Secret Life Of Walter Mitty Analysis

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(A) Have you ever had a dream? Have you ever hoped for the best or strove for a goal? (B/C) There are many pieces focused on hope and how hope affects us. For example The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a story about the life of Walter Mitty, “...a man with great potential who has sacrificed his dreams to support his family after the death of his bankrupt father”(1, Ma). Or the documentary War Dance, which follows the life of Ugandan child refugees Rose, Dominic, and Nancy, as they try to win the song and dance national competition. (D) In this essay you will learn how hope, goals, and dreams provide people with the courage to not give up on their goals when things become challenging. (E) One Prime example of how our hopes, dreams, and goals …show more content…
In this story, an otherwise bland man named Walter Mitty is thrown into exciting and adventurous situations like fighting off a shark, being in a volcanic eruption, and climbing a mountain in the himalayas, things that he would not normally do if it wasn’t for hope. (F) When Mitty is in Greenland, searching for Sean O'connell and has to fly to the ship with an intoxicated pilot, at first he is hesitant, but after a vision of Cheryl singing to him he is given the courage to get on the helicopter. (G) In Scott Kaufman’s article “The Will and Ways of Hope”, Kaufman writes, “Hope involves the will to get there, and different ways to get there” (1). (H) Mitty has a very watered down personality, he practically lives the same day over and over again. When Mitty gets on a helicopter that has a pretty high chance of crashing all to get closer to completing his goal that requires courage that he could only have obtained through hope. (I) It was the vision of Cheryl and the realization that he would never find the negative if he didn’t get to the ship that gave him the courage to get on the helicopter to the ship. (J) When Mitty found out he had to go to Greenland he wasn’t willing because that was way out of his comfort zone. (K) In Joe Wilner’s Article “How We Lose Hope and How to Get it Back” Wilner writes, “ ...We may never have developed a healthy level of hopeful thinking. We might not have confidence and resilience set in place, and simply struggle when things prevent us from achieving our goals” (Wilner 1). (L) Before he went on his adventure, Mitty wasn’t a very hopeful or confident man. It was his goals that motivated him to take risks and have hope. (M) You can tell that Mitty never had a hopeful life from his reactions to disappointment and failure. When Mitty would lose the trail on Shawn he would just give up on his mission until he was lucky enough to happen upon a clue.
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