questions ONLY PROF DAN
nn1ER . The Secret Lifecf Walter Mitty 167 of trial and error, of generating better and better ideas by evaluating-selecting or rejecting-ideas and options. I
The rote of Providence is evident in the Ghost!.
This is much better, and it could stimulate ideas for an interesting essay. Let's as- sumethe writer rereads the play, looking f<brfurther evidence, arid comes to be- lieve that the Ghost is only one of several manifestations of Providence. The writer may stay with the Ghost or may (especially if the paper is long enough to allow for such a thesis to be developed) alter the thesis thus:
The role of Providence is not confined to the Ghost but is found also in the killing ofPolonius, in the surprising appearance of the pirate ship, and in the presence of the poisoned chalice.
Strictly speaking, the thesis here is given in the first part of the sentence C'The role of Providence is not confined to the Ghost"), the rest of the sentence provides an indication of how the argument will be supported.
Every literary work suggests its own topics for analysis to an active reader, and all essayists must set forth their own theses, but if you begin by seeking to examine one of your responses, you will soon be able to st:l~e aura topic and to formulate a thesis.
A suggestion: With two or three other students, formulate a thesis about Kate Chopin's "The Stann" (in Chapter 3). By practicing with a group you will develop a skill that you will use when you have to f rmulate a thesis on your own.
Analyzing a Story If a story is short enough, you may be abl to examine everything in it that you think is worth commenting on, but even if it is short you may nevertheless decide to focus on one element, such as t e setting, or the construction of the plot, or the connection between two characters, or the degree of plausibility. Here is a story by James Thurber (1894-1961), the American humorist. It was first published in 1939.
ER
"We're going throughl'lThe Commander's vo ce was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the h;~ braid d white cae pulled dow!!.gki~h!Y_Q.~~r_ one cold gray eye. ~Wecan't ma e it, sir. It's ;poiling for a hurricane, if you ask me,"
J'rm not askirig-xo~~utenant B~/' said he Commander.~~ on the p~r lights! Rev her up to 8,5001 We're going tltro ghl" The pounding of the cyliriders in- creased:ta-poCKeta-pOCketa-poc exs-poc eta - ocketa. 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!".he shoute I. "Switch on No.8 auxiliaryl" repeated Lieutenant Berg. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" shouted the Commander. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" The crew, bending to their v rious tasks in. the huge, hurtling eight- engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each 0 Lerand grinned. '~Old Man'll aet us .
~Y sajd to one an?ther. "The Old M;ln ain't afraid of Hell!" ... "Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" sald Mrs. Mitty."Wnat are you driving so
fast for?" . I . .
168 Chapter 7 Reading Literature Closely: Analysis
"Hmm?" said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled 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 toward 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 again," said Mrs. Mitry,"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 while I'm having my hair done," she said. "I don't need overshoes," said Mitty, She put her mirror back into her bag. "We've been all through that";""she said, getting out of the car. "You're not a young man any longer." He raced 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 build- ing and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. "Pick it up, broth- er!" snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and 1Urchecraneactrredrove arOun~ts aiffi1e.5s1yfora~e;·and·thenhed~-;ve
~SPital on his way to the parking lot. 5 . . . "It's the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan," said the pretty nurse.
"Yes?"said Walter Mitty, removing his gloves slowly. "Who has the case?" "Dr. Ren- shaw and Dr. Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr. Remington from New York and Dr. Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew oyer." A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. "Hello, Mitty,"he said. "We're having the devil's own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and dose personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish YOU'dtake a look at him." "Glad to," said Mitty.
In the operating room there were whispered introductions: "Dr. Remington, Dr. Mitry, Mr. Pritchard-Mitford, Dr. Mitty.""I've read your book on streptothrico- sis," 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, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertlaJ,j." "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 anesthetizer is giving way!" shouted an interne. "There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!" "~~, in a low, cool_voice. ~~ng to the ,!llachine, which was now li9ing~cketa- pocketa:9ueep-pocketa-qu~~. H~bega_n fip..,g~K ~lic~t~Ii~!:.<2.~~.of ~~ning @s. "Give me a fountajn pen!~ 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 has set in," said Renshaw nervously. "If you wo.!!!.dtake ov~?" Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drarik, and at the grave, 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! Look out for thatjBUick!"Walter Mittyjammed on the brakes. "Wrong lane, Mac,"said the parking-lot artendanr, looking at Mittyclosely. "Gee. Yeh," muttered Mitty.He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked "ExitOnly.""Leave her sit there," said the attendant. "I'llput ~er away."Mittygot out of the car. "Hey,better
THURBER • The Secret Life of Walter Mitty 169
leave the key." "Oh,"·said Mitry, handing the man the ignition key. Th~dant "~ted into the car. backed it up 'with insolent s~~d ~t it where it belonged.
