There's something significant about the fact that it's the voice of his wife that jolts Walter out of his first fantasy. Mrs. Mitty is so much more grounded than her husband; she has no time whatsoever for the imaginative dream world he enters into with such alarming frequency. One gets the impression that she's the one who wears the pants in this particular marriage, and that Walter retreats into his fantasies as a way of escaping from an overbearing wife.

At the time that the story was written, men were expected to be the dominant partner in a marriage. Yet in the Mitty marriage, that's clearly not the case, and so the only way that Walter can live out the traditional male role expected of him by society is by retreating into a dream-world, where he gets to be in control.

In Walter Mitty's first day dream, he is in the middle of a storm. He is an imposing figure, a naval commander wearing a rakishly angled cap, and he is piloting a hydroplane. The crew, fearful that the storm might be a hurricane, depend on his leadership. His technical expertise is obvious as he gives orders to the crew members. They work diligently and are confident that their commander will get them through.

"Not so fast!" someone interjects into the scene.

This is not an airplane crew member. It is Walter's wife telling him to slow down. Walter and his wife are in their car, and his fast driving has alarmed her. Walter is not taking bold risks on a daring mission, but instead driving his wife on errands in Connecticut.

What distraction interrupts Mitty's first daydream in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"?

Insofar as one need only read the first two paragraphs of James Thurber's short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty to discover the source of the interruption in the protagonist's daydream, the answer is pretty simple to find. As Thurber's classic tale of a man routinely escaping his dreary daily existence through the use of his very active imagination begins, the reader is immediately placed inside of a military aircraft, a Navy hydroplane, during a dangerous maneuver. The plane's crew, including "the Commander" and "Lieutenant Berg," is battling hostile conditions, their lives clearly in danger from the brutal, winter weather that is causing ice to form on the pilot's window. The scene is frightening, and exciting. It is interrupted, however, by the following comment:

"Not so fast. You're driving too fast. . .What are you driving so fast for?"

This admonition comes from the wife of the man driving their car, during which time his mind has wandered and he has escaped reality once again only to be abruptly brought back to the present. Walter Mitty lives every man's nightmare. He is married to a domineering, demanding wife who insists on micromanaging his life, and one can assume that he is stuck in menial dead-end job suitable an individual of limited capabilities. This first dream in Thurber's story ends, as will another, with Mitty's wife destroying yet another fantasy.