James Thurber’s best known story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” is a fictional story of an ordinary husband, Walter Mitty, who performs ordinary tasks and constantly day dreams of being an extraordinary man performing high profile tasks. The story itself begins with Mitty imagining himself as a courageous military commander who is piloting a Navy hydroplane through a storm, when he is ticked off by his wife for driving too fast, he comes back to reality but soon goes back into his fantasy world by imagining himself as a famous surgeon performing a critical surgery on a millionaire banker. The pattern is repeated several times as he further imagines himself being interrogated in a courtroom for murder, followed by a patriotic World War 1 British pilot willing to die for his country and lastly as he waits for his wife outside the drugstore, he imagines himself as an undefeated wanted man smoking his last cigarette waiting to be shot by a firing squad.

Throughout the story, Walter Mitty is constantly trying to escape his monotonous life and has to be constantly brought back to reality by others around him. Most of the time it is his almost ‘mother-like’ wife who is always looking all over for him. This sort of behavior is almost expected out of Mitty and seems to have been happening for a while as when she pulls him out of his first day dream she even says that, “it’s one of your days, I wish you’d let Dr. Renshaw look you over.” His wife is clearly the dominant one in their relationship as she orders him with tedious everyday tasks and seems to be pretty much in control of his life. Whereas, the common theme in all of Mitty’s daydreams are bravery, power and control over others. It is safe to say that Mitty is highly insecure of his manhood and hence escapes into these fantasies where he upholds his preconceived notions of masculinity. He associates himself as being the man in power indulging with important people and beautiful women as during his second dream, ‘the pretty nurse’ says to him, “it’s the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan,” who is he has to operate as a famous surgeon. His excessive day dreaming has reached a point where Mitty is unable to even perform simple everyday tasks in reality as his mind is constantly clouded with what he wishes would make him a ‘real man’ in everyone else’s eyes. This makes him indecisive, contrary to what he imagines himself to be a decisive man taking charge of a critical situation, as during the operation when the anesthetizer machine is giving away and there is no one to fix it, Mitty shouts, “Give me the fountain pen!” Someone then hands him a fountain pen, which he uses to pull a faulty piston out of the machine, and inserts the pen in its place and says, “That will hold for ten minutes” “Get on with the operation.”
Another contrary example of Mitty can be that of power and control over technology as in real life he is facing difficulties to operate a simple automobile whereas in his dreams he is not only operating highly advanced technological machines, but also fixing technological failures on the spot under high pressure situations as seen by the above example of his second dream.

It should be noted that all the examples of manhood and masculinity conveyed by Thurber in this story are the perceptions of Mitty’s idea of a stereotypical man and not necessarily that of a respected one. The characteristics of manhood covered in this story through the eyes of Mitty are narrow-minded and lack variety. It exemplifies manhood with only bravery, power and control over others and fails to touch upon characteristics that too can be considered as part of manhood. Although the characteristics of masculinity touched upon in this story should not be undermined to the degree of completely disassociating it with manhood but should not be the only characteristics associated with it. For example, bravery is required for tackling fear, which is a crucial part for obtaining success in any given field, and power and control can be considered as rewards for all the hard work and success achieved. However, a man should not be mesmerized by these elements and use them to make himself feel superior over others or for his personal advantage. Instead if placed in a position of power, a man should certainly give back to those in severe need.
Respect is a crucial element of manhood and does not necessarily come with bravery and power. A respectable man carries morals and ethics without which, manhood is incomplete. A man may not necessarily be in power and control, but a respectable man who cares and does his best to provide for his loved ones, treats everyone equally, generously, and provides a helping hand, posses a greater manhood than a man who is very successful but lacks basic morals, ethics and ultimately an appealing personality. These are the important lessons to be learned from Thumber’s story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” as in today’s world manhood and masculinity are wrongly associated with power and greed and this misconception needs to be eradicated from people’s minds.