The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thruber Essay Example for Free

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty† by James Thruber Essay James Thurber is one of the best known humorists in America, and the work â€Å"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty† is considered to be one of the Thurber’s â€Å"acknowledged masterpieces†. The story was published in 1939 in the New Yorker magazine to great applause, and was first collected in his book â€Å"My World and Welcome to It†. In 1947, Hollywood released a movie of the same title, starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. The name of the main character Walter Mitty and the derivative word â€Å"Mittyesque† have entered the English language, describing an intellectual person, who spends more time in heroic day dreams than paying attention to the real world, or more seriously, one who deliberately tries to trick or persuade others that he is something that he is not. In military circles, this usually refers to people who try and fake a successful career. The idea for Walter Mitty was got from a book â€Å"Malice Aforethought† by a leading British crime-fiction writer Antony Berkeley Cox. Here the main character is named Dr. Bickleigh, who runs away from unbearable reality into fantasies markedly similar in character to those of Mitty. Nevertheless, Walter Mitty is very much a Thurber protagonist, so much so that he has been called â€Å"the archetype for dreamy, hapless, Thurber Man†. Like many of his physically unimpressive male characters Thurber often paired with larger woman in his cartoons, Walter Mitty is dominated and put upon by his wife. Like a man who saw the unicorn, he escapes by way of fantasies. The title itself describes what this story is all about. Walter’s negative manner of speaking of himself makes the reader realize that he is not very happy in his life. He is an ordinary man, who first dreams about being a commander of a hydroplane who should get his crew out of danger from the hurricane. This short story is about a man, Walter Mitty, and his wife who make a trip to town, Waterbury, to run instructions. Mrs. Mitty needs to stop at the hair salon and she commands her husband to leave the car at the mechanic and go to the store to buy overshoes and some unknown objects that he couldn’t recollect. Throughout the trip to town the old man is lost in day dreams, where he is heroic at the end. These fantasies are the secret life of Walter Mitty. The real-life setting in this story is rather mundane: a hairdresser, a parking lot, a hotel lobby, a drugstore – all everyday elements of every town or city. The dimness or banality of these locations reflects the dullness of Mitty’s everyday life. This is pretty contrasted with the environment of Walter’s fantasies: a â€Å"Navy hydroplane† in a storm, an operating room, a courtroom, a dugout, a wall before a firing squad. These locations are tense, gripping, and out of the ordinary. The main character is a middle-aged, middle-class man, flees from the routine drudgery of his suburban life into fantasies of heroic conquest. In the story Walter Mitty proves that he is a very forgetful and a really stubborn man with a vivid imagination. He is constantly being distracted, and starts to dream often. His daydreams all has him as a successful, brave, heroic person, who is called in to save the day. Walter imagines himself the hero of his fantasies as a navy pilot commander, doctor, sharpshooter, bomber pilot, and noble victim of firing squad. His daydreams changes throughout the story. In his final vision, he sees himself facing a firing squad. It is another expression of his exceptional courage and bravery. Reading the story the reader understands that these dreams mean something more, the old man Mitty feels that he can be a lot more than what he is in his everyday life. The catching is the way Thurber introduces the changes of events Mr. Mitty is imaging. The story begins with him in one of his fantasies as a daring Navy pilot and then his wife cuts in saying â€Å"Not so fast! You are driving too fast! †. Walter was going so fast, because he was caught up in his imagination of being a naval pilot, he did not pay attention to how he was going. This was one of his many dreams. He imagines all these stories because he wants to make his life interesting. And his wife doesn’t seem to support him, she is always nagging. Mitty’s wife treats him more like a child than a husband. She only sticks to her guns and doesn’t let anything get by her. Thurber writes his story around Mitty’s daydreams and his return to reality. This novel seems to be the bunch of stories put together in one. In a Walter Mitty’s second daydream he is a â€Å"know-it-all† doctor, who fulfils a very difficult operation, on a millionaire banker. He seems to be brave saying â€Å"I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at 300 feet with my left hand†. In the real life he isn’t the one to perform an important operation; he is merely an occasional bystander of the hospital. Mitty has no courage, and has no charisma and would never participate in such a daring act in reality. The next dream depicts Walter as a commander of a bomber in the military, resolving to fly it to the other troops to drop off more ammunition. He isn’t putting up a flight or wearing a handkerchief over his eyes, he is behaving like a man. And again his imagination is interrupted. Walter’s last dream finds him in front of a firing squad, very quiet, getting ready to be executed. The old man is actually just a observer of the Waterbury trial, wishing that he was an accused. Mitty hits the District Attorney, who tries to wake a beautiful woman up from devastation. Here Walter Mitty is urbane and triumphant too. Once again the creative mind of the man has him doing something totally out of his league. Life places a great gap between wish and reality. This is true for Walter Mitty, the main character in the story â€Å"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty†. This man is far from being a respected man with a good career and his wife looks him down upon him. So he fabricates his own perception of reality, his daydreams, where he, Walter Mitty, is a hero and a leader. The way Mitty is in reality really contrasts the way he is in a fantasy world. His incapacities in the real world quickly turn into abilities in â€Å"fantasy land†. The man avoids weakness and does not let any pessimistic views ruin the complete spirit of his ideas. Every time the main hero has a daydream, he seems more and more unwilling to live in the real life. Why should anyone live in reality when you could live in a fantasy like that? Although Thurber’s humorous stories, essays and illustrations were popular during his lifetime, the author has received little scholarly attention. Some literary critics rejected his works as little more than pattern and whimsical. Lately critics have become attentive to James Thurber’s literary mastery, such as his use of wordplay and attention to narrative form. The scholars have also debated the darker themes of his work which hide beneath the merriment. Others, referring to his tendency to depict domineering women, like Mrs. Mitty, and ill-fated men, like Walter, blame his treatment of women and views of marriage. In common with Charles Dickens’ Scrooge and George Orwell’s Big Brother, Walter Mitty has outgrown his literary roots to become an everyday metaphor for a certain type of character or behavior. This type of character had an influence on other humorists, notably Mad founder Harvey Kurtzman, playwright George Axelrod (who employed Mitty-like fantasies in The Seven Year Itch) and animation director Chuck Jones (who created a Mitty-like child character for Warner Bros.cartoons). Works Cited 1. James Thurber. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The Creative Company, 2008. 32p 2. Steve King, Thurber: Mitty and Dangerous, http://www. todayinliterature. com/stories. asp? Event_Date=3/18/1939 3. MediaGuardian, Who is Walter Mitty? , 2003-08-05 http://www. guardian. co. uk/media/2003/aug/05/iraqdossier. hutton 4. James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, http://www. geocities. com/SoHo/Cafe/6821/thurber. html

