Dreams and Success: An Analysis of the Story The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

A term paper presented in partial fulfillment of

the requirements of the Subject

Literary Criticism

to

Mr. Ricky M. Latosa, Course Instructor

Faculty, College of Education

Laguna State Polytechnic University

By

Victor F. Banawa Jr.

March 2010

I-Introduction:

James Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles L. Thurber, was a clerk and minor politician, who went through many periods of unemployment. Mary Thurber, his mother, was a strong-minded woman and a practical joker. Once she surprised her guests by explaining that she was kept in the attic because of her love for the postman. On another occasion she pretended to be a cripple and attended a faith healer's revival, jumping up suddenly and proclaiming herself cured. Thurber described her as "a born comedienne" and "one of the finest comic talents I think I've ever known." Thurber's father, who had dreams of being an actor or lawyer, was said to have been the basis of the typical small, slight man of Thurber's stories. Later Thurber portrayed his family in MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES (1933). "I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell on my father," Thurber wrote in the book.

Thurber was partially blinded by a childhood accident – his brother William shot an arrow at him. When he was unable to participate in games and sports with other children, he developed a rich fantasy life, which found its outlet in his writings.

Thurber began writing at secondary school. Due to his poor eyesight, he did not serve in WW I, but studied between 1913 and 1918 at Ohio State University. He worked as a code clerk in Washington, DC, and at the US embassy in Paris. In the early 1920s he worked as a journalist for several newspapers. He also lived in Paris, writing for the Chicago Tribune.

In 1922 Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce in 1935. In 1926 Thurber went to New York City, where he was a reporter for the Evening Post. Next year he joined Harold Ross's newly established The New Yorker, where he found his clear, concise prose style. "Everybody thinks he knows English," Ross said to Thurber, "but nobody does. I think it's because of the goddam women and schoolteachers." Later Thurber published his memoirs from this period under the title THE YEARS WITH ROSS (1959).

Thurber's first book, IS SEX NECESSARY?, appeared in 1929. It was jointly written with the fellow New Yorker staffer E.B. White. The book presented Thurber's drawings on the subject, and instantly established him as a true comic talent. Thurber made fun of European psychoanalysis, including Freud's work, and theorists who had been attempting to reduce sex to a scientifically understandable level. In 'The Nature of the American Male: A Study of Pedestalism' Thurber claimed that "in no other civilized nation are the biological aspects of love so distorted and transcended by emphasis upon its sacredness as they are in the United States of America." According to Thurber, baseball, prize-fighting, horse-racing, bicycling, and bowling have acted as substitutes for sex. The female developed and perfected the "Diversion Subterfuge" to put Man in his place. "Its first manifestation was fudge-making."

In the 1950s Thurber published modern fairy tales for children, THE 13 CLOCKS (1950) and THE WONDERFUL O (1957), which both were hugely successful. Thurber's children's tales display a cynical undercurrent, and show at times a great deal of bitterness. Truman Capote also worked at the New Yorker, but according to his reminiscences he was a general dogsbody, who helped Thurber to and from meetings, or escorted Thurber to his trysts with one of the magazine's secretaries. Thurber had already in 1933 left The New Yorker staff, but remained still its contributor. His eyesight became worse in the 1940s, and by the 1950s his blindness was nearly total. Thurber continued to compose stories in his head, and he played himself in 88 performances of the play A Thurber Carnival. He received a Litt.D. in 1950 from Kenyon College, one from Yale in 1953, and an L.H.D. (honorary) from Williams College in 1951.

Thurber was married twice, and had one daughter. In later years he lived with his wife Helen Wismer, a magazine editor, at West Cornwall, Connecticut. He suffered from alcoholism and depression, but Helen's devoted nursing enabled him to maintain his literary production. His drinking companions included the actor Humphrey Bogart, who read more widely than just the scripts. Bogart had Thurber's THE MIDDLE AGED MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE on his bookshelf and cartoon "Jolly Times" on the wall in his Hollywood home. In 1958 the editors of Punch magazine gave a luncheon in Thurber's honor. James Thurber died of a blood clot on the brain on November 2, 1961, in New York.

II- Analysis:

Success is the main goal of every one in this very complicated world. If someone reaches the summit of success, he classifies his life greater and better than the other. On the other hand, if he failed to accomplish his goals, it makes him down.

           

But is there any other way to overcome our failures? Some say, “don’t give up because every day is a new day and success can be in our way.” In our life there is always a new beginning, new opportunities, and of course new problems to overcome.

           

Dreams, specifically day dreams have a big influence in the life of man. Teenagers are the most prone to daydreams, they daydreams about their love life, their favorite sports, their want to be some day, their favorite actors and actresses, and most of the time they daydream that they are a super hero like superman, batman, some girls like  wonder woman, Cinderella, Snow white, etc. Those day dreams give them a minute to an hour pleasant time. They feel what they want to be even for a short time or in just daydream. They are always a successful individuals and the main character in their own dream.

           

Walter Mitty in the story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber has a behavior of making lots of daydreams. His everyday life is composed of different daydreams from early morning in his home to the outside world or in his work. He had made daydreams to put an excitement in his life. In daydreams he became satisfied in every work he did.

The first phrase in the story “We’re going through” is Mitty’s daydream of being a fearless soldier’s commander, commanding his men their task. In that dream he plays the role of a commander who is brave, fearless, strong and not afraid to die, characters that are hard to find in a typical man. “I’m not asking you” signifies that Mitty is afraid of nothing, he alone can make decisions and no one could contests his commands.

“You were up to fifty,” she said. “You know I don’t like to go more than forty.” These phrases tell that in Mitty’s dream he doesn’t want to become older, as many people aspire to keep their mind and body young as teenage years.  

Mitty also has daydream of being a suspect undergoing for questioning in a court. “This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80,” That phrase is Mitty’s acceptance of his guilt. It tells that Walter Mitty is not afraid of the punishment, because in his mind, it makes him famous one.

Walter Mitty also has daydream of being specialist doctor that can cure severe deceases that other famous doctors can’t cure. Mitty is the man who knows everything about medicine. “A brilliant performance, sir.” he is dreaming for the recognition of other doctors, in his dream he writes the book on streptothricosis. He also knows every place in America that tells that he is in high class of society.

But there is one who always breaks his daydreams and that is his wife. “Not so fast! You’re driving too fast!” “What are you driving too fast?” “Something struck in his shoulder. “I’ve been looking all over this hotel for you,” said Mrs. Mitty. “Why you have to hide in this old chair?”

His wife's nagging voice awakens him from his dreams. It tells that Mitty always awaken by many circumstances in his dreams

As conclusion, Walter Mitty is an ordinary character who fills his mind with fantasies in which he plays the hero, saves lives, navigates enemy territory, and proves his masculinity. In Mitty’s daydreams, he can do everything, can go wherever, and can be whatever and whoever he wants to be. “Walter Mitty the undefeated,” reminds us that in our dreams we are always the winner and not the loser one. We can find satisfaction and it can escape us to the failures and problems because in our dreams there are lots of answers in the trials we face.

For me, daydreams are good but we should not relay our success to them. We need to work on and accomplish our dreams in real world. Lessen our daydream and put ourselves in a situation that we will achieve our goals in a good way, because success in a daydream has always an ending, but success in real life remains especially if we achieved that in a good way.