The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
James Thurber
Connect to your Life
 Why do you daydream
 DAYDREAMS
 Most people daydream and use daydreams
as some form of escape.
 Authors write about universal behaviors in
order to create characters and situations
that have universal appeal. Humorists do
this with absurdities or incongruities that
they observe in human nature.
Connect to your life
 James Thurber was a humorist who liked to
write about peculiarities and quirks of
behavior he found in humanity.
 In his short story, “The Secret Life of
Walter Mitty,” Thurber created a character
whose daydreams contrast dramatically and
comically with his actual life. It’s going to be
your job to figure out why he’s doing it, what
starts it, and stops it.
Background
 Who hasn't gotten through a boring day by imagining they
were somewhere else, someone else, doing something
different? Whether you pretend you're decoding spy codes
when finishing your calculus homework, or that you're a
dangerous Mafioso when your mother makes you take out
the garbage, or that you're an FBI agent gathering intel
when you're waiting in line at the supermarket, you
probably know what we're talking about. The imagination is
something we all use – possibly something we all need – to
make our lives more interesting.
Background Continued
 Some view "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" as the
endearing story of a loveable man whose rather
humorous, dramatic fantasies are harmlessly
employed to get him through a dull day of errands.
Others see darker themes at work here. Perhaps
the story's message is that a dreamer can't survive
in this world; or maybe that dreams are insufficient
to compensate for what bothers us in reality. Any
way you cut it, there are tough questions and
hilarity to be found in "The Secret Life of Walter
Mitty."
SETTING
 1939 or 1940
 New England
CHARACTERS




Walter Mitty
Mrs. Mitty
Walter Mitty is the protagonist
Mrs. Mitty and his daydreams are the
antagonists
Read “ The Secret Life of Walter
Mitty”
Key Vocabulary
 1. Pandemonium –
 2. Disdain –
 3. Inscrutable –
Answer the following questions
 1. What is Walter Mitty saying about life
when he imagines himself in front of a firing
squad?
 2. What type of marriage does Walter Mitty
have?
Outline Activity
 There is no plot chart for “The Secret Life of
Walter Mitty" , it is too crazy to plot
Summary
 "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" tells the story of
the aging Walter Mitty on a trip into town with his
overbearing wife, Mrs. Mitty. Walter is inept at
many things; he is an absent-minded driver, he
can't handle simple mechanical tasks, and he
forgets things easily. What makes Walter
exceptional is his imagination.
Summary Continued
 While Walter goes through a day of ordinary tasks and
errands, he escapes into a series of romantic fantasies,
each spurred on by some mundane reality. As he drives
his car, he imagines he is commanding "a Navy
hydroplane" through a terrible storm (1). When he rides
past a hospital, he imagines he is a world-famous surgeon
saving a VIP's life. When he hears a newsboy shouting
about a trial, he imagines he is a crack shot being
interrogated in the courtroom. As he waits for his wife to
finish at the hairdresser's, Walter sees pictures of German
plane and imagines he is a British pilot willing to sacrifice
his life for his country.
Summary Continued
 Lastly, as Mitty waits outside against a wall
for his wife to buy something in a drugstore,
he fantasizes that he is a bold and brave
man about to be shot by a firing squad. The
story ends with the inscrutable Walter Mitty
awaiting this romantic death.
POINT OF VIEW:
 3rd person (limited Omniscient)
 "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is told by an
uninvolved third person narrator, though that point
of view is limited to Walter Mitty. We follow Mitty
through his day, and we only get to see or know
the things that Mitty himself sees or knows. The
result, in this story, is that the narration puts us on
Walter's side. We feel closer to him because we're
getting the story through his point of view. Though
the narration is, technically, third person, many of
the events are filtered through Walter's eyes.
CONFLICT
 Internal--- Walter vs. his daydream
 External– Walter vs. his nagging wife
Pocketa-Pocketa-Pocketa…
 We first hear this sound in reference to the "Navy hydroplane" that
Walter steers through a violent storm; he imagines it's the "pounding of
the cylinders" (1). Later, in Walter's fantasy surgery, the "new
anesthetizer" gives way and makes the same sound (6). Finally, when
Mitty imagines himself a British pilot, flame-throwers make the same
noise. It might be that this is the sound of the car engine, which Walter
first hears when he's driving into town with his wife – although we do
hear the "pocketa pocketa" again when Walter is sitting in the lobby,
not in his car.
Regardless of where the "pocketa pocketa" originates, we do know that
the sound provides a solid link between the real world and Walter's
fantasies, as well as a common link between his multiple fantasies. It's
one of the many comic elements of the story – the same funny sound
cropping up over and over again – and it lends a tangible, permanent
element to Mitty's various fantasies.
Mitty's Bumbling Jargon
 Mitty fantasizes about being a Commander or a pilot or a
surgeon or a crack shot, but in fact, he is none of these
things. And as such, he doesn't really know what he's
talking about. When he imagines being a surgeon, for
example, he fantasizes that "Coreopsis has set in" (6). This
isn't so much a disease as it is…a plant, rather similar to a
daisy. And the gun Walter imagines in the courtroom? A
"Webley-Vickers 50.80," or a gun with a three-foot barrel
(10). Again, this is part of the humor of "The Secret Life of
Walter Mitty." His fantasies read more like exaggerated
parodies of adventure stories than like genuine drama.
Overshoes and Gloves
 Mrs. Mitty badgers Walter to buy overshoes at the
store; she also insists that he wear his gloves
while driving. It seems to us that a lot of what she
does to Walter has to do with sheltering him from
the world. After all, she won't let him do simple
things for himself (like take his own temperature,
or take the chains off his car, or make basic
decisions), and this is a big part of the reason he
spends so much time fantasizing. If this is true,
then the gloves and overshoes might be symbols
of the way Mrs. Mitty tries to shield or protect her
husband from the world.
THEME
 Escapism: the tendency to retreat from
unpleasant truths in everyday life into a
world of daydreams and fantasy
Other Literary Elements
 Onomatopoeia--is a term used to describe
when a word imitates a sound. What are
some examples of onomatopoeia in the
story?
 Satire--a piece of writing that pokes fun at
human failings of short comings
 Mitty’s shortcomings- his need for escapism
Hero and Antihero
 Hero: character who behaves bravely and does great
deeds. Heroes are typically strong, resourceful, and selfsacrificing
Mitty’s fantasy
 Antihero: central character who lack all the qualities
traditionally associated with heroes. Often they are timid,
cowardly, and weak, but the reader sympathizes with the
struggles they face.
Mitty’s real life
Daydreams
 Boat Pilot– drive in the rain
 Surgeon- driving past the hospital
 On trial for murder- hearing the newspaper
boy shouting
 Airplane pilot- Reading an article about
Germans in the air
 Firing Squad– Smoking a cigarette in a
rainstorm
Pandemonium
 scene of wild disorder, noise, or confusion
 Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom.
Disdain
 feeling, attitude, or expression of scorn
 Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing
about his lips, he faced the firing squad;
erect and motionless, proud and disdainful,
Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to
the last.
Inscrutable
 cannot be easily understood; mysterious
What is Walter Mitty saying about life when he
imagines himself in front of a firing
squad
 His life is miserable
 It is like being in a front of a firing squad
 The lighting of the cigarette and the sleet
caused him to have this daydream
What type of marriage does Walter
Mitty have?
Miserable…that’s why he daydreams.
His wife nags him all of the time
His wife and his daydreams are the
antagonists of the story
Literature Journal
Explain what happens to Mitty in the
daydream, what happens to him
immediately after he awakes from his
dream and why this is funny.