Californias Direct Means of Democracy Essay -- Prop 19

California is a democratic republic consisting of three branches of government. The first is the executive branch, i.e. the governor and a group of elected constitutional officers. Second is the judicial branch which consists of the Supreme Court of California and the various local courts. Officials are appointed by the Governor and ratified in the next general election. The third branch of government in California is the legislative branch. It is a bicameral body which includes California’s Senate and Assembly. The Assembly makes up the lower house of the California State Legislature and consists of eighty members, one representative from each county, who serve for up to three two year terms. There are forty state senators who are able to serve up to two four year terms. Each senator represents approximately 846,719 Californians. California practices direct democracy which is a method of governance in which any citizen of a state wishing to participate holds sovereignty. It is a political system that allows citizens to change constitutional laws, put forth initiatives, referendums, and suggestions for laws. Also, they can give institute limitations for removal on the state’s executive branch official. These means of governing is a clear contrast representative democracy which state officials, elected to office through popular vote, hold the power to make legislation. The framers of the United States did not see direct democracy as a viable option of governance because it made it easy for the majority to impose their will over the minority. Also, it gave the newly formed legislative branch less power. In turn, the founding fathers instituted a representative democracy in the form of a constitutional republic. This allowed the s... ...011: 48-49. Print. "California." Initiative and Referendum Institute. University of Southern California, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. . "California Ballot Propositions - November 2nd 2010 ." California Choices. California Choices, 7 Feb. 2011. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. . Kesler, Charles R. "Direct Democracy In California." The Claremont Institute: For Studying Statesmenship and Political Philosophy. The Claremont Insititute, 2009. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. . Stern, Robert M. "Democracy by Initiative: Shaping California’s Fourth Branch of Government." Health Vote. California HearthCare Foundation, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2011.

