Conflict is inevitable in Life
Conflict is inevitable in life. It can be described as “the struggle either within or between characters that is often the basis of the plot of a play or story” (Quinn 1). One can also experience conflict through trials and witness it in others lives. An example where it is witnessed is in the short story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” To understand Walter Mitty’s life full of struggle and perseverance one must first realize how many times he comes into conflict with the real world around him. These conflicts are shown through man facing different obstacles.
Kathleen Wilson states that James Thurber's best known story is “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (184). With that in mind it sets an expectation for
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Nature (Wilson 186). In the first of many daydreams, Mitty is a crew member fighting against nature when the ship has to go through the middle of a hurricane. James Thurber displays this when he writes, "we're going through!" The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. "We can't make it, sir." It's spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me" (86). The Commander goes on to tell Mitty’s, "I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg," said the Commander. The Commander then gives the order to, "Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We're going through!" (Thurber 86). Pearson also sees natural disasters such as droughts, earthquakes, and floods as fights against nature (107). Then states Pearson continues to say one should “Pick and choose [its] fights with nature” (107). In the second daydream, Mitty is a surgeon operating on a patient with a time limit because of a malfunction in a piece of equipment. When the equipment malfunctions the room goes into frantic because no one knows hot to fix it but “Dr.Mitty” steps in and temporarily fixs it so the operation can be finished (Thurber 88). James Thurber goes on to make Mitty the hero in the room when the other surgeon says, "If you would take over, Mitty?" Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave, uncertain …show more content…
He will be in the middle of daydreaming when a character either startles him or judges him for how he is acting. This cause many man vs. man conflicts (Wilson 196).The first instance is when Walter Mitty is driving around and starts having his second daydream. He comes back to the present world as a parking lot attendant yelled at him. He yelled because he went in a lane marked "Exit Only" and he tried to enter. The guy yelled "Back it up, mack. Look out for that Buick" (Wilson 196). This is an incident where Walter Mitty has conflict with man because he does not pay attention to his surrounding while he is engaged in his daydream. Then Walter recalls a time when he had tried to fix something on his own without the help of another man. The result ended badly because he messed up and had to get help (WIlson 196). Walter Mitty comes up with a plan to not seem like a weak man. He decides that he will wear his right arm sling so he can ask someone for help to get the chains off. This shows him not wanting to look weak to other men (Wilson 196). Walter Mitty is in his third daydream when he remembers the item on his wife's shopping list that he did not get. In the middle of his daydream, he exclaims "Puppy Biscuit!" A woman passing by mocks him to her friend and questions why he said it to himself (Wilson 196). He does not let the judgement she has towards him affect him though. Thurber
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
The main conflict of the story is one that affects everyone. Samuel Westing puts 16 heirs up to the task to find out who murdered him, but no one can solve this horrendous crime, this is the main conflict of the story. This type of conflict is person versus person, where it is each heir against the other. All of the heirs have the problem and the problem is not
Explain how the conflict arises and go on to discuss in detail how the writer uses it to explore an important theme.
Mitty is just nagging Walter and does not really respect him at all. However they would be wrong. In a part of the short story it states, “Something struck his shoulder. ‘I’ve been looking all over this hotel for you,’ said Mrs. Mitty. ‘Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you”(Thurber 7 8)? This might look to some as she is nagging him of where he was and why he was not in plain sight, but she is actually very worried about him. She knows of his daydreams, however does not know exactly of what her husband is daydreaming about. This worries her, and how he almost has several accidents in the streets, and cannot remember simple things because of them, she worries his mental health is extremely fragile. That it could snap at any moment, with one, little, daydream. This proves that Mrs. Mitty truly cares for Water, and wishes him no
The main category of conflict is character vs self. This is when a character has an internal problem. They fight throughout the story to overcome that problem. The first example of character vs self is Elie. Throughout the story Elie is fighting himself to keep himself going. This is because of all the things happening around him. It drove him to the point where he almost gave up because his legs were
a) Man against Man: The only instance in the story that fits this category is the conflict Guy has with his boss. His boss, Beatty begins to suspect Guy's illegal reading of contraband and begins to take steps for Guy's downfall. First of all Beatty is much smarter and well learned than Guy so he begins to play mind games to try and trip him up. He also forces Guy to burn his house and tries to arrest him. Guy comes out on top and wins the conflict by setting his boss on fire.
There are numerous reasons as to why Walter Mitty suffers from maladaptive daydreaming. Firstly, Walter's daydreams are excessively detailed and which is a common symptom of those who suffer from maladaptive daydreaming. In Walter's daydreams imagery is used to create a vivid picture of the daydream in the reader's mind so that it seems as if Walter is actually experiencing the situation he is daydreaming about. For example, in Walter's third daydream he plays Captain Mitty, a character fighting in a war. In this daydream specific expressions such as "the war thundered and whined" "the pounding of the cannon; the rat-tat-tatting of machine guns" "the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame throwers" confirm that Walter Mitty's daydreams are much more detailed than those of regular daydreamers proving
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
In John Knowles’s novel, A separate peace, all the types of conflict were shown through the main character Gene. Gene had countless battles between other characters and the society of his time, which in turn created conflicts within himself. These unfortunate events eventually changed Gene, and he could no longer return to his old self. Conflict is a dangerous subject because it can change not only your own self, but also the things around
We can see throughout the story that he daydreams about all these different scenarios, including: navy pilot commander, doctor, sharpshooter, bomber pilot, and noble victim of a firing squad. It states in the outside source, “Mitty is married to a woman who treats him more like a child than a husband. This is due to his immature tendency to escape into fantasies rather than live in the real world.” This quote is impactful because we can infer if he didn't have a nagging wife, that's constantly on him, he probably would've had a better life, instead of imaging about interesting missions.
Conflict, by definition, is a back and forth struggle between two opposing forces. In the literary work, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, it is clear, the protagonist, George Milton, undergoes many conflicts that lead to the novel’s overall purpose. Steinbeck weaves together George’s conflicts with others, himself, and with society to illustrate what the true meaning of friendship is.
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. Walter Mitty, a timid, passive, henpecked husband, embarrassingly incompetent at ordinary tasks, constantly falls into daydreams in which he assumes such heroic roles as flying through a storm, shooting down German aircraft, and performing delicate surgery.
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
The daydreams in the movie were shorter and less detailed sometimes, but this made them simpler and more understandable for the viewer. This also makes for the daydreams to go along with the plot, and for the transition between each to really get across the point that Walter is always going on and out of his daydreams at random times. The daydreams in the short story, though they were good, because there was a lack of plot, they didn’t seem to relate to anything except that Walter was a boring man with an overactive imagination, and frankly, that doesn’t make much for a story. For example, at the beginning of the movie, Walter hears a dog barking, and imagines the building behind him is burning, and he saves the day by warning everyone about it. In the book, however, it starts off in the middle of a daydream that doesn’t even sensibly seem to go along with what’s happening in Walter’s life, as it’s him as a commander. This doesn’t make sense because Walter, from what we know, has never been in any form of the military, and the sound of a horn on a car reminding him of a foghorn on a navy ship just doesn’t make sense. The movie’s daydreams went along with the plot, and as the plot progressed and got more exciting, the daydreams started to do the opposite in a way. It was a nice touch for the movie to show how Walter went from being a