The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Clothing, in Mitty’s fantasies as well as in his actual life, embodies his sense of identity and self-esteem; it is a measure of the power (or lack thereof) he enjoys in his two lives, real and imagined. Mitty bridles at his wife telling him to buy galoshes to protect his feet from the cold weather, and at her reminders to wear his gloves. This casual exercise of control over him, paired with her pointed allusion to his declining physical prowess (“You’re not a young man any longer”), chafes at his sense of autonomy and self-respect, making him feel infantilized (Paragraph 4). His response, meek and ineffectual in real life, flips the balance of power in his fantasies. In his first daydream, every detail of the Commander’s wardrobe accents his unquestioned authority, knowledge, and bold flamboyance: a “full dress uniform” (undoubtedly bedecked with medals), and a “heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly” (Paragraph 1). In his second daydream, the world-renowned surgeon Mitty decides for himself when to put on his gloves; in this case, only after being kowtowed to by desperate colleagues, who beg him to save the life of a millionaire banker as only he can.