Relationship Between Men and Women in the Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Diego Ampuero Gac English 102 M, W, & F Dr. Williams March 17, 2010 The relationship between men and women in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty In this research paper, I am going to give out the relationship between men and women in the short novel The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber. In this set just about I am going to discuss how he shows the conflicts between the man that want to be adventurous, perverted, and that lives in several fantasies, but behind that man in that respect is a woman that holds him thorn.Many source materials analyze and describe Thurbers unique vagaryistic personality and explain how it might affect his work of literary productions through and throughout his some(prenominal) short stories. Thurbers humoristic and satiric behavior of literature that he uses about the relationship between men and women in The secret Life of Walter Mitty attracts the contributors attention because of that spark of knowledge he gives to his humoristic and intellectual literature. In Thurbers book, The Thurber Carnival, he uses many of his short stories including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in format to focus on the relationship between men and women.The conflicts that Thurber writes about typically start out small but then with the time it expands into major conflicts which leads us readers into finding the main(prenominal) problem of the story, in which in this case is about a man that wants to be adventurous and the women who holds him back. In fact, in many of Thurbers short stories the male characters are shown to be dependent of a strong woman, in which she is the dominant head of the relationship.In the relationships that Thurbers men are in, they are constant quantity lead into frustrated experiences with their wives, in which they have been bullied by wives who consider that they know ein truththing. This is exactly what happens in the short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Walter being inured by his wife mo re like a mentally retarded child than a husband. This is shown throughout the first paragraphs of the story in which the couple is ride around running errands, but not together as a couple, instead, Walter has to stop in front of the hair salon where his wife is having her hair done, and e is told to remember to get those overshoes while Im having my hair done, and in which Walter replies I dont need overshoes but the wife replies back saying youre not a young man any longer (47). These last quotes show how strong and harsh her character is and how dominant she fucking be in their relationship. These quotes also foreshadow the coming events of Walters several daydreaming throughout the story and in which they end up being the main conflict between the relationship between men (Mitty) and woman (wife).The wife in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is the perfect model for Thurbers unique style of literature. In the book The Art of James Thurber, Richard Tobias states The comedy exist s in the tension created by the wifes world view. The wife is the threat against Mittys free and desirable heroism(85) thusly with a smile on his lips, he faces the firing squad, erect motionless, and proud. Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last(51). This precise analyzing quotes by Tobias, reflects how Thurber used Mrs.Mitty as the leader of his humoristic and ironic literature to show her superiority above Walter, in which in Thurbers time, the head of the family was predestined to be the man and not the woman. Tobias also points out the terminal of the story with Walter dreaming once again acting like a little kid dreaming about being a hero. Tobias probably points it out because the ending shows how Walter revealed his secrets of being the head of something, the hero of the war throughout his paranoiac daydreaming. Several sources have focused on the topic about the relationship between Walters prominent daydreams and his marital situation.One of those sources t hat analyzes this topic is Coitus Interruptis Sexual Symbolism in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a book in which a few criticizers analyze Walters fantasies and their effect on the relationship. One of the many criticizers, Ann Mann, argues that for a permanent daydreamer like Walter Mitty, his wife has to be the ideal wife for she has to go through all of his daydreaming fantasies and childlike personality, in which it brings the conclusion that she pretty much plays the role of a scapegoat in the relationship.Keeping the eyes on the importance of a women in a relationship as Ann Mann stated, in an different aspect, Thomas Fensch appears with his book Conversations with James Thurber in which Fensch has plenty of conversations with Thurbers comedian self about different kind of topics that eventually ends up in a topic that shows Thurbers point of view of the Ameri sens Women. The man itself has a style of expressing his thoughts with humor and irony but the beauty of it is that at the same time the reader can interpret his sayings as serious thoughts that are in fact very true and intellectual.This magnificent style helps the typical American reader to understand his advice towards American Women by stating that Too much attention is given to attracting the males and making other women envious, reflecting that Thurbers point of view of women is that they should go ahead and live life to the fullest and while they can woman should be a real fellow to her husband(84).As I come to the end of this analysis about the great author James Thurber and the topic about the relationship between men and women in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I can conclude that Thurber is one of the great American humorist ever of this century and that his genuine literature really helps the reader to understand the relationship between Walter and Mrs.Mitty, and in which they also reflect Thurbers real life situations between men and women throughout his life. At last, I can affirm that many of his works are so similar to the present day relationship between men and women that it reflects why his literature works are continuing to be popular in todays world.