author of the secret life of walter mitty

It was the first such scandal in Connecticut history, and local residents were shocked to learn about their lawmakers’ corrupt “secret lives.” Mitty also picks up a magazine with the cover story “Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?” which refers to the growing power of the German military at the start of World War II in Europe-a situation that accounts both for the presence of war on Mitty’s mind and for anxieties about strength from America as a whole. Thurber makes a couple of specific allusions to local and world events: Mitty hears a newsboy on the street shouting about the Waterbury Trial of 1938, in which the mayor of Waterbury (also the lieutenant governor of Connecticut) and more than 20 other city officials were indicted for corruption and taxpayer fraud. When both he and a colleague are about to lose their job, Walter takes action by embarking on an adventure more extraordinary than anything he ever imagined. 1939 marked the transition from this long period of anxiety into a more prosperous era, with the comfortable routines of middle-class consumer culture representing the new American Dream. For relief, Americans turned to the kind of escapist genre fiction and films parodied in Walter Mitty’s fantasies, featuring dashing heroes like Errol Flynn in hypermasculine roles. James Thurber is universally admired for his hilarious sense of humour, off-beat imagination, and unique take on the world around him. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Other Pieces.

The Great Depression of the 1930s gave American men a widespread sense of impotence and failure as economic forces beyond their control left them unemployed and unable to provide for their families. Books similar to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Other Pieces.

Author of the secret life of walter mitty