The short story “The Secret of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber is about Walter Mitty daydreaming. He and his wife are on their way to do some errands, he indulges in a daydream in which he is a brave military commander piloting a hydroplane, but his wife interrupts by exclaiming that he is driving too fast. This pattern is repeated several times. He starts daydreaming, and then his wife brings him back to reality. In reality, Mitty does not do anything very well. Although Walter Mitty’s daydream life has much exciting action, his waking life, as recounted in the story, is routine and uneventful. In his waking life, Mitty drives with his wife into Waterbury for the regular weekly trip to shop and for Mrs. Mitty’s visit to the beauty parlor. After dropping his wife off at the salon, Mitty drives around for a brief time, then parks the car in a parking lot, purchases some overshoes at a shoe store, with some difficulty remembers to buy puppy biscuit, and goes to the hotel lobby where he always meets his wife. After a short time Mrs. Mitty appears, complaining to Mitty about the difficulty of finding him in the large chair where he has “hidden” himself, and then for a “minute” (actually much longer) leaves Mitty standing in front of a nearby drugstore while she goes to accomplish something she forgot. During these events, he goes into five daydreams or fantasies, which not only are induced by the events of his waking life but also affect them. This was a confusing story as the daydreams were being cut by reality, and it was hard to know what was happening. The story was very interesting.