13 Domestic Cabinet Departments Essay

1.) U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) – responsibilities include farming, agricultural products, food stamps, and anti-poverty programs, and conservation and natural resource protection. The inspectors of this department are responsible for the safety of the nation’s food supply. 2.) U.S. Department of Commerce- responsible for everything we buy and sell, they regulate everything from foreign trade to fishing to the granting of patents, they oversee programs that support minority businesses, and provides statistics and analyses for business and government planners. 3.) U.S Department of Defense (DOD)- responsible for supplying military hardware, administering personnel pay and benefits, providing info to the public and military, managing military education programs and attempting to locate missing personnel or prisoners of war. 4.) U.S. Department of Education- their first responsibility is making sure that the nation’s public school systems provide students with proper school supplies, educational facilities and qualified teachers. Personnel promote parental involvement in their children’s education, develop financial aid policies and encourage the use of modern technology in the classroom. 5.) U.S. Department of Energy- works to ensure that the nation has a steady, consistent and safe supply of energy. Energy scientists work to harness the sun’s power while its physicists attempt to capture nuclear energy for civilian or military use. 6.) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – the government’s primary agency for overseeing the health and well-being of the American people. HHS employees work on more than 300 programs and perform essential services ranging from food safety to medical research to drug abuse prevention. HHS has regional offices across the country. 7.) U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – first priority is to protect the nation against further terrorist attacks. Component agencies will analyze threats and intelligence, guard the nation’s borders and airports, protect critical national infrastructure, and coordinate the nation’s response for future emergencies. 8.) U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – responsible for ensuring that American families have access to decent, safe and affordable housing. Among HUD’s biggest programs are insuring mortgages for homes and loans for home improvement, making direct loans for construction or rehabilitation of housing projects for the elderly and the handicapped, providing federal housing subsidies for low- and moderate-income families, and enforcing fair housing and equal housing access laws. 9.) U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) – manages the nation’s natural resources, from land and water to coal and natural gas. By monitoring the extraction of natural resources, Interior Department personnel work to efficiently protect and preserve the environment. The Department also houses the office responsible for overseeing Native American affairs. 10.) U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) – makes sure that federal laws aimed at protecting the public and promoting competitive business practices are implemented, including immigration and naturalization statutes, consumer safeguards and criminal prosecutions. The FBI falls under the Justice Department’s authority. 11.) U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) – administers and enforces laws and regulations that ensure safe working conditions, minimum hourly pay and overtime. Through its varied initiatives, it also works to meet the special employment-related needs of the disabled, the elderly and minorities, and provides job banks, unemployment benefits and workplace health regulations. 12.) U.S. Department of State- responsible for the conduct of the nation’s foreign affairs and diplomatic initiatives. State Department personnel coordinate conferences with foreign leaders, hammer out treaties and other agreements with foreign governments and protect the safety of US citizens traveling abroad. 13.) U.S. Department of the Treasury- Printing the nation’s money is only one of many responsibilities overseen by the nation’s second oldest cabinet department (only the State Department has been around longer). It also sets domestic financial, economic and tax policy, manages the public debt and collects taxes. Less obvious is Treasury’s other major role—law enforcement; the Secret Service and the Customs Service are Treasury agencies. 14.) U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) – Cars, trucks, buses, trains, boats, and airplanes all fall under the Department of Transportation’s authority. So does the nation’s transportation infrastructure. The work of Transportation Department employees makes it possible for Americans to travel home for the holidays, away on vacation, and even to and from work. The Transportation Department is also home to the new Transportation Security Administration, which is responsible for protecting the country’s transportation systems and ensuring the safety of its passengers. 15.) U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – Best known for its healthcare system, the VA also provides social support services, administers pensions and other veterans’ benefits, and promotes the hiring of veterans.

