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Gender Relations
In “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” John Thurber pokes fun at the subversion of gender roles. In the U.S., men had traditionally held the power and authority in households. They were the family’s protectors and providers. Women were relegated to the domestic sphere, keeping house and tending to children. But by the late 1930s, gender roles were in transition. Women had voting rights and political influence. More of them were entering the workforce. The line between the man’s world and the woman’s world was starting to blur. Thurber reacted to these changes through his writings and cartoons, which often featured stereotypical bossy wives and meek husbands.
The Mittys exemplify the world as Thurber saw it. Mrs. Mitty clearly dominates Mitty. She tells him how to drive and what to wear. She demeans him by reminding him that he’s “not a young man anymore” and making him take their car to the garage rather than fixing it himself. Mitty grocery shops for her, despite the task being “women’s work” traditionally. Mitty must arrive at the hotel lobby before her since she doesn’t like to wait for him. She strikes him when she has trouble finding him. Mitty submits to her with little resistance.
But in Mitty’s daydreams, women are minor characters, if present at all. Nurses bookend his hospital fantasy. At its start, a pretty nurse brings him up to speed on the situation. At its end, nurses wait on him as he prepares for surgery. In Mitty’s courtroom fantasy, a woman screams when the courtroom breaks into chaos, and “a lovely dark-haired girl” falls into Mitty’s arms. Mitty defends her when the District Attorney strikes her. Mitty’s fantasy women are eye-candy, props, and damsels in distress.
Masculinity
In his real life, Mitty feels emasculated. His wife treats him like a child, not a man, for example, by dictating what he should wear. In the early 20th century, driving and fixing cars were seen as masculine activities, and Mitty fails at both. At the parking lot, he tries to enter through the exit-only lane. In an attempt to fix the problem, Mitty cautiously tries to back out. The attendant takes over without asking, performing the task “with insolent skill.” The incident reminds Mitty of a time when he made a mess of removing his car’s snow chains. A “young, grinning garageman” set things right for him, and Mrs. Mitty insists that he have it done at the garage from then on.
In Mitty’s daydreams, though, Mitty is hypermasculine. The roles he plays are very manly for his era: a navy commander, ace surgeon, superb marksman, and WWI bomber pilot. He sees himself in the role of hero, brave, confident, and capable. He wears manly uniforms and tosses back brandy shots better than any man. Rather than rely on other men, Mitty dominates them in his daydreams, and they look to him for salvation. Pretty young women throw themselves into his arms, and he protects them. His ideals of masculinity seem to come from Hollywood movies, where actors such as Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart played tough guys. With a potential world war on the horizon, readers shouldn’t be surprised that two of Mitty’s fantasy heroes are military men, willing to fight and die for their countries.
Authority
Walter Mitty has a complicated relationship with authority. In real life, he defers to his wife, the person with the power in their relationship. Yet, he does offer some resistance to her. For example, when Mrs. Mitty reminds him to buy overshoes, he tells her he doesn’t need them. When she tells him to put on his gloves, he does, but he takes them off again once he is out of her sight. He submits to the authority of the traffic cop, too, when he’s told to “pick it up, brother,” after he fails to notice that the light has changed from red to green. Since Mitty is an older man and customer, one would expect Mitty to have authority over the parking lot attendant and garageman. However, their youth and skill make him feel shame.
In Mitty’s fantasies, Mitty is the authority. No one has power over him. He is the highest-ranking officer on the navy hydroplane. In the hospital operating room, the other doctors bow to his knowledge and skill. In the courtroom, he is an expert marksman, an authority on firearms. He clashes with the district attorney, who represents the authority of the government. In World War I, he is captain to the other man’s sergeant, a lesser rank. Mitty is the authority in his daydreams to compensate for his lack of authority in real life.
