Gender Roles, Marriage and Love: A Comparison of I’m Going! A Comedy in One Act vs.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Cindy Stevenson

ENG 125: Introduction to Literature
Instructor: Kathryn Ness Santana
July 30, 2012

Gender Roles, Marriage and Love: A Comparison of I’m Going! A Comedy in One Act vs. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Gender roles and marriage have been stereotyped for thousands of years. The man earned a living while the woman stayed home did the cooking and laundry and raised the children. Today, however, roles have reversed in many households. Men stay home and take care of the children, do the cooking, and run the errands while the wife earns the income. The biggest change over the years is that husband and wife both work to make-endsmeat. In comparing and contrasting James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and Tristan Bernard’s “I’m Going! A Comedy in One Act” I will show through differences and similarities in the content, form, and style how these different stories both have the same theme. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber is a short story that was originally written in 1939. This story revolves around the lives of two characters Mr. and Mrs. Walter Mitty and Mrs. Mitty’s constant henpecking toward Mr. Mitty. Mr. Mitty daydreams to remove himself from his wife’s badgering. He imagines himself in heroic scenes as the center of attention, as US Navy Pilot flying his crew out of a hurricane, then as a renowned surgeon performing delicate surgery on a billionaire banker and a Royal Air Force pilot who has volunteered to be a suicide bomber in an effort to blow up an ammunition dump. “I’m Going” by Tristan Bernard is a short play written between 1866 and 1947. This play also revolves around two characters Henri and his wife Jeanne. A comedy that focuses on Henri and Jeanne arguing