Walter Mitty Essay

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Daydreaming is something that everybody does to escape reality from time to time, and it has been proven to have many benefits. Daydreaming gives the ability to be more creative by working both sides of the brain. It can also remind a person of their future goals and ambitions. Daydreams help to ease some bad memories as well. James Thurber takes this simple idea of daydreaming and applies it to his famous short story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." The story follows Walter Mitty through his daydreams, allowing him to take the roles of bold and courageous people. To this day, the affable daydreamer's legacy lives on with his name even being in the dictionary. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" has also seen multiple movie remakes with one being released recently. While daydreaming is something that everybody does, the way Walter Mitty daydreams excessively is dangerous to him and people around him, especially when driving. It also affects Walter Mitty socially when he blocks out his surrounding and goes into a reverie when around other people. In the recent movie and the short story, Walter Mitty uses his daydreams to escape from a life that he is dissatisfied with into an alternate world where he can delve into his aspirations. Walter Mitty expresses his dissatisfaction towards his life through his daydreams because he wants to have excitement and accomplishments, power and authority, and he wants to be a person or have traits that he lacks.

In both the short story and the movie, Walter Mitty is dissatisfied with his life, so he uses his daydreams to bring him excitement and accomplishment. In the short story, Walter Mitty takes the role of several different people in his daydreams such as a doctor performing surgery on a ...

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...Mitty to escape the life that he is discontent with. However, his daydreaming does not solve the main problem for Walter Mitty. In the short story, he has trouble with his lack of confidence. The only way he can solve this problem is to try to do something that has meaning where he could be successful in. In the movie, Walter Mitty main problem is that he does not take initiative. However, he is able to overcome this weakness with the influence of his coworker, which he likes a lot. While daydreaming may not always be a way to bring accomplishment to real life, it does serve as a reminder of some of the future goals and ambitions, which has an important role in the movie. Walter Mitty's character continues to be a reminder that daydreaming is something that everybody does to escape reality every once in a while and he will be happily looked back on for years to come.

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