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Literary analysis: character "the secret life of walter mitty
The secret life of walter mitty character traits
The secret life of walter mitty character traits
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“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a short story written by James Thurber that follows the main character, Walter Mitty, during a trip into town with his wife. Thurber brings the reader through Mitty’s normal day with interruptions of his daydreams, revealing who he is and how he feels about his life. Throughout this short story, Mitty’s reality is interrupted with vivid daydreams that are opposite to his life. As the story progresses and he continues to switch between daydreaming and real life, it is clear that in his daydreams he is more powerful and important than in his life. Whether he is more appreciated or in control, the dreams paint him as everything he isn’t, or maybe wishes to be. In example, the story opens up with a daydream of him being a really important navy commander trying to get his crew out of a tough situation. His crew looks up to him, seeing him as fearless, and they fully believe he has what it takes to get them out of the situation that they are in. However, in …show more content…
reality all of the other people introduced in the story ridicule him. So why exactly does Mitty daydream? Constantly reoccurring in the short story, Mitty is the exact opposite of the Mitty in his daydreams.
During the first dream, he is in command and the crew believes in him; however, once the dream is over, it is the complete opposite with his wife. Mrs. Mitty tells him to go get shoes that he doesn’t need and to put on gloves he doesn’t want to wear, and he listens to her without much hesitation. Along with his role being an exact opposite in his dream compared to real life, parts of his personality and self are opposites. For example, he is embarrassed when he speaks aloud after remembering something and goes to a store out of his way to distance himself from the people who laughed at him, but in the daydream that opened he was on a witness stand, calm and collected. Each dream is followed by a segment of his real life, where he acts the completely different than he would have in the daydream. This indicates that Mitty daydreaming is a way of escaping the negative life he
lives. James Thurber wrote Walter Mitty as a man with a dull life where he is controlled by his wife and looked down on by others, which resulted in Mitty to daydream throughout the day. Daydreaming for Witty is his way of escaping the life that he isn’t happy in.
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.
In the chapter “ The Upside of Dreaming” from her book Rethinking Positive Thinking, Gabriele Oettingen explains how positive fantasies are beneficial. Oettingen started out with a story of a college graduate. The college graduate Rachael was dealing with a heartbroken experience with seeing her boyfriend going to jail for selling drugs. Rachael felt as if she had a stay by her boyfriend’s side. She dreamt that the judge or the prosecutor was saying something bad about her boyfriend, Tim and giving him a lot of time in jail. Rachel wanted to defend him, but she knew couldn’t help him.Tim finally went to jail.
A dream is a deep ambition and desire for something; everybody tries to reach their dreams no matter how far away they may seem. The characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s stories strive for nothing less than “The Great American Dream”. This is the need to be the best of the best, top of the social ladder, and to be happier and more successful than anyone has been before. Fitzgerald writes about this American Dream that every character has but can never achieve; the dream is kept unattainable due to obstacles, the disadvantages of being low on the social ladder, and also the restrictions of having a high social status.
The dreams start occurring in the very beginning of Invisible Man. In the infamous "Reefer Dream", IM talks about a dream he had after he used narcotics. In this bizarre dream, IM hears a speech on "the blackness of black", is assaulted by the son of a former slave, and is run over by a speeding machine. All of this occurs while listening to "What Did I Do To Be So Black and Blue?"(pgs 9-12). This is one of the most significant dreams in the book.
Life is about finding yourself, each other, and being true to one’s self. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is an extremely original and creative story written by James Thurber. The movie, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, starring Ben Stiller, conveys a daydreamer escaping his typical life by disappearing into a realm of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. In both the movie and the book, the title character retreats into fantasy as an escape from his mundane reality because in the real world, he is ordinary, insecure, and passive. In the short story, Walter simply retreats into his daydreams and tolerates his domineering wife, while in the movie he actively pursues finding himself.
With a cursory glance this dreams sounds marvelous. “This young man has a fine destiny in front of him,” we might say. Joseph was a promising boy and he knew it. He was his father’s favorite. We know this because none of his brothers were given a coat of such striking colors to wear. Apparently, Joseph wore it everywhere he went. It became a bit annoying to his siblings. It was like he was rubbing his father’s special affection for him in their face. He seemed to taunt his brothers with his dreams, too. Even his parents grew tired of his arrogance and
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” expresses the theme that satisfaction is harder for those who are not normal. With all of Walter Mitty’s daydreams in between everything that he does, it shows that his actual life is lacking something that he desires.
