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Critique essay on the secret life of walter mitty
The secret life of walter mitty analyze
The characteristics of the main characters in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
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“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. The theme is presented all through the story by the setting. Whenever Walter went somewhere or passed a certain place, a daydream would be triggered. In his daydreams he was in many different places, doing different things. After dropping his wife off at the hairdresser, Walter passes a hospital. At the sight of the hospital, Walter begins to daydream that he is a well-known doctor. He is clearly regarded as great doctor for many achievements. He is also the one of higher importance because as soon as the anesthetizer begins to malfunction Walter is the one that everyone looks to. Near the end of the story while he waits for his wife in a hotel, he sees a magazine about World War I, which then catapults him into another daydream of him being a valiant soldier. Also while Walter is walking on the sidewalk, he hears the newsboy shouting about the Waterbury trial which leads him into a daydream about being a defendant. Walter is not satisfied with where he is and …show more content…
has a sense of adventure, but knows he is never going to get out of where he is. Another way the theme is presented is by the characterization of Walter Mitty. Walter is portrayed as a man without a backbone. He is dominated by his wife who orders him around about what to do while she goes and gets her hair done. He is clearly unhappy about the situation giving the story a melancholy mood when Walter is not in a daydream. It is obvious that he is very dependent on his wife though. After he purchases his overshoes, that Mrs. Mitty forced him to buy, he knows that he supposed to buy something that his wife requested, but forgot what it was. In the story it says, “He gave up. But she would remember it.” He is relying on her to remember things for him to do. Also his daydreams show that Walter is very indecisive. All of his fantasies are about completely different scenarios. This shows that he does want to do something more with his life, he just does not know what he desires. At the end of the story it says “Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing on his lips, he faced the firing squad....” This shows that as a character, Walter has grown and become aware of what he has to do in order to become satisfied with his life, but he knows that it will be challenging to do, but worth the risk. Symbols are used in the story to express the theme in the story as well.
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
purpose.
In the short story, “ The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty” written by James Thurber, it describes a man who while in the midst of everyday life, floats off into daydream that often cause him more trouble than it is worth. His wife, Mrs. Mitty, on the surface does not seem like a well-rounded character. It always seems her life’s mission is to demean Walter and to always use her overbearing nature to nag him. However, there may be more to this character than what meets the eye. I believe that Mrs. Mitty is actually a well-rounded character in the fact that she only acts the way she does only for her husband and his well-being.
His position in life can be regarded as symbolic of every black male struggling to provide for his family by any means necessary. Although Walter has a job, it seems inadequate for his survival. As a result, he has become frustrated and lacks good judgement. Throughout this play, Walter searches for the key ingredient that will make his life blissful. His frustrations stem from him not being able to act as a man and provide for his family and grasp hold of his ideals to watch them manifest into a positive situation.
In the beginning of the novel, the dreams feature things that have been lost. Papa dreams about his wife, saying “She wore a dress of gauze and her dark hair was carried up in combs of ivory, combs of shell. Her smile, her downturned eyes”
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.
One can infer from this moment that Walter is hav... ... middle of paper ... ... that same rhythm throughout. Whereas in the movie, his fantasies play in active role of pursuing his quest of finding the missing negative for the last Times magazine edition- or he loses his job.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a thought provoking tale of fantasy and reality. Walter Mitty guides the reader, though his conscious and unconscious mind that show who he is and who he wants to be. These contradictions of the real and fantasy life’s that plays out show how real life and fantasy life differ from Walter Mitty. In the secret life of Walter Mitty, the fantasies of Mitty differs from the real life Walter Mitty in three significant ways.
Walter starts off daydreaming in the novel only to be woken from this state by a shocked and somewhat angry wife. His wife being mad at him because he started daydreaming while he was driving. Mrs. Mitty isn’t at all secretive that she doesn’t like her husband very much, let alone his habit of going into his own little world. As well as the novel, Walter is made fun of for his daydreaming by his co-workers in the movie. His new co-worker Ted especially picks on him, he calls Walter, “Major Tom”, relating to the song “Space Oddity” by David Bowie. Tom even goes so far as to throw a paper clip at Walter when he’s daydreaming to see if he’ll even
Life has many wonderful attributes, we each shape our lives by making different choices. Whether they be good or bad they decide what we become and who we are, no two people have the same lives. In the Secret Life of Walter Mitty,a comedy-adventure film, these choices are explored in depth, by Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller speaks about many different topics throughout the story, such as longing for others and the influence of people. As the movie flows onwards, the character changes becoming dynamic and his true self, he becomes adventurous and daring. Walter Mitty made many life choices to get to where he is, a great factor in his decisions was the influence of others.
James Thurber and Ambrose Bierce both show identical connections with their short stories. In the short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Peyton Farquhar is on the railroad bridge about to be hanged with northern soldiers around. Right before he dies, he starts to think about his wife and kids, and why is he there. He uses his imagination thoroughly in the story and we find out that it was all a dream and he died in the end. In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Walter also uses his imagination to be better in life. Daydreaming helps ease the minds of both of these main characters. In these two stories, the protagonist’s show how dreaming can help get out of the real life as well as boosting self-esteem. Being happy is what the main
It is important to talk about the fundamental individuals life, what they have been through, and lastly, how this affected the characters. In the “Killings” it showed us that Matt’s youngest son Frank passed away and wanted revenge from the murderer in the ending when he accomplished his plan to kill Richard Strout he felt guiltiness and regret. In “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” Mitty is an ordinary person just like everyone else in the real world. He has some complications between him and his wife and the people around are usually mean and greedy. He escapes into a series of five whimsical fantasies. From these five dreams that he has imagined Mitty has a very innovative creative
However, when Walter first tells of his goal, they sound more absurd than ambitious. His initial requests involve that his mother gave him the ten thousand dollar insurance payoff received from his father’s death, but as the play goes a deeper need is made visible. Despite the money and materialistic wants, Walter feels that none of his family has faith in him. This causes him to be rude and lash out at the ones he cares about. He feels that if no one around him believes in him, how can he believe in himself. How can he prove himself worthy if he is never given the chance too? Walter wants control, and he wants to feel like his family thinks he
In the story we see him going shopping and doing errands while “his wife went to get her hair cut”. This seems to be an often routine, as Thurber describes the real life sections of the story in an uneventful, repetitive manor. With a boring and repetitive life, the only way to escape this harsh reality is through Walter’s elaborate daydreams, giving him an impression of freedom that he otherwise couldn’t experience.
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 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
Through the film we follow Walter on his journey and are subject not only to the reality of the situations that he finds himself in and the experiences that he is accumulating, we are also subjected to the daydream like situations that Walter is seeing in his figment of reality in which due to the fact that out of his view of not doing anything noteworthy in his life he then projects his dreamlike and amazing fantasy form of reality out into the world for us to see and experience. For example, in one scene of the movie Walter is talking on the phone with a technical advisor for a dating site in which he is having difficulties with, and the technical advisor states to the fact that Walter had left most of his profile blank, to which he replies that he hadn’t done anything noteworthy enough in his life to fill his page with. As Walter says this we are cast out into his dreamlike subjective reality on what he thinks would be optimal for him and noteworthy as he dives off of the subway terminal and into a building and saves the dog of his romantic interest as it explodes behind him and is forced back into the “real”