself a date when he was the most happy. In the story Walter kept dreaming throughout the day being triggered by little things to go off into his own world, but in the movie Walter
Walter wants financial freedom, he doesn't want just enough money to provide for his family, but rather he tells his mother "I want so many things. " Walter is materialistic and greedy, corrupted by a superficial “American dream”. Walter has no desire to find out about himself through his African American heritage. He believes he can define himself through money, money is everything to this man.
The first reason I believe that Walter is the protagonist is because he isn’t a selfish man. What I mean by this is when he is talking about issues he tends to discuss family issues above his own personal things. Though at times in the play when he is drunk and loses his temper he does start speaking selfishly, I believe that his overall attitude in the play is for his family to move up the world. I believe that Walter’s son Travis is the main reason why he acts so unselfishly. He seems to want the best for this son and doesn’t want his son to feel that there isn’t anything he can’t have or do.
...ontrol of his personal ambitions to benefit the whole or in Walter's case the family. Certainly it would be unfair for Walter give up his aspirations. The issue is whether Walter can distinguish between a fantasy of reality and a dream deferred.
In the short story, Walter Mitty paints himself as very prestigious characters such as a knowledgeable doctor, a brave man, a military captain, a millionaire, and “Walter Mitty the Undefeated” (Thurber 5). This demonstrates pathos because of the reality of his life is that he cannot even do simple tasks such as backing his car into a mechanic’s garage. Thurber expresses the sad ironic reality of his life which is that he paints himself as a hero in his daydreams but lives a boring and unsuccessful life. Thurber uses Walter’s characteristics to prove one must adventure and explore to find meaning and purpose in life. In the movie, Walter debates getting into a helicopter with a drunk pilot to find Sean’s film negative and continue his adventure or to give up and turn back to his unhappy life. When he daydreams his love interest, Cheryl Melhoff, singing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” he decides to bravely jump into the helicopter, quite literally taking a leap of faith. Although a lyric of the song reads, “Here am I floating ‘round my tin can/ Far above the Moon/ Planet Earth is blue/ And there’s nothing I can do” (Bowie). This exemplifies irony because of the story Bowie tells of the protagonist of the song Major Tom. Major Tom embarks on a journey to outer space but communication cuts off from Earth and he realizes he will never come back to his wife and to life. This
Walter has an interesting turn of events towards the end of the book. He is forced to abandon his quest to the North Pole, he is faced with the monster and must hear the monster's plans for self-destruction, he has to watch idly as his new friend, Victor, passes from this world. He has such noble dreams and aspirations, but they are all brought to a halt because of his chance meeting with Frankenstein. Or, was his expedition doom from the start because of the nature of wanting to do what no other man had done? Was it his ambition that led him to untimely failure? The evidence from the text proves that possibly he was never meant to surpass his peers and obtain the glory that he pursued.
Have you ever wanted to learn about an interesting short story? Then I have the perfect short story for you. You could think of possibly anything and Walter Mitty would dream about it and make it seem special. The short story is called “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”by James Thurber, it is an interesting story about a guy named Walter Mitty, who has a nagging wife constantly on him, but he goes through his boring life imagining about all the cool stuff he could do. A dominant theme in James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is Imagery. He shows imagery in his short story by making his character, Walter Mitty, imagine he's in these obstacles, which he pretends he's something he's not. Throughout the story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” James Thurber uses literary elements like imagery and allusion to get his theme across to the readers.
This episode illustrates a major conflict throughout the story. As Walter dreams bigger and bigger he seems to leave the 'smaller' things such as his family behind. This movement away from the family is against the furtherance of the values and morals of the family. While his father would have been happy simply working and caring for his family, Walter is more concerned with becoming a 'mover and shaker' without thinking about the resulting consequences for his family.
Furthermore, the movie takes the book another step farther by having Walter eventually living these immensely wild fantasies, on his journey to Greenland, when he finds Sean. Although it toys with the visually fascinating concept of dreams and their possibilities in ordinary life, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" seldom explores the theme with the imagination it deserves. Walter's search, the mysteries he must solve, the completely unsurprising pat ending, and the tiresomely predictable love between him and Cheryl simply overwhelm the notion of the dream life and its connections to what we like to regard as real life, that endlessly fascinating subject for the cinema.
Prior research states that “Thurber embraces the type of masculinity that Walter idealizes in his fantasy” (“Men and Masculinity”). Walter Mitty is a poor driver, a husband who does not care, and a forgetful man (“Men and Masculinity”). He no longer puts forth effort in his marriage. People in the story treat Mitty as a grumpy older man, but he imagines himself to be no such thing, but as a great man with a bright future (“Dissatisfaction”).... ...
All of Walter’s daydreams show him being a person of power and confidence. He is always doing some great deed. This is a symbol of what he wants in life because he wishes he was what he dreams about. In real life he is just a guy who gets bossed around by his wife, but in his dreams he’s the one that bosses people around. He makes decisions and that is what he craves in reality. Walter also has two war related dreams. These symbolize his purpose in life. In his current, real situation he is not doing much. In a war he would be involved in everything. He imagines these war related scenarios multiple times because he feels that being in a war and fighting for a cause can give him a
Walter attempts to reinvent himself through his work and relationships to try and provide for his wife and family. Walter is fighting a battle within his household because he believes that Ruth, his wife, “couldn’t be on [his] side that long for nothing,” even though she is just trying to do what is best for everyone involved (Hansberry 32). Walter cannot see past his dream to realize the impact it would have on everyone else if it failed, so he drowns his sorrows in alcohol. Although “he knows the possibility of failure is also a vital part of the American success story” Walter is not just risking his own future, he is risking his child’s, mother’s and sister’s and without a second thought to his personal relationships, he blindly makes an investment on the chance of having the wealth and house he desires for everyone (Washington 98). Walter is so focused on reinventing his work life and having money that he loses sight of his family’s values and ideas. He does not care about Ruth being pregnant and the possibility of aborting their child as long as he can achieve his goals. Walter is living in a dream where he believes that “anyone can become anything he wants to be,” and that is not true in his case with the social and racial standards that are set against him (Washington 95). Walter sees wealth as ensuring happiness and having everything he desires, which is why he is pushing his family so hard for the money, causing issues. Even though all the odds are set against him in this time period, Walter cannot see past being able to provide for his family and having the American Dream that he most
‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ is about a boring man who has a lot of daydreams. It was originally a short story by James Thurber, but was also made into a movie. The way that the story is presented in both is a key factor in either’s success, and when compared, the two are very different. For example, in the short story, Walter has little to no character development, but in the movie, nearly the entire production is him being put through a lot of situations that let us see more of the true character of Walter Mitty. This example and others is what makes the movie adaptation of ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ better than that of the short story.