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The Reasons For Walter Mitty's Daydream - Online Term Paper

The Reasons For Walter Mitty's Daydream

Most people daydream from time to time when they are bored. Daydreaming often gives a pleasant break from dull reality, and it lets people pretend to be or do things they could not in real life. Walter Mitty, the main character in James Thurber's story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," is a constant daydreamer. Unlike most people, who daydream sometimes, Mitty often depends on daydreaming to escape real life because in real life he is an incompetent man whose wife treats him like a child. In spite of his need to get away from real life, or maybe because of it, Walter Mitty has interested readers since the story was written in 1942.
As the story begins, Walter Mitty is driving his wife ...

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for?'" Here the reader sees the sharp contrast between the daydream and real life.
In the daydream, Mitty has the full respect and admiration of the passengers of his imaginary hydroplane. In real life, his only passenger, his wife, scolds him for not driving properly. This contrast between the competent man of the daydream and the incompetent man of real life is repeated over and over. Each repetition shows the difference between Mitty's real and imagined lives.

Mitty is aware of his real-life incompetence and shows it when he recalls the story of the snow chains (Sundell 1285). In that story Mitty remembers a time when he tried to take chains off his tires and ended up tangling them on the axles of the car. He had to call a garage mechanic to take off the chains for him, and he was embarrassed. Carl Sundell believes that this story shows that Mitty has a low level of mechanical ability (1285). Sundell explains that "if a man cannot reach the real world through ...

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The Reasons For Walter Mitty's Daydream. (2004, July 29). Retrieved January 7, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Reasons-For-Walter-Mittys-Daydream/11790

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"The Reasons For Walter Mitty's Daydream." Essayworld.com. July 29, 2004. Accessed January 7, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Reasons-For-Walter-Mittys-Daydream/11790.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 7/29/2004 10:18:47 PM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Free Paper
Words: 924
Pages: 4

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