Author: RyanQ

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” tells the story of Walter Mitty on a trip into town with his wife, Mrs. Mitty. Walter is clumsy at many things; he can’t handle simple tasks, and he forgets things easily. Although, Walter has a huge imagination.

While Walter goes through a day of tasks and errands, he escapes into a series of daydream fantasies, each based on by some part of reality. As he drives his car, he imagines he is commanding a hydroplane through a terrible storm, but this is merely his wife telling him to slow down while driving. When he rides past a hospital, he imagines he is a world-famous surgeon saving a VIP’s life. When he hears a newsboy shouting, he imagines he is being interrogated in the courtroom. As he waits for his wife to finish at the hairdresser’s, Walter sees pictures of German plane and imagines he is a British pilot willing to sacrifice his life for Britain. Lastly, as Mitty waits outside against a wall for his wife to buy something in a medicine shop, he daydreams that he is brave man about to be shot by a firing squad. The story ends with the inscrutable Walter Mitty awaiting this “gunny” death.

Walter is a daydreamer, and that is a bad thing. He can’t really focus on things, since he gets distracted by his daydreams.

The story begins with Mama, waiting for the arrival of Dee, her eldest daughter. She stands next to Maggie, her younger daughter, who is shy and has burn marks on her body. She got them when their house was burned down. Mama carried Maggie out of the fire while Dee did nothing and watched the house burn. Dee was driven and wanted to get more out of life than Mama, and her ancestry had to offer. All of it came at the expense of Maggie and Mama.

Dee arrives with Hakim, a barber, who is her boyfriend. Dee also goes by a new name, Wangero, and wants her family to use it. Dee is more interested in taking artifacts from her family than synthesizing with them. Therefore, they go through the possessions of Mama in their search for some special items of her African American descent, which she has intents at using them to spice up her house. Dee is somewhat rude when talking to Mama and Maggie and insults all in the name of some chit chat.

She tries to take quilts that were meant for her younger sister, and Dee wants them for herself. This results in Dee debating with Mama, claiming that she deserves the quilts more. Mama give Dee two different quilts and asks her to leave. After she is done, she gets into the car with Hakim, and they drive off, leaving a cloud of dust.

In Ireland, there are 120,000 kids born a day. His proposal is to fatten up these undernourished children and feed them to Ireland’s nobility. Children of the poor could be sold into a meat market at the age of one. He also says this can solve overpopulation and unemployment, since families no longer have to pay expenses for the children. The author gives the numbers for his statements and gives specific numbers about the number of children to be sold, their weight and price. He also gives some recipes for preparing this “delicious” meat, and he feels sure that creative cooks will soon be selling them. He also says that this will have positive effects on family ethics: husbands will treat their wives with more respect, and parents will savor their children ( reverse psychology). His conclusion is that the movement of this project will solve thousands of problems in Ireland.

I find this absolutely horrendous. Parents value their children’s life above themselves and all others. Taking them away, and knowing that someone else is going to EAT them, makes them feel despaired. This is not a “Modest Proposal” more like a “Cannibalistic Proposal”. Although this was all reverse psychology, it is wrong and unjust, I disagree with these actions.

Billy Weaver, a 17 year old, was looking for a job at Bath. By the time he got to Bath from Boston, it was already dark. He asked the porter for a recommendation of where to stay. The porter told him to go to The Bell and Dragon. The Bell and Dragon was a pub, which he liked.

A house near it drew Billy’s attention. It had a wiener dog curled up near the fireplace, and a parrot. The house seemed so cozy and warm. The house was just like the rest, broken down, but once swanky. He knocked on the door, and immediately, a woman barged out and offered a price that was half of the amount he was even considering to give. He went in, and there, he gave the amount, and the woman gave him a entire floor. He realized that the parrot was dead along with the dachshund. The lady told him that the dachshund and parrot was stuffed.

He sat at the couch across from the lady. She beckoned him to sit next to her, and he obliged. She offered him tea, which he gladly accepted. The tea had an almond taste to it, which in a scientific standpoint must have had cyanide, because the story was already going so spookily.

After that drink, he went to bed, and died, obviously because of the cyanide (in case you don’t know, cyanide is a toxic chemical compound that will kill you if you drink too much). He “transferred all his money to the landlady, and disappeared. Only the landlady knew he died, and stuffed his body.

