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What's this?: Our 2nd short story of October 2013.
All are welcomed to join in the discussion.

Short Story: The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

Author: James Thurber

James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in The New Yorker magazine and collected in his numerous books. Wikipedia

Born: December 8, 1894, Columbus, OH
Died: November 2, 1961, New York City, NY
Nationality: American
Nominations: National Book Award for Fiction, National Book Award for Nonfiction

When: We will discuss it the 2nd week in October. 10/6/13

Where: The discussion will take place in this thread

Book Details:
free text of story can be found at this link


Synopsis:
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1939) is a short story by James Thurber. The most famous of Thurber's stories.

The short story deals with a vague and mild-mannered man who drives into Waterbury, Connecticut with his wife for their regular weekly shopping and his wife's visit to the beauty parlor. During this time he has five heroic daydream episodes.

This is a short story and a quick read. So I hope you all will be able to join in the discussion

Discussion questions

Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.


1."Walter Mitty" was published in 1939, the year after World War II began. Can you see the influence of this major event in the story at all?

2.Is "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" ultimately a funny or tragic story? Does it have to be one or the other?

3.One point of view on this story is that it's not meant to be analyzed or picked apart in terms of symbols or metaphors. Instead, it's just a cute story that reflects something we've all experienced at one time or another in our lives: the need to escape into fantasy. What do you think of this argument?

4.Scholar Carl Sundell says that the reader identifies with Walter the way they do with Salinger's hero Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. What do you think of the comparison between these two characters? (Source: "The Architecture of Walter Mitty's Secret Life," by Carl Sundell.)

5.What makes "Walter Mitty" such a famous and well-loved short story? Why is it so special?

6.Does Walter Mitty remind you of other classic literary heroes?

Alias, i appreciate that you are sharing online links to the stories. I copy & paste them to my desktop, so i can read without needing to get online. Thank you.

This is a story we read in high school. While it seemed to me it was overwritten, the idea of the story itself is wonderful. Looking forward to revisiting it with this group.

I'm happy you like the links. I think it makes it easy for everyone to join in.

I read it last night. It really is short. I think it took me all of 10 minutes to read. So I wouldn't really call it overwritten.

I look forward to discussing it with the group.

Looking forward to reading this again. We did a stage production of A Thurber Carnival, a collection of short works by Thurber that included Walter Mitty, in High School and had a blast.
My dim recollection is that it was a rather sad/tragic story.

I'm looking forward to discussing the story with you, Darlene.

No, it's not tragic. It's a combo of sad and amusing.

You are right, Alias, it isn't overwritten. I think the reason i had that impression from my youthful reading is that the fantasies seemed to go on too long. LOL--now they seem rather short. Kids!

I find the story bittersweet. Walter Mitty has found a way to cope with the disappointment that is his life. Could he live any of those lives? Probably not. The images seem to be ones he's read about or seen in films. Even his fantasy life is rather cliched.

There is a sadness to it that some might call tragedy. Years ago i read a definition of tragedy which claimed that the events were preventable. Today i looked the definition up on the Free Dictionary & found this as the first definition, "A drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances."

So, in that sense i suppose this is true. Tragic flaws, moral weaknesses and inability to cope are controllable, but not at all easily. So, Walter could control his life to make it less likely he'd fantasize but doesn't. Instead he's wasting his life and, when one thinks about it deeper, his wife's life. This isn't in the league of Hamlet, for sure. Are there minor tragedies? Ones not involving death?

Discuss. :-) Ok, not really but it is a way to look at this story. I'm a fan of Thurber and have been since this story. Still, there often seems to be a vein of profound sadness in some of his stories. Maybe it's part of the Human Tragedy? Walter calls himself a place where the Tragedy is writ large, rather than his own "small" one.

Still, there is amusement there. The ending scene brings smiles, as though Walter knows his fantasies are a way to exaggerate his own life. I'm sure i didn't see any of this when i read it in high school! LOL!

I think it takes some living to appreciate the story. When you are a kid, it seems quite reasonable to think one could be the president, an astronaut and a ballet dancer or all three !

Later on, when the reality of life and the various responsibilities and societal pressures weigh on us we realize that no, none of this is possible for 99.9% of the population. Still like the Lotto commercial say, it's nice to dream. These daydreams gives us a bit of happiness in what is for many a humdrum or even painful life.

The excellent book The Winter of Our Discontent~John Steinbeck
would make a fine companion read to Mitty.

The Secret Life of Water Mitty, which debuted on Saturday at the New York Film Festival

Did we know there was an upcoming movie when we mentioned reading this story? If so, i forgot (no surprise there). I think the story will transfer nicely, although i liked the fact he was married. Others may have thought that was a bit too negative.

