Further discussion. 1. What is the young man's attitude towards the road at the beginning of the story and why does his desire to return to it contradict his original willingness

 

1. What is the young man's attitude towards the road at the beginning of the story and why does his desire to return to it contradict his original willingness to leave it?

2. What is the mentality of the " people of the road" as revealed by the young man’s description of his brother, and how does this contrast with the mentality of the people " on the other side of the hedge"?

3. The young man argues logically for " progress" despite the evidence of his own eyes. What does the author wish to tell us about human nature by pointing out this contrast?

4. This story was written over 40 years ago. What has happened in that time to shake our faith in " human progress" even further?

5. How would you summarize the message of the story? Have you read stories like it? Discuss them.

6. Do you think that the last sentence could easily be left out without altering the message? What difference would it make?

7. Give a full stylistic analysis of the text.

 

James Thurber

 

James Thurber was born in 1894 in Columbus, Ohio, USA and died in 1961 in New York. He is considered to be the finest American humourist since Mark Twain, as this story will show. He began his writing career as a journalist, and progressed to the writing short stories, many of which depict modern man confused by his surrounding. His humour is spiced with irony, sadness and sometimes anger. His frustrate characters, like Walter Mitty, seek escape in a world of fantasy. On the whole, women seem to cope better with the modern world as Thurber sees it. Even poor Walter Mitty is not allowed to spend much time in his private life of fantasy!

 

 

Secret Life of Walter Mitty

 

" We are going through! " The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided[410] white cap pulled down rakishly[411] over one cold grey eye. " We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane[412], if you ask me" " I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg" said the Commander. " Throw on the power lights! Rev her up[413] to 8, 500! We're going through! " The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. " Switch on No. 8 auxiliary[414]! " he shouted. " Switch on No. 8 auxiliary! " repeated Lieutenant Berg. " Full strength in No. 3 turret[415]! " shouted the Commander. " Full strength in No. 3 turret! " The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling[416] eight-engined Navy hydroplane[417], looked at each other and grinned. " The Old Man'll get us through, " they said to one another. " The Old Man ain't afraid of Hell! "...

" Not so fast! You're driving too fast! " said Mrs Mitty. " What are you driving so fast for? "

Hmmm? " said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly[418] unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled[419] at him in a crowd, " You were up to fifty-five" she said. " You know I don't like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five" Walter Mitty drove on through Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind. " You're tensed up[420] again" said Mrs. Mitty. " It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr. Renshaw look you over".

Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. " Remember to get those overshoes[421] while I'm having my hair done, " she said. " I don't need overshoes, " said Mitty. She put her mirror back in her bag. " We've been through all that, " she said, getting out of the car " You're not a young man any longer." He raced[422] the engine a little. " 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[423], brother! " snapped a cop[424] as the light changed, and Mitty astily pulled on his gloves and lurched[425] ahead. He drove around the street aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot[426]. " It's the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan, " said the pretty nurse " Yes? " said Walter Mitty, removing his gloves slowly. " Who has the case? " " Dr Renshaw and Dr. Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr. Remington from New York and Mr. Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over." A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked, distraught[427] and haggard[428]. " Hello, Mitty, " he said. " We're having the devil’s own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis[429] of the ductal tract[430]. Tertiary. Wish you'd take a look at him" " Glad to" said Mitty. In the operating room there were whispered introductions: " Dr. Remington, Dr. Mitty. Mr. Pritchard-Mitford, Dr. Mitty" " I've read your book on streptothricosis, " said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking hands. " A brilliant performance, sir." " Thank you, " said Walter Mitty. " Didn't know you were in the States, Mitty, " grumbled Remington. " Coals to Newcastle[431], bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary." " You are very kind, " said Mitty. A huge complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. " The new anaesthetizer is giving way! " shouted an interne[432]. " There is no one in the East.

