'The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty'

In James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” we see the main character drive into Waterbury, Connecticut, with his wife for some weekly shopping and his wife's routinely visit to the salon. During the shopping trip he has five dreams that cross his mind. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” shows us how he used imagination to channel someone deep within himself. It allows Walter to set himself apart from everyday reality. The story is based around a boring man who goes shopping with his wife, as they routinely do and while he was dropping off his wife at the salon he has five different visions. In the first scene he is in a U.S. Navy flying boat and Mrs.Mitty is telling her husband Walter to slow down. This tells us that he
started this daydream while he was driving the car, and when Mrs.Mitty was saying “slowdown” in the dream she was really telling him to slow down the car. The second daydream is a lot more different it is when Walter dreams that he is a brilliant surgeon, while driving he puts on his gloves and drives past a hospital. The third fantasy which is the courtroom scene is Walter trying to remember what his wife told him he had to buy. This fantasy happens because he hears a newsboy yelling about "the Waterbury Trial”. His fourth daydream happens when he is waiting for his wife and picks up an old copy of Liberty, saying "Can Germany Conquer the World through the Air?” he sees himself flying a plane all by himself and fighting against the Germans. The fifth and final daydream is when Walter is standing against a wall having a smoke and he imagines that he is in a firing squad and he is the victim standing against the wall. This story was written during World War two so a lot of Americans had the image that things like this were going on in Europe. Walter Mitty is a portrayed as a protagonist by James Thurber.
The Conflict in this short story is a normal man in conflict with the normal world that is around him. Mitty escapes into his dream to deal with these conflicts. When Mitty dreams about commanding a ship or being a pilot or even being a surgeon, we know that James Thurber is using symbolism and imagery because Mitty is using these occupations to imagine himself in another life doing something completely random. “Walter Mitty: To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.” The quote is saying that Walter shouldn’t worry about what he could have been he should be happy with his current life and everything he has in his life. Walter needs to become a little more self-centered and not worry about others so much. 'I was thinking," said Walter Mitty. "Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?" She looked at him. "I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home," she said. In this quote Mrs.Mitty is knocking Walter and saying he could never achieve any of those occupations. Walter’s imagination is truly a gift because it lets him think outside of reality and puts him in such a wide variety of situations. It makes him think about what he could do down the road with his life and it helps give him such a wide variety of ideas. He should always stay positive and not think about the things he can’t do
in life, but he should think about the endless options he could do in life.