The review mentioned something i hadn't considered, which could well be true for the story, too. "Yet he looks up one day and realizes that 16 years have passed and he hasn't really done much else but take care of his family, do well at his job and live in New York City." If written today (& basically, this is what this film seems to do), Walter would think about what he could do rather than daydream.

I suppose the question here could be whether Walter is doing anything harmful. Certainly not to himself but what about his wife? She seems alright with just pointing out his forgetfulness, which may serve some purpose for her, who knows?

The 1947 version of the movie with Danny Kaye will be on TCM on December 26 at 8 pm, if anyone is interested! I wonder why they changed the "married" part for the new movie - maybe to make it seem like he has "accomplished" less?

Is Walter wasting his life? Are he and his wife happy? I think the story is too short to really know. Yes, she seems like a bit of a harpy, but maybe it's just that they have errands to run and he's not the most attentive person. He would sort of drive me crazy - I hate having to remind people to do things, especially basic things! Maybe if he was written today, he would be playing video games.

I don't know that it's tragic because I don't think we know enough about him. Does he feel like he's stuck in a boring or dead-end life? Even if he had a different life, would he still daydream? Is that just part of who he is? I did find the story amusing, but I'm not sure I'd call this a comedy, either. I could see a movie of it being a comedy with tragic elements, but that would depend upon what framing they brought to the story.

Maybe I'm sympathetic because even though I daydream, I'm generally happy with my life. There are just times I think about doing other things, being someone or somewhere else - but that doesn't mean that I really want to do that. Does Walter really want to be a doctor or a spy? Probably not; maybe he just wants to be one for a few minutes to get the accolades for saving a life or to have a little adventure.

The one place in which I did have a problem was when he was driving! Keep your head in the game, dude. I think if this took place over a week or at least a few days, it would be better. It seemed like a very short time span to have so many different daydreams. Maybe he could find a way to use his imagination to greater benefit - write stories or do illustrations - but that might defeat the purpose of trying to escape.

Note: I read this very quickly and wasn't really focusing, so I may have missed something.

I think we all daydream. It's why some love sports. We can imagine ourselves in the batters box hitting the winning homerun. It's why we wear our favorite players jersey. And yell "WE won". We not they won.

It's why romance novels are so popular and other types of fiction.

Same with movies. It lets us forget our troubles and humdrum lives for a few hours. That is why the movies were still very popular during the Great Depression.

It's probably why the old TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was so popular. For an hour we could dream of living in that mansion or being on that yacht. We could have champagne dreams or whatever the tag line for that show was.

Poor Mitty. His life is boring and routine. He is taking his wife shopping and he is running boring errands. Nothing new or exciting ever happens to him. One day is very much like the next. Yet in his daydreams he can be a hero! Why not. What's the harm. Others may drink, take drugs or do something else harmful. He daydreams. I like Mitty! :)

Susan wrote:The one place in which I did have a problem was when he was driving! Keep your head in the game, dude."
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I agree. But how often to you arrive somewhere that you go to everyday and have no recollection on how you got there. You go on automatic pilot. Happens all the time.

Susan wrote: I think if this took place over a week or at least a few days, it would be better. It seemed like a very short time span to have so many different daydreams. Maybe he could find a way to use his imagination to greater benefit - write stories or do illustrations - but that might defeat the purpose of trying to escape.
.."

From a website on daydreaming.

Daydreaming is one of the most common things we do, and also one of the most private – in a survey carried out at the University of Minnesota, 80 percent of people said they would rather admit to an embarrassing experience than reveal their daydreams.

But is daydreaming a waste of time, as we’re often told, or the doorway to creativity? According to psychologists, we spend up to half of our mental activity on daydreams. They help us realise our goals, and reveal our innermost hopes, desires and fears

Although the content of daydreams varies hugely, two common themes are the ‘conquering hero’ and the ‘suffering martyr’. Anecdotal evidence suggests that men tend towards the former, women towards the latter, because they generally tend to ruminate about emotions more.

In a conquering hero plot, the daydreamer is successful or powerful, perhaps a gifted musician or pioneering scientist. It can also be a scenario where a person overcomes a personal fear, such as flying or climbing, and receives glowing feedback from others.