He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. " Give me a ountain pen[433]! " he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. 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" A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. Coreopsis[434] has set in" said Renshaw nervously. " If you would take over, Mitty? " Mitty looked at him and at the craven[435] figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave[436], uncertain faces of the two great specialists. " If you wish, " he said. They slipped a white gown on him; he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining...

" Back it up, Mac[437]! Look out for that Buick! " Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. " Wrong lane[438], Mac" said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. " Gee. Yeh, " muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked " Exit Only" " Leave her sit there" said the attendant. " I'll put her away".

Mitty got out of the car. " Hey, better leave the key" " Oh" said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted[439] into the car, backed it up with insolent[440] skill, and put it where it belonged. They’re so damn cocky[441], thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street; they think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains[442] off, outside New Milford, and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had had to come out in a wrecking car[443] and unwind them, a young, grinning garageman. Since then Mrs. Mitty always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm in a sling[444]; 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. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. " Overshoes, " he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.When he came out into the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm.

Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him twice, before they set out from their house in Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town - he was always getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb's, razor blades? No. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bicarbonate[445], carborundum[446], initiative and referendum[447]? He gave it up. But she would remember it. " Where's the what's its-name[448]? " she would ask. " Don't tell me you forgot the what's-its-name." A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.

" Perhaps this will refresh your memory" The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. " Have you ever seen this before? " Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly " This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80" he said calmly. An excited buzz[449] ran round the courtroom. The judge rapped[450] for order, " You are a crack shot[451] with any sort of firearms, I believe? " said the District Attorney, insinuatingly[452] " Objection! " shouted Mitty's attorney. " We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July." Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering[453] attorneys were stilled. " With any known make of gun", he said evenly, " I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand" Pandemonium[454] broke loose in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above the bedlam[455] and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty's arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it[456] on the point of the chin, '" You miserable cur[457]! "... " Puppy biscuit" said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. The 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 and R, not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. " I want some biscuit for small, young dogs, " he said to the clerk.

" Any special brand, sir? " The greatest pistol shot in the world thought for a moment. " It says 'Puppies bark for It's on the box, " said Walter Mitty.

His wife would be through[458] at the hairdresser's in fifteen minutes, Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn't like to get to the hotel first; she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby[459], facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of " Liberty" and sank down into the chair. " Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air? " Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.

" The cannonading[460] has got the wind up[461] in young Raleigh, sir, " said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through tousled[462] hair. " Get him to bed, " he said wearily. " With the others. I'll fly alone." " But you can't sir, " said the sergeant anxiosly. " It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies[463] are pounding hell out of the air. Von Richtman's circus is between here and Saulier." " Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump[464], " said Mitty. " I'm going over. Spot of brandy[465]? " He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and whined around the dugout[466] and battered at the door. There was a rending[467] of wood and splinters flew through the room. " A bit of a near thing, " said Captain Mitty carelessly. " The box barrage[468] is closing in, " said the sergeant. " We only live once, Sergeant, " said Mitty, with his faint[469], fleeting[470] smile. " Or do we? " He poured another brandy and tossed it off. " I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir, " said the sergeant. " Begging your pardon, sir." Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. " It's forty kilometres through hell, sir, " said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. " After all, " he said softly, " what isn't? "

The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine-guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dug out humming " Aupres de ma Blonde" He turned and waved to the sergeant. " Cheerio[471]! " he said... Something struck his shoulder. " 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 expedt me to find you? " " Things close in" said Walter Mitty vaguely. " What? " Mrs Mitty said. " Did you get the what's-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What's in that! box? " " Overshoes; ' said Mitty. " Couldn't you have put them on in the store? " " I was thinking" said Walter Mitty. " Does it ever occur to you that sometimes I am thinking? " She looked at him. " I'm going to take your temperature when 1 get you home" she said.

They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive[472]! whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, " Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute" She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking... He put his shoulders back and his heels together!! " To hell with the handkerchief" said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad[473]; erect[474] and motionless! proud and disdainful[475], Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable[476] to the last.