Have you ever stopped for a moment to contemplate where you are in life? If you haven’t, then take a moment right now to imagine where you are and where you would like to be. All of the actions you have taken, thoughts you have had, and the persona you convey have created the life you have lived thus far. In the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the main character Walter Mitty has a habit of daydreaming to escape his mediocre life for a more “enhanced” life where he fantasizes about a richer and more rewarding existence. Throughout the film, Walter is able to foster
Oprah Winfrey once said, “The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” But, what actually is a dream and what do dreams really have to do with one’s everyday life? In essence, a dream is a series of mental images and emotions occurring during slumber. Dreams can also deal with one’s personal aspirations, goals, ambitions, and even one’s emotions, such as love and hardship. However, dreams can also give rise to uneasy and terrible emotions; these dreams are essentially known as nightmares. In today’s society, the concept of dreaming and dreams, in general, has been featured in a variety of different mediums, such as literature, film and even music. While the mediums of film and music are both prime examples of this concept, the medium of literature, on the other hand, contains a much more diverse set of examples pertaining to dreams and dreaming. One key example is William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While the portrayal of dreams, in general, plays a prominent role in Shakespeare’s play, the exploration of many aspects of nature, allows readers to believe that dreams are merely connected to somewhat unconventional occurrences.
Dreams have long been a topic of intrigue for artists of all forms. In the literary sense, authors have explored the world of dreams in a plethora of manners, ranging from depicting nonsensical, imaginary worlds to crafting scenes that depict the inner workings of the subconscious mind. In both Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Artist of the Beautiful, the world of dreams is explored through the eyes and thoughts of two curious characters. While Carroll exposes the illogical, absurd elements present in dreams, Hawthorne focuses on the personal, meaningful aspects existing in subconscious thoughts.
Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is a play about segregation, triumph, and coping with personal tragedy. Set in Southside Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun focuses on the individual dreams of the Younger family and their personal achievement. The Younger's are an African American family besieged by poverty, personal desires, and the ultimate struggle against the hateful ugliness of racism. Lena Younger, Mama, is the protagonist of the story and the eldest Younger. She dreams of many freedoms, freedom to garden, freedom to raise a societal-viewed equal family, and freedom to live liberated of segregation. Next in succession is Beneatha Younger, Mama's daughter, assimilationist, and one who dreams of aiding people by breaking down barriers to become an African American female doctor. Lastly, is Walter Lee Younger, son of Mama and husband of Ruth. Walter dreams of economic prosperity and desires to become a flourishing businessman. Over the course of Walter's life many things contributed to his desire to become a businessman. First and foremost, Walter's father had a philosophy that no man should have to do labor for another man. Being that Walter Lee was a chauffeur, Big Walter?s philosophy is completely contradicted. Also, in Walter?s past, he had the opportunity to go into the Laundromat business which he chose against. In the long run, he saw this choice was fiscally irresponsible this choice was. In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Walter Lee's dreams, which are his sole focus, lead to impaired judgement and a means to mend his shattered life.
‘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.
Though dreams are usually considered to be pleasant distractions, the man believes that good dreams draw you from reality and keep you from focusing on survival in the real world. The man’s rejection of dreams and refusal to be drawn into a distraction from his impending death exemplifies the futility of trying to escape; McCarthy presents dreams and memories as an inevitable conundrum not to be trusted. The man’s attitude towards dreams is established from the beginning of the novel. When battling with a recurring dream of his “pale bride” the man declares that “the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death” (18). To the man, the life he lives in is so horrible that he believes that his dreams, in turn, must...
...dreams – not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.”
Have you ever thought about why we daydream? I myself have had series of thoughts wondering why I daydream. Daydreaming are a steam of thoughts and Images that occupy most of a person’s waking hours. The stream of consciousness personally reflects on the world and visualizes the future. Some say that daydreaming can be bad and get in the way. They think that daydreaming is just nothing but a “cloud of thoughts” in other words a waste of time. But daydreams are more or less realistic and unintentional thoughts of the daydreamer’s life. Daydreaming is a way to escape reality, and maybe can help plan for the future.