The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Held at Gunpoint Levi Martin 9th Grade

In James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” the contrast between Mitty represented as a brave hero in his daydreams and Mitty as a cowardly mouse in real life suggests that his daydreams cause him to lose touch with reality, to the point where he is no longer in control of his life or his daydreams. In his “daydreams,” he often imagines that he is more powerful and skilled than he is in reality, and his reality is so influenced by his wife that his imagination takes over and creates an alternate reality where he feels more important and needed. This alternate reality is what allows him to cope even with the stresses his wife puts on him every day.

In one of his daydreams, where he is on trial for an accused murder, “Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. ‘With any known make of a gun ,’ he said evenly, ‘I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.’ Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty’s arms” (3). Mitty, in his daydreams, he acts as a overconfident, highly-skilled man. He is the hero and main focal point of these adventures. He acts as though he could have shot Gregory from a great distance with any...