The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Chronic Day Dreamer in a Depressed Society
By: Rebecca Moore
In the Great Depression of the 1930’s, there was a strong social and economical struggle that inhibited both men’s wishes and fantasies. The very idea of finding a paying career with high social status, was quite impossible to achieve and challenges the masculinity inside men, including Walter Mitty. Thurber’s short story;The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is of a man whose ultimate escape from a boring and miserable reality by making his own, depicts the hunger of excitement and success, as well as escapism that many others wanted in the Great Depression. Mitty’s desires to become more than who he is, and to be the centre of attention in his own fantasies, are the result of external and internal factors, that belittles and emasculates him. His patronizing wife, superior men, his self image, and his rather systematic life, causes him to isolate himself and escape the 1930’s time warp.
Walter Mitty; there is little known about him except that fact that he is a chronic dreamer and has controlling wife whom he is submissive to. Goonetilleke’s article The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Overview expresses Thurber’s point of view on how women have won the battle of the sexes through Mrs.Mitty who stifles Walter’s masculine role in their relationships. She patronizes him about seeing a psychiatrist, putting on his gloves, getting overshoes, all the while reminding him that “you’re not a young man any longer” (Thurber P.2). This makes Walter feel like he is not taking on the leading masculine role that he wishes to be. A husband of the 1930’s and even today, is seen as the strong backbone to a marriage who makes the important decisions for the soft spoken wife who respects his opinion. However, in the case of Walter Mitty, the roles have switched and the masculine status of the