Why Does Walter Mitty Choose To Escape From Reality The Way They Do?

Why do the “Poor relation” and “Walter Mitty” choose to escape from reality the way they do? How successful are they?

The short stories of The Poor Relation and Walter Mitty are similar in many ways. In both stories they escape to their imaginary life through visual ques or enthusiasm for what their life could have been. Both men use the dream world to escape from reality as they are unhappy with their current or past life. Escaping from reality allows them a surge of excitement and a sense of meaning that neither of them are able to experience in the real world due to unfortunate circumstances.

The Poor Relation escapes in the context of a story he is telling to a gathering with family and friends. He is “very reluctant” to step up in front

He imagines and persuades himself that his life is in fact very different in number of contrasting ways. His daydreams, in a similar fashion to The Poor Relation are about his regrets, and his unachieved aspects of his life. Walter Mitty’s dreams are based on impossible scenarios such as him becoming a world class surgeon or “the greatest pistol shot in the world”. These thoughts stretch reality as they are so ridiculous. Walter Mitty aspires to live his dreams, showing that he has a far larger imagination than that of poor relations. This shows that Mitty is much more confident and open-minded than the Poor Relation and is willing to make an effort in life whereas the Poor Relation seems to have given up on his hopes and dreams. This is why his daydreams are of such an insane manor, because he is more enthusiastic and hopeful to make his dreams a reality compared to the Poor Relation.

Mitty doesn’t fully understand that he is daydreaming so he doesn’t have to make all his stories sensible allowing for a very high level of emersion, resulting in much further stretched dreams. He zones out completely from the real world and when knocked back into consciousness he is very confused and can’t remember what is actually happening, waking up with a disorientated “hmmm” remark. This further proves that Mitty is much more involved in his dreams

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.

The main problem in his life at the moment is whether or not to “get those overshoes”. This is an example of the tedious events that Walter Mitty has to endure. Walter’s wife likes to boss Walter around, “you were up to fifty-five, you know I don’t like to go more than forty” just because it displeases her. This is another example of Walter being able to experience freedom through dreams as in real life he doesn’t want to displease his wife.

His constant daydreams into another world often result in him making mistakes, for example not being able to park. It is as a result of Walter’s short attention span that he often feels made fun off and mocked by people that are being “so damn cocky”. He is so paranoid he thinks to himself about “wearing a cast on his right arm” to see if people laugh at him then. He feels unwanted and this makes him stressed resulting in a further need to transport into a different world where peoples opinion of him are very different and he is admired among