Types of daydreams
Wiki

Freudian psychology interpreted daydreaming as expression of the repressed instincts similarly to those revealing themselves in nighttime dreams. Like nighttime dreams, daydreams also are an example of wish-fulfilment, based on infantile experiences and allowed to surface because of relaxed censorship. He pointed out that in contrast to nighttime dreams, which are often confusing and incoherent, there seems to be a process of "secondary revision" in fantasies that makes them more lucid, like daydreaming. The state of daydreaming is a kind of liminal state between waking (with the ability to think rationally and logically) and sleeping. They stand in much the same relation to the childhood memories from which they are derived as do some of the Baroque palaces of Rome to the ancient ruins whose pavements and columns have provided the material for the more recent structures.[2]

In the late 1960s, cognitive psychologists Jerome L. Singer of Yale University and John S. Antrobus of the City College of New York, created a daydream questionnaire. The questionnaire, called the Imaginal Processes Inventory (IPI), has been used to investigate daydreams. Psychologists Leonard Giambra and George Huba used the IPI and found that daydreamers' imaginary images vary in three ways: how vivid or enjoyable the daydreams are, how many guilt- or fear-filled daydreams they have, and how "deeply" into the daydream people go.[1]

Humanistic psychology on other hand, found numerous examples of people in creative or artistic careers, such as composers, novelists and filmmakers, developing new ideas through daydreaming. Similarly, research scientists and mathematicians have developed new ideas by daydreaming about their subject areas.

Eric Klinger's research in the 1980s showed that most daydreams are about ordinary, everyday events and help to remind us of mundane tasks. Klinger's research also showed that over 75% of workers in "boring jobs", such as lifeguards and truck drivers, use vivid daydreams to "ease the boredom" of their routine tasks. Klinger found that fewer than 5% of the workers' daydreams involved explicitly sexual thoughts and that violent daydreams were also uncommon

Wiki

Susan wrote: "Is Walter wasting his life? Are he and his wife happy? I think the story is too short to really know. ..."

Good point, Susan. However, the fact that these occur one after another, in fairly short order leads me to think Thurber wasn't sure this was just escapist. His wife (who is never given a first name, i noticed) wants him to see a doctor for the tension she sees. On the other hand, she also notes, "It's one of your days", which could lead us to believe this isn't typical behavior. Maybe he only does it when he has to run errands but not when he's busy with his own pursuits. It's rather clear none of the tasks assigned to him are things he wants to do.

Heck, maybe Mrs. Mitty is insisting he go on the errands with him so she can have her own private daydreams at home, where she's more comfortable having them. And this may be what bothers me most. Alias shared info about daydreaming, which sound about right. However, Walter is daydreaming when he has opportunity to interact with others &/or enliven his own Real Life. Yet, his refuge is daydreaming.

Don't get me wrong, i'm only exploring these thoughts because we are throwing out ideas. In all, it's probably an innocuous story. As Susan suggested, it would be fun to see it rewritten today. He would probably live out those video games she mentioned, rather than something as realistic as missed careers.

If he returned to a particular daydream, I guess I'd be more likely to think that there was a missed opportunity for a great career ... like he was living out this fantasy "what could have been" life in his head.

That he is sort of all over the place with his daydreams is what led me to lean toward escapism. It doesn't seem like he wants to be something specific, just that he wants to be a hero or do something meaningful.

What was his job again? I'll have to go back and look to see whether they said.

1."Walter Mitty" was published in 1939, the year after World War II began. Can you see the influence of this major event in the story at all?

His first daydream is about the navy hydroplane and he is the hero pilot. Since the war would have been in all the papers and on everyone's minds I can understand why Mitty would have conjured up this particular daydream.

Also the stress of the country being at war would be weighing on everyone. These little daydreams may have given Mitty an outlet to relieve stress.

I didn't think about this until I read the question. It's one reason I do like the Discussion questions. They make me think more deeply about a story.

2.Is "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" ultimately a funny or tragic story? Does it have to be one or the other?

I don't think it has to be one or the other. For the most part I think it is humorous short story. Mitty's flights of fancy are silly daydreams. Daydreaming is something we all do. Much like reading this pleasant story or hanging out on ÀÏ»¢»úÎÈÓ®·½·¨ for a bit. It's a distraction from my daily stress. It gave me a few minutes to forget my own troubles.

3.One point of view on this story is that it's not meant to be analyzed or picked apart in terms of symbols or metaphors. Instead, it's just a cute story that reflects something we've all experienced at one time or another in our lives: the need to escape into fantasy. What do you think of this argument?

I think a story is what you want it to be. There are no right answers. If you find fun in looking for symbols and metaphors, as I sometimes do, than go at it. If you want to think about the author and his life as it relates to their writing (as we did with Poe) that's cool, too. If you just want to read it as a pleasant short story with no meaning other than the surface story that's perfectible acceptable, too. That's what is great about reading !

