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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…
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
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”
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a uniquely structured short story that does not incorporate a climax, yet exhibits the use of a resolution. Throughout the story, Walter Mitty has numerous daydream-fantasies, and they can all be contrasted to his mundane experiences in his dull life, such as when Walter waits outside of a drugstore for his wife and fantasizes into a world where he dies being known as “the Undefeated”.(37) The main underlying conflict is that Walter is sickened by his dull lifestyle and mentally escapes to fantasize into a world beyond life’s parameters, and his imagination is not hindered by any aspects of reality. This is displayed through his fantasies, especially the two where he is powering/controlling a Navy hydroplane,
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
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.
Walter Mitty captured by interest because James Thurber's uses a day-dreamer who escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. His wife, Mrs. Mitty, has a forceful personality and runs Walter's life. Walter has no real identity other than what his wife will allow. He daydreams of being in other positions to flee all the things in life and make up he's own. I firmly believe day dreaming can do all of the above. Daydreaming removes one from their current situation and takes them to a place of comfort and satisfaction that no one can reach ex...
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”