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 surrounded by work force and wo men in The brain-teaser manners of Walter Mitty In this research paper, I am going to read the relationship amongst men and women in the short horizontal surface The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber. In this essay 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 cig argont that man there is a woman that holds him back.Many source materials analyze and refer Thurbers ludicrous humoristic personality and explain how it might affect his drill of books through pop his numerous short stories. Thurbers humoristic and satiric expression of literature that he uses active the relationship between men and women in The secret Life of Walter Mitty attracts the readers attention because of that spark of friendship he gives to his humoristic and intellectual li terature. In Thurbers book, The Thurber Carnival, he uses many of his short stories including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in order 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 conclusion 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 sanitary woman, in which she is the dominant interrogative sentence of the relationship.In the relationships that Thurbers men are in, they are constant lead into frustrated experiences with their wives, in which they have been bullied by wives who guide that they know everything. This is exactly what happens in the short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Walter being treated by his married woman more like a mentally retarded child than a husband. This is shown end-to-end the first paragraphs of the story in which the couple is driving around running errands, but non together as a couple, instead, Walter has to stop in front of the cop salon where his wife is having her hair fall aparte, and e is told to remember to get those overshoes turn Im having my hair d genius, and in which Walter replies I dont need overshoes but the wife replies back saying youre non a young man any longer (47). These proceed quotes show how strong and harsh her character is and how dominant she can be in their relationship. These quotes also foreshadow the coming events of Walters several ideate 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 T he comedy exists in the tension created by the wifes world view. The wife is the threat over against Mittys free and preferred heroism(85) Then with a smile on his lips, he faces the kindling 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 ending 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 centre on the topic about the relationship between Walters bounteous daydreams and his marital situation.On e of those sources that 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 wave 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 handsome 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 another 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 American Women. The man itself has a style of expressing his thoughts with humor and irony but the smasher 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 resplendent 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 green-eyed, reflecting that Thurbers point of view of women is that they should go ahead and live behavior to the fullest and while they can woman should be a real accomplice to her husband(84).As I come to the end of this analysis about the neat 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 throu ghout 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 universal in todays world.