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Walter Mitty
Walter Jackson Mitty is a fictional character in James Thurber's short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", first published in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939, and in book form in My World—and Welcome to It in 1942.
Thurber loosely based the character, a daydreamer, on himself. It was made into a film in 1947, starring Danny Kaye, with a remake in 2013 directed by and starring Ben Stiller.
Mitty is a meek, mild-mannered man with a vivid fantasy life. In a few dozen paragraphs, he imagines himself a wartime pilot, an emergency-room surgeon, and a devil-may-care killer. Although the story has humorous elements, there is a darker and more significant message underlying the text, leading to a more tragic interpretation of the Mitty character. Even in his heroic daydreams, Mitty does not triumph, several fantasies being interrupted before the final one sees Mitty dying bravely in front of a firing squad. In the brief snatches of reality that punctuate Mitty's fantasies, the reader meets well-meaning but insensitive strangers who inadvertently rob Mitty of some of his remaining dignity.
The character's name has come into more general use to refer to an ineffectual dreamer and appears in several dictionaries. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a Walter Mitty as "an ordinary, often ineffectual person who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs". The most famous of Thurber's inept male protagonists, the character is considered "the archetype for dreamy, hapless, Thurber Man".
When referencing actor Errol Flynn, Warner Brothers studio head, Jack L. Warner, noted in his autobiography, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood, "To the Walter Mittys of the world he [Flynn] was all the heroes in one magnificent, sexy, animal package."
In the song "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", Ian Dury refers to the clothes of Mr. Walter Mitty as a better alternative to wearing grey, citing the character as an example of the unconventional.
In the December 2, 1963 edition of Newsweek Magazine (and later published as a slim book), Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee recalled his friend John F. Kennedy in a column and described his, "Walter Mitty streak, as wide as his smile" citing Kennedy on the golf course when he played well as embodying Arnold Palmer's power or Julius Boros' finesse.
The 1969–1970 television series My World and Welcome to It is titled after Thurber's anthology that contained his Walter Mitty story. The short-lived series won two Emmys.
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Walter Mitty
Walter Jackson Mitty is a fictional character in James Thurber's short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", first published in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939, and in book form in My World—and Welcome to It in 1942.
Thurber loosely based the character, a daydreamer, on himself. It was made into a film in 1947, starring Danny Kaye, with a remake in 2013 directed by and starring Ben Stiller.
Mitty is a meek, mild-mannered man with a vivid fantasy life. In a few dozen paragraphs, he imagines himself a wartime pilot, an emergency-room surgeon, and a devil-may-care killer. Although the story has humorous elements, there is a darker and more significant message underlying the text, leading to a more tragic interpretation of the Mitty character. Even in his heroic daydreams, Mitty does not triumph, several fantasies being interrupted before the final one sees Mitty dying bravely in front of a firing squad. In the brief snatches of reality that punctuate Mitty's fantasies, the reader meets well-meaning but insensitive strangers who inadvertently rob Mitty of some of his remaining dignity.
The character's name has come into more general use to refer to an ineffectual dreamer and appears in several dictionaries. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a Walter Mitty as "an ordinary, often ineffectual person who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs". The most famous of Thurber's inept male protagonists, the character is considered "the archetype for dreamy, hapless, Thurber Man".
When referencing actor Errol Flynn, Warner Brothers studio head, Jack L. Warner, noted in his autobiography, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood, "To the Walter Mittys of the world he [Flynn] was all the heroes in one magnificent, sexy, animal package."
In the song "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", Ian Dury refers to the clothes of Mr. Walter Mitty as a better alternative to wearing grey, citing the character as an example of the unconventional.
In the December 2, 1963 edition of Newsweek Magazine (and later published as a slim book), Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee recalled his friend John F. Kennedy in a column and described his, "Walter Mitty streak, as wide as his smile" citing Kennedy on the golf course when he played well as embodying Arnold Palmer's power or Julius Boros' finesse.
The 1969–1970 television series My World and Welcome to It is titled after Thurber's anthology that contained his Walter Mitty story. The short-lived series won two Emmys.