The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is about a daydreaming married man who is subservient to his wife. Walter Mitty daydreams about himself in 5 different stories. In each daydream he dreams about a man who is supposed to be himself except for the fact that these people were brave, fearless, and confident.
In the first daydream he thinks that he is a captain of a ship and is leading him away from a dangerous storm. In this story the captain is a cold, distant, courageous person. He doesn’t even refer to this daydream character as himself, he refers to him as the captain. He is awoken from this daydream by his wife who tells him to drive slower and he complies without question. This is the first instance that we are shown that he is very compliant and quite timid.
The second daydream that I will be talking about is his last daydream where he is faced with death by a firing squad. He wants to see his death coming meaning that he doesn’t fear death even at the face of deaths door. In this daydream his character does not fear death and is most likely brave. Before this he is awoken from this by his wife who was looking for him for a while but this time he kind of talks back to her saying “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.” Her response is talking about how she thinks that he is sick and that how she doesn’t think he has the audacity to talk back to her.
In conclusion The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a deep story about Walter Mitty’s hopes and dreams that he doesn’t want to actually do. Walter Mitty’s stories reflect on what he actually does in real life to some extent. And finally he resigns to his fate as being subservient to his wife with his daydream about the firing squad.