IndexShort StoryFilmConclusionEvery day a normal person finds themselves daydreaming, drawing on their imagination to escape the real world and pass the time. Daydreaming is the stream of consciousness that detaches from current external tasks as attention shifts in a more personal, internal direction. This phenomenon is common in people's daily lives, as demonstrated by a large-scale study in which participants spent an average of forty-seven percent of their waking time daydreaming. In the story and film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, written by James Thurber, the protagonist Walter Mitty is a daydreamer who goes through a day of ordinary tasks and errands, and escapes into a series of romantic fantasies, each spurred by some worldly reality. Since both the movie and the story are different with extra parts, missing parts and other elements of course, they both seem to partially bring out one of the themes. James Thurber shows the reader that fantasies and daydreams are a way to escape from reality and must carry you as a coping mechanism through success and failure. In "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" the main conflict is that of individual desires against reality; the main theme is a person's life dreams in relation to society. Walter Mitty is neither exciting nor successful in everyday life. Indeed, the world Mitty lives in seems hellish to him. Walter finds himself stuck daydreaming continuously throughout the day creating conflict in his daily life. However, his journey became easier as he changed his attitude. His choice of attitude influenced his actions. Support the conclusion that happiness is a choice of attitude rather than a choice of action. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Short Story Very little happens in Thurber's story. Mrs. Mitty has an appointment at the hairdresser; Mitty himself buys a pair of overshoes. As he tries to remember what his wife asked him to buy, he becomes an arrogant defendant in a murder case. He manages to buy some dog food and drops into a chair in a comfortable hotel lobby and imagines himself as a bomber pilot under ferocious attack. The returning wife wakes him up with the admonition that she will take his temperature when they get home. At the end of the story, Mrs. Mitty enters a pharmacy and he becomes a “proud and disdainful” man in the face of the firing squad. Part of Thurber's technique is to present Mitty as a man who also fails as a dreamer. His daydreams are full of clichés. Whether he is a murder defendant or an army officer, he carries the same "Webley-Vickers automatic" with him. In both of his military dreams he is an officer who can lead his men “through hell.” In reality he is a man trying to face the fears and difficulties of a monotonous and disappointing life. As such, he is just an exaggerated version of a person that everyone will recognize. Walter Mitty is a daydreamer. The opening line of Thurber's story places the reader directly in the middle of an action scene. No context is given to indicate that the action is anything other than the opening words of a story that has anything to do with the military. WE ARE crossing!' The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. We begin the story in Walter's mind. This is good evidence for the thesis that dreams and not reality dominate the plot. While Mitty and his wife are going to do someerrands, he indulges in a daydream in which he is a brave military commander flying a seaplane, but his wife interrupts him by exclaiming that he is driving too fast. This pattern is repeated several times. When she urges him to make an appointment with her doctor, he becomes an eminent surgeon on the job, until a parking attendant's disdainful orders temporarily call him back to reality. "You're tense again," said Mrs. Mitty. «It's one of your days. I wish you would let Dr. Renshaw examine you." After this line, readers might suspect that Walter Mitty is mentally unstable. Or it could simply be that his wife is overreacting. Mitty doesn't actually do anything very well. For Walter there really is no dividing line; the life in his head is just as real as the life happening around him outside of his imagination at any given moment. Regardless of context, this first line gives the reader an experience of this same thrill. Walter's fantasies are just coping mechanisms that help him get through the day, yet he was a very forgetful man because of this: “When he stepped out into the street again, with his overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what something else his wife had told him to take. He had told her twice before they left home for Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to the city, he always got something wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb's, razor blades? No. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, carborundum, initiative and referendum? He gave up. He rambles about how his wife won't forget and how he will know about it when he gets home expressing his unhappiness. Then immediately afterwards he starts daydreaming again. The author shows the reader how unhappy the protagonist in his life is and how he uses daydreaming as a coping mechanism. Movie In "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", the main conflict is that of the individual's desires versus reality; the main theme is A person's dreams for life against society. Although Walter Mitty's daydream life is full of exciting action, his waking life, as depicted in the film, is routine, uneventful, and, on a deep subconscious level, unsatisfying. Director Ben Stiller did an incredible job showing the protagonist a great imagination and daydreams. Just as the narrative began by jumping straight into the action, so the film jumped straight into one of Walter's daydreams of saving a dog from an exploding building. Unlike the story, in the film many events and details are different. Walter Mitty, an employee of Life magazine, spends monotonous days developing photos for publication. A middle-aged man trapped by financial responsibility, Walter is a photo archivist at the declining Life magazine, a job that is being replaced by machines. Shy, sheltered and reserved, he is isolated from the environment around him. To escape boredom, Walter lives in a world of exciting daydreams of which he is the undeniable hero. Walter likes a coworker named Cheryl and would like to date her, but he feels unworthy. However, he gets a chance for a real adventure when Life's new owners send him on a mission to get the perfect photo for the final print. The film moves in and out of Walter's imagination as his daydreams take him to new worlds and characters. , whether it's the rugged explorer who seduces his crush Cheryl. It always seems to be there for Walter: “That song is about courage and going into the unknown.” One of his famous lines in the film. The song in question is "Space.