The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", written by the great James Thurber for The New Yorker magazine, features an iconic daydreaming protagonist who imagines himself as several different characters....

In the story, the main conflict is between Walter Mitty and his wife. This is because the entire story consists of Walter's desperate attempts to break free from his wife's control. To make his...

I believe that there are two possible answers to this question. One answer focuses on the more immediate question of what causes or triggers each imaginary fantasy, and the other answer looks...

The real-life Walter Mitty seems to be diametrically opposed to his imaginary counterparts or alter egos, but by the end shows a few similarities. One way Walter differs from his imaginary...

Walter's wife, known in the story as "Mrs. Mitty," treats Walter like an absent-minded child. She is overbearing, condescending, and critical towards Walter. But she is also Walter's link to the...

Author James Thurber is one of America’s cleverest humorists of the twentieth century. In 1939, he penned the short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” for New Yorker magazine, and it promptly...

Like many of his delusional daydreams, Walter Mitty’s courtroom dream was triggered by a specific series of events in combination. Driving his car above the speed limit set by his wife triggers his...

"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is a fictional story written by James Thurber and published in 1939. The story is about a man named Walter Mitty, who has extremely vivid daydreams that serve as...

The climax of the story is when Walter Mitty stands up to his wife and, when she is haranguing him about putting on his overshoes, says, "I was thinking...Does it ever occur to you that I am...

Walter Mitty is an ordinary man with an overly active imagination. He constantly daydreams about something more exciting than his current situation. The entire story is about a trip into town....

Walter Mitty's final daydream in which he is standing before a firing squad seems to reveal a secret death wish and to show that he is a very unhappy man. He dislikes himself, dislikes his nagging...

James Thurber's short story about a mediocre man whose fantasy life impinges upon his real life is both humorous and tragic. Immediately in the exposition, the reader is immersed into the imaginary...

The theme of a work of literature can be defined as the message a reader might take away after reading the work. With this definition in mind, the theme of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" has to...

The “pocketa-pocketa” part of his dreams is Mitty’s way of imagining the sound certain things make—it’s the sound of engine of the hydroplane, or the sound of anaesthetizing machine, or the sound...

Walter's second daydream is triggered after he drives past a hospital. In the daydream, Walter is a specialist working with other doctors to save the life of Wellington McMillan, the millionaire...

There is no mention of a clementine cake in the short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Away from his fantasies he goes to the shop to just buy dog biscuits. However, a clementine cake is an...

Walter Mitty from the book The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a shy, introverted daydreamer. He is a character who is wrapped up in his own head and is therefore unable to properly interact with...

The 2013 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty features Ben Stiller in the role of Walter Mitty and Kristen Wiig as Walter's love interest, Cheryl. The film's cinematography is beautiful and...

The famous short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber tells of a man who has one amazing, adventurous, graphic fantasy after another while out on a shopping trip with his wife....

Because Walter Mitty is so weak and hen-picked in his real life, he develops a fantasy world in which he is active and many times a hero. Putting himself in front of a firing squad would initially...

Mood is an element within a piece of literature that creates feelings in the reader. Mood is different than tone because tone refers to the author's attitude toward a subject. Sometimes mood is...

In all of Walter Mitty's daydreams he is playing an heroic leading role. It has been pointed out that the roles and settings are the kinds that would be found in popular fiction and Hollywood...

Walter Mitty's ordinary, workaday life is none too exciting. It's not surprising, then, that he wants to create, and retreat into, his own little fantasy world. In his fantasies he's everything he...

Walter Mitty's real life tasks in Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" mirror his daydreams and fantasies that allow him to escape from his mundane life of chores and pleasing his wife. For...

There are only two main characters in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," a middle-aged man and his wife. Walter Mitty himself is the most important character because the story is all about his...

In his mind, Walter imagines that he is the most capable man in the world. In his real life, he is quite incompetent. One might think that, at least occasionally, Walter would try to be competent...

“Round” characters in fiction are complex; “flat” characters are simple. “Dynamic” characters develop in some significant ways during the course of a work; “static” characters do not. Are the main...

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"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is a short story with an unusual narrative progression. It features a hen-picked protagonist who, while demure and nervous in his day-to-day life, finds himself...

The climax to this story isn't easily identified. I've read commentaries on this story that say the story doesn't have a climax. To some extent, that does make sense—the story weaves through...

The main difference between the way Walter Mitty is treated in real life and the way he is treated in his daydreams and fantasies has to do with his wife. Mitty has very little interaction with...

This is an interesting question, because it seems to infer that Mitty does change. I actually don't think there is any evidence to suggest this in this brilliant short story at all. In fact, from...

Walter Mitty is doing some shopping for his wife. He is trying to remember one of the items she told him to get. A passing newsboy is shouting something about a trial in Waterbury and Mitty...

Walter Mitty is a timid, absentminded, henpecked man who escapes from reality in daydreams. When the story opens he is driving a car but fantasizing that he is Commander of a hydroplane (which is...

In Walter Mitty's real life, he is mostly insignificant and fearful. His daydreams depict him as the opposite: adventurous, exciting, important, and full of life. He is almost treated like a child...

Walter Mitty’s life is a juxtaposition of boring normalcy and extraordinary fantasies. Mitty goes into his fantasies to escape the real world: he dreams of being a Captain, a Commander, a famous...

Mitty's last daydream is one where he is shot before a firing squad while he is smoking a cigarette. In this daydream he has the ultimate escape from his domineering wife-through his death. The...

Walter Mitty is a man who is tired of the ordinary. He dreams of something more to life. His life has turned out to be a mundane kind of existence. His wife nags him all the time and the errands he...

Walter Mitty's last daydream is of his bravely facing the firing squad. He scorns the blindfold, takes a last drag on his cigarette, and bears his breast to the bullets. Prior to this, Walter had...

While Walter Mitty is a pitiable character, he is yet one who rises from the ashes of his henpecked life with his imagination. So, there is something wrily humorous about him, yet heroic at the...

"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" juxtaposes the extraordinary daydreams of its protagonist with the mundane realities of life. In his imagination, life is exciting,but in reality, it is boring....

Mrs. Mitty's first lines in the story are "not so fast! You're driving too fast . . . What are you driving so fast for?" However, it would be a mistake to say that Mrs Mitty only berates and barks...

In James Thurber's entertaining short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," the main character's daydreams remove him from the irritations of his mundane life by providing him with an heroic...

First, you have to uncover what is happening. The most likely scenario is you are reading about a man who is emasculated by his wife. She is constantly harping on him about forgetting things:...

I believe that this question is asking for literary devices. You could pick any sentence in the story, and it would apply to diction. Diction refers to an author's word choice. Diction is important...

Walter Mitty's daydreams are inspired by what is happening in his real life. For instance, when he is driving his wife to an appointment, he daydreams he is commanding a crew flying through a...