The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

‘“Hmm?’ said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd.”

This passage reveals that Mitty has fantasized the hydroplane scene, with himself as its hero. His reverie has so utterly engrossed him that he now (momentarily) fails to recognize the people of the real world, even his own wife. The word “grossly” also hints at his feelings toward his wife.

“‘I don’t need overshoes,’ said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag. ‘We’ve been all through that,’ she said, getting out of the car. ‘You’re not a young man any longer.’”

Mitty sees overshoes (galoshes) as trappings of weakness or old age; he would prefer to brave the cold weather without them (as in a later scene, when he kicks a pile of slush). His wife’s casual dismissiveness, and her reference to his advancing years, ironically recall his daydream wherein he is referred to reverently as “the Old Man.”

“‘Why don’t you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?’ Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. ‘Pick it up, brother!’ snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead.”

Mitty’s wife continues her controlling and slightly infantilizing manner, chiding him for not wearing his gloves, and asking him if he lost them. Mitty waits for her to leave before (meekly) rebelling by taking them off again; but a policeman’s shout instantly quenches this brief recalcitrance. Far from not being “afraid of Hell,” the real Mitty is quickly cowed by any authority figure—especially Mrs. Mitty.

“A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. ‘Hello, Mitty,’ he said. ‘We’re having the devil’s own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish you’d take a look at him.’ ‘Glad to,’ said Mitty.”

Dr. Renshaw is another real-life authority figure: Mitty’s personal doctor, whom his wife takes him to, sometimes against his wishes. Here, Mitty has his revenge by casting Renshaw as a “haggard” supplicant who begs Mitty to do his usual, brilliant surgery on a politically and financially connected patient, thereby saving Renshaw’s career. (The terminology in this passage is nonsense because Mitty knows nothing about medicine.)

“He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. ‘That will hold for ten minutes,’ he said. ‘Get on with the operation.’”

Not merely a master surgeon, Dr. Mitty is also a mechanical genius who can repair ridiculously complex machines (ones that “no one in the East” knows how to fix) in a matter of seconds, using everyday objects. Throughout his fantasies, Mitty casts himself as a master of complicated (often immense and powerful) machines: a stark contrast to his actual life, where the simplest devices, such as snow chains, confound him.

“They slipped a white gown on him; he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining… ‘Back it up, Mac! Look out for that Buick!’ Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. ‘Wrong lane, Mac,’ said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. ‘Gee. Yeh,’ muttered Mitty.”

The other specialists reverentially slip a white gown on Dr. Mitty—evoking sacred rituals, like a coronation—and he draws on gloves, this time not in fear but as preamble to his bold, life-saving brilliance… Meanwhile, the real Mitty nearly plows into a Buick in the parking lot, attracting the ire of an attendant, who easily intimidates him with undisguised scorn. Again, we see the danger Mitty’s daydreams pose to himself and others—the exact opposite of his fantasized lifesaving roles.

“The next time, he thought, I’ll wear my right arm in a sling; they won’t grin at me then. I’ll have my right arm in a sling and they’ll see I couldn’t possibly take the chains off myself.”

Ashamed of his past clumsiness with snow chains, Mitty toys with the idea of using a fake sling as an alibi, as a way of pilfering a morsel of respect from a mechanic. The self-contempt of even contemplating this petty deception suggests that Mitty has given up on achieving any actual mastery over his real-life problems: Pretending has become a permanent crutch for him.

“‘With any known make of gun,’ he said evenly, ‘I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.’ Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman’s scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty’s arms.”

Mitty’s next daydream incorporates the shameful arm sling, this time not as an alibi (which he scornfully rejects) but as climactic proof of his machismo prowess. This continues Mitty’s pattern of “flipping” dishonorable details of his actual life, turning demerits into honors. His love life, also, is flipped: Instead of a middle-aged wife ordering him around, a lovely “girl” sacrifices her reputation to show her love for him.

“A woman who was passing laughed. ‘He said “Puppy biscuit,”’ she said to her companion. ‘That man said “Puppy biscuit” to himself.’ Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A. & P., not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street.”

Again, Mitty’s real life flips things right back: His chivalrous defense of the loving young woman in his daydream leads him to mutter a mental association (“Puppy biscuit!”) that draws the mockery of a real-life woman in the street. True to form, he runs away.

“‘The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, sir,’ said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through touselled hair. ‘Get him to bed,’ he said wearily. ‘With the others. I’ll fly alone.’ ‘But you can’t, sir,’ said the sergeant anxiously. ‘It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies are pounding hell out of the air.’”

The new daydream, sparked by an old copy of Liberty magazine, significantly darkens Mitty’s self-aggrandizing dreams of liberty from his powerless life. Once again, he is a chivalrous protector of younger people (young Raleigh and “the others”), but this time his self-sacrifice appears to be the ultimate one: a suicide mission.

“There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. ‘A bit of a near thing,’ said Captain Mitty carelessly. ‘The box barrage is closing in,’ said the sergeant. ‘We only live once, Sergeant,’ said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile. ‘Or do we?’”

An enemy “barrage” is closing in, just as life has been closing in on Mitty throughout the day and presumably throughout his life. But Captain Mitty is devil-may-care, even fatalistic, about impending doom. His “faint, fleeting smile” (like his “touselled hair”) seems already elegiac, like a funerary portrait, and his wry “Or do we?” is a private joke: Mitty has already lived and died many times—in his imagination. At these stakes, he can afford to laugh at “death.”

“‘I’ve been looking all over this hotel for you,’ said Mrs. Mitty. ‘Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?’ ‘Things close in,’ said Walter Mitty vaguely.”

The “box barrage,” in the shape of Mitty’s wife, has found him and obliterated his latest bid for liberty. Mitty makes his clearest statement yet about his predicament—“Things close in”—not a specific complaint about a petty slight of the past (like the “grinning” garageman) but recognition of a basic malaise and entrapment.

“‘I was thinking,’ said Walter Mitty. ‘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.”

Mitty’s vague epiphany about his meager, boxed-in life prompts him to talk back to his wife, the foremost of the forces that confine him. Her reaction suggests that his boldness is rare indeed: Surely, he must be sick to take that tone with her.