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Walter Mitty Research Paper

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Walter Mitty Research Paper
The Function of Fantasies in Walter Mitty
Walter Mitty is an irresponsible, incapable, and a somewhat plain person. Consequently, his fantasies allow him to feel the opposite of reality: capable, reliable, and exciting. In one fantasy he is a world renowned doctor. In a second fantasy he is a commander on a ship. Another fantasy for Walter Mitty is when he sees himself as a criminal being tried for murder. Finally, one of his fantasies is when he is a captain getting ready to run into a battle. In this first fantasy, Walter Mitty sees himself as a Commander in the Navy. On page 545, Commander Mitty is on an extremely large ship, in the middle of a terrible storm. “We’re going through!”, which …show more content…
In this fantasy, he is in the operating room while the other doctors are having a hard time working on a millionaire banker patient, who happens to be a friend of President Roosevelt. First an intern shouts that a machine is breaking and, “There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it?” Dr. Mitty springs to action and fixes the complicated machine with a pen, no less. In this fantasy, he is well-respected, calm, confident, and extremely skillful. As time goes on the doctor needs help, and asks, “If you would take over Mitty?” As Mitty proudly takes over, his fantasy ends. He goes back to his reality of being embarrassed and absent-minded, as he is getting yelled at by the parking attendant who scolds him for driving through the …show more content…
He is a hardened criminal testifying in a courtroom. He boldly makes statements of how he killed someone. As his lawyer defends him saying that Mitty’s right arm was in a sling, Walter yells out, “I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand!” In this fantasy, he is feeling confident and proud of his abilities, even if they are illegal. He then punched the District Attorney in the chin, and then came out of his fantasy yelling, “Puppy biscuit,” remembering what his wife told him to buy. His fantasy of people being amazed by him is opposed to his reality of people laughing at
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