4.Scholar Carl Sundell says that the reader identifies with Walter the way they do with Salinger's hero Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. What do you think of the comparison between these two characters? (Source: "The Architecture of Walter Mitty's Secret Life," by Carl Sundell.)

It would have never crossed my mind to compare the two. Very interesting. I re-read Catcher just a few years ago.

I see Holden full of youthful angst looking for answers to life's big questions. He has some sort of mental breakdown. He is unable to cope.

Mitty on the other hand is a mature adult whose life is pretty much set and not going to change. We get the sense that he is not completely happy. The wife is shown to be bossy and nagging. I guess his life and marriage haven't turned out the way he dreamed it would be.

Perhaps they are similar is that they are both dissatisfied with the world they see around them. Their reality has falling far short of their expectations.

Mitty copes by escaping into his daydreams. Holden has a mental breakdown and is in therapy and hopes to be better to go back to school next term.

Perhaps the author means we can identify we feeling like we don't fit in or that life is not the bed of roses we hoped for. If I recall correctly Holden often talks about all the "Phony" people. They are a disappointment to him. Often in life many people don't live up to our expectations. Holden is finding this out.

That's all I got. :)

5.What makes "Walter Mitty" such a famous and well-loved short story? Why is it so special?

We can see ourselves in Mitty and sympathize with him. And we all do what Mitty does to some degree when it comes to daydreams.

I think the story is special an appealing because Thurber uses humor to discuss what can be a very serious topic.

6.Does Walter Mitty remind you of other classic literary heroes?

I'll have to think on this one. After watching Danny Kay as Mitty. Dick Van Dyke immediately came to mind. Perhaps the character Burt that he played in Mary Poppins fits. Burt disappeared into his painting and had tea on the ceiling. He got away from a dreary job as a chimney sweep into daydreams, too. Unless they were real. ;)

Here is a clip on YouTube of Danny Kaye as Mitty.

Alias Reader wrote: "I think a story is what you want it to be. There are no right answers. If you find fun in looking for symbols and metaphors, as I sometimes do, than go at it. ..."

Indeed! I think this is another reason the short story can be read (& viewed on different levels) at various stages of one's life. A teenager might see the humor more; middle-aged people might identify to the point of thinking about one's own life and older people could reflect upon their own lives & daydreams. Serious? About mental health? Marriage Commentary? Or just a short story.

The Holden & Walter comparison is a curious detour. For me, Holden's youth vs. Walter's older age makes the difference between the two, in that one holds possibilities and the other might be mired for life. Walter's life is one to which a teenager might aspire.

It just occurred to me, also, that the scenarios Walter has created are all quite responsible ones. Heck, in the last one he is even taking responsibility in its finest form. Significant? It's probably the contents of his daydreams which lead me to feel this is a less-than-amusing story. If he daydreamed about inventing something or life in Tahiti it seems less reflective of his very existence. As it is the major careers about which he dreams is an important key into viewing the story with more weight.

Alias, since we read it together, i'll ask, do you think Walter reminds you of Don Quixote? I didn't think that as i read it but can see some similarities. The Spaniard acts out his daydreams & is actually rather dangerous to society but the comic episodes led me to think of Walter.

There may be a sense of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court's main character, even though that is ostensibly not his daydream. The silly notions make it different, i think. Just a thought.

Madrano wrote: Alias, since we read it together, i'll ask, do you think Walter reminds you of Don Quixote? I didn't think that as i read it but can see some similarities. The Spaniard acts out his daydreams & is actually rather dangerous to society but the comic episodes led me to think of Walter..."
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Interesting. I guess I felt the DQ wasn't daydreaming but really believed in the fantasy world he created. Mitty on the other hand, is just using daydreams as a temporary escape. He knows the difference between reality and fantasy.

Man, I love James Thurber! Even though this one is not one of my favourites. But the stuff he wrote about his childhood and family is just brilliant. Yet another writer that my father used to read to me when I was about six. I liked the stories about the animals back then, like the hard-boiled rabbit detective. Good old Dad!

Anyway, I'm with Susan on this, I don't think this story is sad because daydreaming is fine (and fun) if you are happy. I get ideas for books I would like to write all the time and part of that for me has always been creating the books in my mind and sort of living there for a while, which is a daydream of sorts. It doesn't mean that you're not connected to the world around you or that you're unhappy.