Organization marketing concept

Core marketing strategy to achieve objective 4. Reference 1. Corporate objectives and how they lead to marketing objective Mission statement , a long-term view of what the organization wants to be . Marketing objective , a statement of what is to be accomplished through marketing activities . A,Sharon p. 54).Queerly founded in Australia in 1985, hey develop each product using potent blends extracted from the herbs and flowers objective of Curlicue is to proof that nature and science can come together . The company advocates the green, organic, healthy life style rather than a single perfume brand. They believe that nature and science can be beauty . Curlicue has spent over 25 years unearthing potent organic and patronymic ingredients and developing the unique Bio-Intrinsic process to create the purest, most powerful skin care. Now curlicue has became one of the famous skin care brand in the world, especially inAsian area. Curlicue insist to use nature ingredients and never been found to use any of chemicals over 25 years . They got customers' trust on their product an build the goodwill in the market . 2. Organization marketing concept Obviously Curlicue is following the marketing concept ,production concept and social concept during 25 years. Social concept: For Curlicue, this currently includes working with suppliers when sourcing new packaging materials to ensure that environmental impacts are considered with designing new and/or replacement packaging items and accessories.Curlicue takes into consideration packaging life-cycle during the design process, incorporating sourcing, material type, production processes and potential wastage, void space in packaging, and packaging risibility/respectability. Relieve International Pity. Ltd. – Action Plan 2011-16) . 1 am the one of big fans of Curlicue . Every time I got their product packing box , I can see the end of the box said ‘This carton contains 80% recycled fiber and 20% sustainable sourced fiber . Please recycle . ‘ And it can be found n their formal website : commitment about their animal testing .They continue to adhere to the strict requirements of global cosmetic regulations regarding animal testing, with utmost respect for our customers and environment. Without any doubt , Curlicue always follow the production concept and marketing concept. Nestled in the Adelaide Hills is the magnificent patronymic Curlicue Farm where many of the herbs, flowers and plants are grown for our natural skin care products. Curlicue is one of the world's most recognized skin care brands and is renowned for using the best in organic and patronymic ingredients to deliver quality skin care products. Reliquary web site ) 3. Core marketing strategy to achieve objective Curlicue offers pure and harmless products with good price. They impress the customer with the good quality and fresh fragrance. SOOT analysis : Strengths -Own organic farmland , nature ingredients , harmless to skin . Their supply chain expanded to America , Asian . Good reputation due to their environment protect . Weaknesses -Lack of creativity , lack of sale promotion activity Opportunity-More and ore customers and realize the important of nature product.Threats- With customers' realization of important of nature production , more pretenders are using 1 . Make the consumers add the whole bunch of reliance credits in our brand equity account. 2. Trying to generate the new demands in existing market and get more market shares in this niche market. 3. Increasing the wide acceptance of our brand. Relieve 2012) Based on the marketing objectives and SOOT analysis , Curlicue need to make strategy to increasing their Brand effect .

William Hazlitt on Style - Classic British Essays

William Hazlitt on Style - Classic British Essays A master of invective and irony, essayist William Hazlitt was one of the great prose stylists of the 19th century. In On Familiar Style (originally published in the London Magazine and reprinted in Table Talk, 1822), Hazlitt explains his preference for plain words and popular modes of construction. On Familiar Style (excerpts) by William Hazlitt (1778-1830) It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as any one would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes. Or, to give another illustration, to write naturally is the same thing in regard to common co nversation as to read naturally is in regard to common speech. . . It is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express: it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it. Out of eight or ten words equally common, equally intelligible, with nearly equal pretensions, it is a matter of some nicety and discrimination to pick out the very one, the preferableness of which is scarcely perceptible, but decisive. . . . The proper force of words lies not in the words themselves, but in their application. A word may be a fine-sounding word, of an unusual length, and very imposing from its learning and novelty, and yet in the connection in which it is introduced may be quite pointless and irrelevant. It is not pomp or pretension, but the adaptation of the expression to the idea, that clinches a writers meaning:as it is not the size or glossiness of the materials, but their being fitted each to its place, that gives strength to the arch; or as the pegs and nails are as necessary to the support of the building as the larger timber, and more so than the mere showy, unsubstantial ornaments. I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth. I hate to see a load of band-boxes go along the street, and I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them. A person who does not deliberately dispose of all his thoughts alike in cumbrous draperies and flimsy disguises, may strike out twenty vari eties of familiar every-day language, each coming somewhat nearer to the feeling he wants to convey, and at last not hit upon that particular and only one which may be said to be identical with the exact impression in his mind. . . . It is as easy to write a gaudy style without ideas, as it is to spread a pallet of showy colours, or to smear in a flaunting transparency. What do you read,Words, words, words.What is the matter?Nothing, it might be answered. The florid style is the reverse of the familiar. The last is employed as an unvarnished medium to convey ideas; the first is resorted to as a spangled veil to conceal the want of them. When there is nothing to be set down but words, it costs little to have them fine. Look through the dictionary and cull out a florilegium, rival the tulippomania. Rouge high enough, and never mind the natural complexion. The vulgar, who are not in the secret, will admire the look of preternatural health and vigour; and the fashionable, who regard only appearances, will be delighted with the imposition. Keep to your sounding generalities, your tinkling phrases, and all will be well. Swell out an unmeaning truism to a perfect tympany of style. A thought, a distinction is the rock on which all this brittle cargo of verbiage splits at once. Such writers have merely verbal imaginations, that retain nothing but words. Or their puny thoughts have dragon-wings, all green and gold. They soar far above the vulgar failing of the Sermo humi obrepenstheir most ordinary speech is never short of an hyperbole, splendid, imposing, vague, incomprehensible, magniloquent, a cento of sounding common-places. If some of us, whose ambition is more lowly, pry a little too narrowly into nooks and corners to pick up a number of unconsidered trifles, they never once direct their eyes or lift their hands to seize on any but the most gorgeous, tarnished, thread-bare, patchwork set of phrases, the left-off finery of poetic extravagance, transmitted down through successive generations of barren pretenders . . .. (1822) The full text of On Familiar Style appears in Selected Writings, by William Hazlitt (Oxford University Press, 1999). Also by William Hazlitt: On the Feeling of Immortality in YouthOn Going a Journey