Waverly Place Jong is a chess prodigy living in San Francisco’s Chinatown with her Chinese immigrant parents. She is named after “Waverly Place,” her family’s address and, therefore, their claim to the United States. Waverly is nicknamed as “妹妹” (Chinese for “little sister”), whereas her two brothers have normal, American names—Winston and Vincent.

Waverly and her mother have an ongoing mental battle, each surreptitiously trying to gain the upper hand. Although Waverly was born in the United States, her mother has tried to keep many of her Chinese rules of conduct. One important rule is that one must remain silent to win. The story’s opening focuses on silence and on how controlling one’s emotions endows one with a secret strength like the wind.

Once when shopping with her mother, the six-year-old Waverly longs for some salted plums. Because she fusses for them, her mother refuses to buy them. The next time, Waverly keeps her wants silent, and her mother rewards her with plums.

Later, Waverly sets a psychological ambush for her mother. As her hair is being combed painfully by her mother, Waverly asks her what Chinese torture is. She knows that Waverly is challenging her pride in Chinese culture. She deflects her daughter’s question about the possibility of Chinese inhumanity, pointing out that Chinese people are good at business, medicine, and painting. Then her patriotism overcomes her, and she says, “We do torture. Best torture.”

At a church Christmas party, the three children receive gifts, among which is a used chess set. At church, Waverly’s mom thanks the ladies, but at home, she sniffs proudly that they do not want it. Thus she socializes her children to exercise silence and power over their true feelings; even unwanted gifts must be acknowledged as exceeding what one deserves.

Watching her brothers play chess, Waverly becomes intrigued by the rules of the game. She does not understand these American rules, but she researches them in the library, learning the moves and the powers of each piece, and then easily defeats her brothers. When she stumbles on some old Chinese men playing chess in the park, she invites one, Lau Po, to play. He teaches her more rules and tactics. Waverly soon wins neighborhood exhibition games, and her mother begins to take pride in her, although she still claims that her daughter’s wins are merely luck, to encourage her to keep going. This is a sign of silent want because she wants her daughter to continue, so she uses reverse psychology.

When someone suggests that Waverly play at local chess tournaments, she is eager to participate, but keeping wants silent doesn’t allow her to do so. Her mother soon relents and lets Waverly play and win repeatedly. Now it is her mother who wears a triumphant grin.

With Waverly’s victories, her mom changes the rules in the household., Waverly no longer does chores. She gives the chores to the sons because she wants Waverly to spend her time on chess . At nine years of age, Waverly becomes a national chess champion. Waverly’s mom is extremely excited as the cover of Life magazine features her daughter challenging Bobby Fischer’s quote: “There will never be a girl grandmaster”

Later, when the day is Saturday, they go shopping. Waverly’s mom proudly claims that Waverly is her daughter everywhere they go. Soon enough, Waverly can’t take it anymore and under her breath she told her mother:

“I wish you wouldn’t do that, telling everybody I’m your
daughter.”

They get in an argument and Waverly accidentally knocking over an old woman’s groceries. She was so mad, she didn’t even help the old lady and ran down an empty alleyway. Two hours later, she returned and Vincent told her: “About time you got home, Boy, are you in trouble.”

When she went in the house, there was a half eaten platter of fish.

TO BE CONTINUED…

The villagers of a small town gather together on a warm summer day for the town lottery. There are only 300 people in this village, so the lottery takes only two hours, ending right before lunch. Village children, who have just finished school for the summer, run around collecting stones. They put the stones in their pockets and make a pile in the square. Men and women also gather stones, ready for the upcoming. Parents call their children over, and families stand together.

Mr. Summers runs the lottery because he has a lot of time to do stuff about the village. He arrives in the square with the a bunch of slips. A male that is 16 or older of each family comes and draws a slip. The family with the black dot is the one family that will lose on of their family today. The Hutchinson’s family was chosen.

Then, the second round began, and every family member in the Hutchinson’s family picked a slip. The one who had the black dot was Tessie Hutchinson, or mommy Hutchinson. All the villagers pick up their stones, even her son, Davy, did so, and all of them threw and threw until Tessie was stoned to death. She died complaining about how unjust this was, and we couldn’t agree more.