Mr. Rosen taught 11th grade English, but his class was about so much more than grammar, spelling, and punctuation. We read Alive By Piers Paul Read and learned to look at the world differently rather than being repulsed by people who had to make impossible decisions. He read, then interpreted, Shakespeare – Macbeth to be exact – into his own brand of humorous English. He was a DJ on WPDH during the Christmas holidays. He encouraged us to use our imaginations. Most importantly, he introduced us to Walter Mitty.
James Thurber’s short story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” was first published in the March 18, 1939 edition of The New Yorker. In 1986, my class read the story. Some thought the story was ridiculous. In the story, Mitty is a meek man whose wife orders him around and he has little say in the daily outcomes of his life. My classmates enjoyed the humor, but they missed the bits that weren’t as obvious.
Mitty was a man who struggled with many things in life. In the story, he travels with his wife into town to run their weekly errands. He endures her harsh scoldings and has a hard time remembering to complete mundane tasks. Others in the story laugh at him.
In his fantasies, Mitty is fearless, a hero, someone to be looked up to and respected. Throughout the short story, Mitty is pulled back to reality because of some real-life incident which serves to snap him back to his less than ordinary life.
My classmates, and most critics, saw Mitty as a, “commonplace, unadventurous person who seeks to escape reality through daydreams.” He was portrayed as someone who ought to be pitied. I saw Walter Mitty as a kinsman. I remember reading the story and thinking, “Holy shit. That’s me.”
Much like Walter Mitty, there are numerous times per day that a word, a comment, a song, a smell sends me off into fantasy land to create a story, one that is much better than the world I actually live in. It is often a story where someone finally recognizes me for me and welcomes who I am instead of who I am expected to be.
Mitty’s life has been described as routine, uneventful, pitiful, and unsatisfying. My life to others in 1986 was much the same, but, in reality, it was a horror show. So, I retreated into my head to make life bearable. I’ve never really left.
My grandmother would complain I lived in my head too much. Others saw me as a daydreamer wasting my time doing nothing. But those stories carried me through the most difficult times in my life and I still rely on them today.
In Mr. Rosen’s class, after we read and analyzed the story, we had to write one of our own with us in the role of Walter Mitty. My desk was in the row closest to the window and I stared outside, thinking, watching the birds flutter around instead of completing the assignment.
“On the paper, Irene. Not in your head,” Mr. Rosen said as he walked by and saw I hadn’t written a single letter.
I eventually wrote my story about a student who watches birds fly around an open air stadium while throngs of fans scream and cheer during a drum solo that even John Bonham, Neal Peart, Gene Krupa, or Buddy Rich couldn’t match. During that mighty moment, a gunman appeared on stage and pointed his M-16 at the crowd. In a millisecond, the drummer threw her sticks at the gunman, hitting him in the back of the head and rendering him unconscious. The crowd roared louder.
I wish I still had that story. It was ridiculous and over the top, but I was a hero, if just for one day. I also, somehow, managed to keep my story to five hundred words.
Having spent the better part of my life in my head, the stories and adventures there were always far more interesting than reality for me. Mitty, it seemed to me, was someone I could identify with. When Mitty “comes back to reality” and his wife suggests he go see Dr. Renshaw for a checkup, his wife represents all the people I knew in my life. If something was bothering me, their assumptions were it either wasn’t a big deal and I should shake it off or maybe I was physically ill somehow. No one ever thought about my mental well-being. No one ever stopped to question why I had these stories, fantasies, and adventures in my head. No one ever asked why I preferred them over reality.
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” represents to me elements of judgment, shame, and not being able to be who you really are. I identified with Mitty. I was a kid who was always on the outside looking in, but was also expected to do things a certain way, act a certain way, and never put the family to shame. Mitty’s fantasies may not have always been the same as mine, but they were identical in the sense that Mitty felt he could only be himself, be a hero, be respected, be looked up, and be useful to in his fantasies.
Like Mitty, the stories in my head are not real and they only offer a limited reprieve from the outside world. But they are a respite to the uncertainty of life.
I have not seen the 1947 film adaptation with Danny Kaye, nor have I seen the 2013 production with Ben Stiller. I do not have a desire to. The Walter Mitty I met in 1986 made me feel normal. It made me think I was not so different from everyone else. No film can ever match that feeling.
Sixteen-year-old me found a kindred spirit in Walter Mitty. Forty-eight-year-old me still carries the spirit of Walter Mitty within. When I retreat inside my mind, the comforting thought of Walter Mitty is always with me as I begin a new adventure.
If you’d like to read the original version, it is available online at The New Yorker.
Leslie Jordan
Wonderful.Irene