Self-Respect

Self-Respect The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others - who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without. ~Joan Didion, author of a Star is Born, winner of the National Book Award.   Self-respect is not easily achieved, because all around us we are barraged with stimuli telling us how great or worthless we are. The fact is, without self-respect, what others think consumes us. When we understand, love, and care for ourselves, and in turn our storytelling, we then have the mental maturity to sift through the judgment of others . . . picking and choosing which judgment is worth listening to. In this business, we get kicked around enough without doing it to ourselves. When I read on Facebook the comments in writers groups, where writers are depressed, wondering if they ought to keep writing because they cant make money, make sales, or receive glowing reviews, I feel sorry for them. Not for the reasons they express, but for their lack of self-respect. They are screaming it. When someone is self-assured, they are a magnet for others. After all, most people dont feel good about themselves, and they gravitate to those who do. When we are not shackled That doesnt mean we dont make mistakes. Frankly, the main reason writers self-publish is to own all the responsibility. That means they accept the responsibility for all that goes well and all that fails, both of which are good. Both of which make us stronger. We did it. We own it. We do what we want and accept the fallout or glory. To accept without placing blame on others is the epitome of self-respect. So write. Publish whichever way you like. If a choice fails you, avoid pointing the finger at anyone other than ones self. Analyze what happened and launch into another direction, wiser and stronger. To blame others means you struggle to look at yourself in the mirror. Once you get past that obstacle, you can do damn near anything you want because nobody is in your way. You do, adjust, do, adjust, until you are the grandest being, in love with who you are and what you do. Doors open to people like that, because people want to be you.

Attitudes of Arabic (Saudi) speakers toward learning English language Research Proposal

Attitudes of Arabic (Saudi) speakers toward learning English language - Research Proposal Example The attitude of Arabic speakers towards leaning the English language is normally influenced by positive and negative factors. The positive factors influencing the attitudes of Arabic speakers in learning the English language include; motivation, which plays a crucial in the attitudes developed by Arabic speakers in learning the English language. Motivation is essential in the development of attitudes by Arabic speakers towards the English language in that; the lack of motivation for speakers normally result to the loss of interest by Arabic speakers in learning the English language. The lack of motivation, therefore, normally affects the success of the Arabians in learning the English language (Derwing, Et al, 2004). Pedagogic factors also tend to influence the development of attitudes by Arabian speakers towards learning the English language. The learning environment normally plays a crucial role in the development of attitudes by Arabic speakers towards learning the English language. When the learning environment is favorable, it is evident that Arabic speakers are likely to develop positive attitudes towards learning the language. If the learning environment enhances a better understanding of the English language by the Arabic speaker, then it is evident that Arabic speakers will develop a positive attitude towards learning the language. However, unfavorable learning environments normally result to the development of negative attitudes by Arabic speakers towards learning the English language (Edwards & Giles, 2006). The teaching programs also play a role in the attitudes of the Arabic speakers in learning English. To enhance the development of positive attitudes by Arabic speakers towards the English language, it is essential that the learning curriculum is designed in a way that it favors the understanding of the English language by the Arabic speaker. If the curriculum does not favor the