Walter Mitty Theme

Improved Essays
This short story has four main themes that are the contrast between a human beings hopes for life and its actuality. These themes are conveyed through the deflating disparity between Mitty’s heroic ability and in his five daydreams. In this short story Walter seems to be an excessive daydreamer. I think that he daydreams because he is so stressed out by his controlling wife. He uses his imagination to escape reality and express his emotions of anger and self-pity. Throughout the story, Walter changes into different characters several times. He flips back and forth between reality and fantasy so much he may have a problem with his attention span. Walter needs Mrs. Mitty to keep him on track but because he is a daydreamer it irritates her. I …show more content…
First daydream is as he drives his car he imagines he is commanding “a navy hydroplane” through a terrible storm his men are scared and his bravery gives them hope and courage. Second daydream Walter Mitty first imagines himself flying a Navy airplane through a terrible storm; his men are scared and his bravery gives them hope and courage. Third daydream is when Mitty imagines that he is a surgeon of great skill, overseeing an operation; when an anesthetic machine breaks, he is able to fix it, and the other doctors ask him to step in when the surgery becomes difficult. Fourth daydream is when Mitty imagines himself on trial for murder. Although he has an alibi, he is the world's greatest pistol shot and could have committed the murder with either hand; this admission results in a courtroom commotion: ...suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty's arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. "You miserable cur!" Fifth daydream is when Mitty dreams of being an ace fighter pilot, the only one left after all the other pilots are taken sick with fear. Mitty prepares to fly alone into a hail of anti-aircraft fire, the only hope of the Allies and Mitty tries to relax with a cigarette, and his subconscious places him on the wall of a firing squad. To his mind, he will never escape his tepid, ordinary life, and so he is

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