The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Jack Angle
ENG125 Introduction to Literature
Prof. Matthew Norsworthy
November 10, 2013
Walter Mitty is a story about a man who habitually daydreams. In his daydreams, he is the opposite of his normal, somewhat meek self. In the short story, Walter Mitty day dreamt that he was the pilot of a Navy hydroplane, a world famous surgeon, a suspect in a high profile murder case, a captain of a war plane facing heavy enemy fire and finally a defiant prisoner who is facing a firing squad. Through his adventures, he captures the reader’s imagination.
From the first word in the “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, the author captures the reader by creating imagination from what happens to Walter. Readers are connected by Walter Mitty’s imagination and humorous approach to the people he interacted with, including his wife. Walter and those he communicated with in his real life wasn’t what it should be. When his wife would speak to him, he would look at her as if she were unfamiliar to him and he didn’t know her or what she was talking about. During one of his daydreams, he almost got into a car accident. Luckily, he was awoke by a parking attendant that was able to stop the accident from happening.
Walter Mitty captures the readers imagination by not knowing what he was going to do next. In one moment, he is dropping his wife off for a hair appointment, the next moment he’s an infamous doctor performing surgery on the millionaire banker friend of President Roosevelt.
Through Walter’s imagination, he thought that he was smarter