I think the story will mean things to different people depending on how they view their own lives. We are given little information about Walter Mitty's reality, so he could be very discontented and imagining all the lives he could have had, or he could be a budding author doing boring errands like we all have to sometimes. I think it depends on the reader's mind to decide what kind of fantasist Mitty is. Ambiguous and clever in very few words!

Soph, i'm a fan of Thurber, too. My favorite story is "The Night the Bed Fell". Here's a link to the Very Short Story. Curiously, there are even questions at the end for school children, probably a lit class.

I agree with you about this story & the way each reader will view it differently. I particularly agree with your last sentence. He puts much into few words.

Alias, that's true about DQ, he believed in his fantasy. I think i just supposed that prior to his concrete wanderings, he daydreamed them. This is probably ME daydreaming about DQ!

Alias Reader wrote: "One day is very much like the next. Yet in his daydreams he can be a hero! Why not. What's the harm. Others may drink, take drugs or do something else harmful. He daydreams. I like Mitty! :)
..."

You make a good point. He could certainly deal with the dislike of his life in worse ways!

I like this story. A little sad, a little amusing. I wouldn't call it tragic though.

I've seen a TV commercial for the new Walther Mitty movie. It's coming out Christmas day. It stars Ben Stiller.

Here is the movie trailer. It looks kind of interesting.

It looks interesting but not really the Mitty story we read. Maybe they stretched the story to include a way for him to escape his escapist ways.

The old Danny Kaye version is on TCM tonight at (I think) 8 pm. It isn't often on TV and, when I last looked, it isn't on Netflix, etc.

TCM will probably stream it for the On Demand service on their website, so if you have cable access you may have a little more time to catch it.

Thanks, Susan !

I just watched the movie. Thurber didn't like it and I can understand why. It had some of the story but they added additional dreams, several of which were missing the hero element. Plus they added a "real" adventure that included a beautiful blonde, a group of international thieves/killers, etc. He wasn't married so the woman in the car nagging him was his mother; it took away a bit of the tension since he could have just moved out.

Danny Kaye was good in the parts when he wasn't doing the silly voices, etc. that are often in his movies. He has the ability to look incapable of running his life without seeming too pathetic. Unfortunately, he had over-the-top silly moments when he wasn't dreaming, so there was a loss of the sense of adventure for me. It was an ok movie but the short story was better!

I was rereading the thread and noticed the year as 1939. This didn't register before.

I wonder what Walter did during the war. How old was he again? Did he get to live out an adventure and, if so, what did he think about it? Did he get it out of his system or make him hungry for more?

In the book he doesn't have a real adventure. The daydreams are his escape.

It looks like in the movie he does have adventure. I guess the movies just take the basic premise and run with it to a whole other story.

I agree about changing the important aspect of his marriage. Making the woman his mother, a boss or a girlfriend allows for easy escape. It serves to make Walter himself different--why doesn't he just leave?

As to the war issue, good question, Susan. I presumed it was written post WWII. Since not, the reader can create a past, i suppose. Perhaps he was too young for WWI, so could imagine a more positive image of life in war? Not sure about that, though.

Has anyone here seen the new version? I well recall disliking the Kaye version. Indeed, i'm not much of a fan of his. For years his film deterred my reading of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. When i finally read it, i realized what i disliked was mostly actually from Twain. Go figure.

Alias Reader wrote: "I've seen a TV commercial for the new Walther Mitty movie. It's coming out Christmas day. It stars Ben Stiller.

Here is the movie trailer. It looks kind of interesting.

..."

I love the movie, haven't read the book yet. According to your comments, the storyline is quite different though.

I haven't see the current movie. It seems as if they just used the general idea behind the story.

I think so too. Btw, besides Ben Stiller's; there's another movie released in 1947.



Maybe the plot is more similiar to the book.

I haven't seen the Stiller movie. I guess for the movie they needed to pad the story. It looked different than the short story.

It was the first time I read the story and I enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading the threads and commenting, Carly.

Even tho the movie did not truly follow the story I do remember some scenes from the Danny Kaye version. I recognize that I was about 11 yrs. old and Danny Kaye was popular. But I have many good memories that include him.

Great book. It has been said that we all have a separate World we partially live in.

I can agree to that, Brianna. I suppose this is why the book is such a success--we can all identify. And, of course, the difference between partially living there & wholly doing so is the difference between sanity and not.

Alias Reader wrote: "Discussion questions
I loved this story so much that I wrote a response tale. It answers the question:

What kind of woman would it take to be married to a man like Walter? The answer lies in "The Secret Wife of Walter Mitty." It's available for free on my website -- BethScape.com -- and is also part of my new collection, Beth Black's Extraordinary Treasures

Good question, Beth.