They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty,walking along Main Street; they think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Milford, and he had Rot them-wound around the axles. A man haCfIiadto come - out.m a wrecking-CaL.aI1CLumvindthem. a ..young, grinning garag~incethen~ ~s. Mi~way ..§..JJl~lliQ1 c!rivetgpt1!~garage to"have thecnainstaKen"off The" next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm iii iSlTng:ffiey won'fgrinatme then.
-firnave i11Y"rightarm in a slii1g-'andtheyIIseeTcoiJTdii't"possfuly takethe;Chirns" 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 for Waterbury. ~ way he hated these weekl"ytrips to tovm-~~~I~"8...e~omething .~roug. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb's, razor blades? No. Toothpaste, toom15iuifi; bicarbonate, carborundum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it. "Where's the what's-its-name?" she would ask. "Don't tell me you forgot the what's-its-name." A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.
10 . . . "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 mv Weble,Y:Vickers50.80 .." he said calmlv, An excited buzz ran around the courtroom.
- The Judge rapped for order. "Y2u ar~ a crack shot IDlh__;my sort of firearms, I be- .lieve?" said the District Attorney, insinuatingly. "Objection!" shouted Mitty's attor- ney. "We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore ~ in a slin..$on the night of the fourteenth of July." Walter Mitt)' raised his hand bnefiy and die bickering attorneys were stilled~ any known make of..gyn." he said evenly, "I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at
~ hundred feet with.!!:!:E left baJi.1..,:" Pandemoniulll broke loose in the court- room. A woman's scre~'y'~ the .E~~~and sudc!.rn!Y.Jl.lovely, dark:- haired girl was in Walter Mi..ny'sarms. The DistricCAttomev struck at her sazagelz Without· rising from his chair, Mitt)' let the man have it on the point of the c:h!n. "You miserable cur!" . .. - ..-" .~ . "Pupm' bisatit," said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of WaterBury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A wom- an who was passing laughed. "He said 'Puppy bjsGill,'" she said to her companion. "That man said 'Puppy biscuif'to himself." Walter Mitry hurried on. He went into an A..& P., 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 a moment. "It says 'Puppies Bark for It' on the box," said Walter Mitty,
His wife would be through at the hairdresser's in fifteen minutes, Mitry 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, 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"~ermany Conquer " the World through the Air?"Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes
and of milled streers:---
170 Chapter 7 Reading Literature Closely: Analysis
... "The cannonading has got the windup in youngRaleigh.isir," said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through Jousled hair. "Get him to bed," he said wearily. "With the others. I'll fly alone;" "But you can't, sir," said the sergeant anxiously. -'2!_~~0 men tCl..-ha.n.dl~tha.LQ.QmbeLJ!..:q~Lthe Archies aJ&J?ounding he..JL.ou..t:of the air. Van Richtman'scircus is between
~Saulier." "cSomebody's got to get iliat ammunition dump," said Mitty, Tm gain over. S at of brand ?" He oured a drink for the sergeant and one or himself. ~r thundered ~e!i.~::goura1Td-tyatte-r'~e
ooor: There was a rending oLwood and splinters ITew througIltfie room. '''A bitof a near thing," s~id Captain Mitty carclessry. Tfie-ooxo<l1"ra-geiSClos- iug-in," saki the sergeant. "We only live once, Sergeant," said Mitty, with his
< ~eting smile. "Or db we?" He poured arlOtireTbr:mdy-and tossed it off. ~ never see a man could hold his brandy lik~you,. sir,"~said-the sergeant. "Begging your pardon, sir." Captain Mittystood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. "J!'s forry kilo.meI..~r.sJhro~. sir." said th.e_k.~r- ,~n.L-Mi.tJ:¥..iihe.d...91l.e_last b,randy.-':After all,'~~id ~, "what isn~?" The -pounding of .the cannon increased; there was me rat-tat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing ~- ~of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming:~~~." He turned and waved to the sergeant. ~eerjQ'" 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 expect me to find you?" "~gs close in," sa.i!dWalter Mitty v~ "What?" Mrs. Mitty said. "Did you get the what's-its-namt'!? The puppy biscuit? What's in that box?" "Overshoes," said Mitty. "Couldn't you have put them on in the store?", GI was thinking," said Walter Mitty."Does.it ever occur to you thatI am sometimesjhink-
:"ini?"SheIo01<ecfatliliii--"I'mgOlng--lo-tikey6U1"-remperntUrewhen .l.Eet _Q_u home," she said. --.---~----15 They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whis- tling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the comer she said, "Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute." She was more than a . ute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He tood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking .... He put his shoulders ba .k and his heels together. "To hell with the handkerchief," said Walter Mitty sea 11y.He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away, e with . ..J1e~g smile .E1aying about his lips,
_~.J"a~:~Uhe !i!in~qlJa<!;_~!:.~~!;mdmQtjQ~~~d?r~d an~mAu~}l~r Mitty the Undefeated.unscrutablejo j] e last, - - ------•..•. ~--_~ c.-____ _____._
[1939]