Escape from RealityIn “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber, Walter Mitty faces the daily challenges of the real world. Thurber uses surreal dreams to allow Walter Mitty to escape these challenges. The two main characters are Mr. and Mrs. Mitty. Mr. Mitty finds himself in the middle of action-packed dreams until someone or something brings him back to reality. Walter Mitty escapes through his fantasies because he lacks the strength to face reality and the courage to express his true feelings and opinions. Walter Mitty uses his fantasies to avoid his wife. Ferguson points out that Mr. Mitty's dreams usually occur during or after one of his dreams(433). Walter dreams of escaping his wife even if sometimes he doesn't realize it. Ferguson further explains Walter's flaws by explaining how he is too weak to stand up to his wife; therefore, using his dreams to escape his life with her (433). Walter's wife is an obstacle that he learns to overcome through his dreams. Walter's dreams allow him to avoid going shopping with his wife. In “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” Walter escapes shopping with his wife by taking a drag on a cigarette and slowly falling into one of her fantasies (Thurber 47). This shows us that Walter doesn't care about going shopping with his wife and uses his dream to escape. Walter is happier in his dreams than if he was shopping with his wife. Critics call Mrs. Mitty a scapegoat, which allows Walter to use Mrs. Mitty to fall into his dreams (Cheatham 608). Walter uses Mrs. Mitty as a reason to be able to dream. Ferguson explains how Mrs. Mitty is the reason Walter goes to town in the first place; he has to wait in front of the pharmacy and in the hotel lobby...... in the middle of a paper ......Walter chooses to go back and forth between heroic fantasy and reality while using fantasy to escape reality(2). Walter finds himself daydreaming when he is doing nothing else. In "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", Walter sits down after running errands for his wife in a hotel lobby; Walter picks up a newspaper and starts reading about “The World Through the Air? ” as he drifts into one of his dreams (Thurber 46). Walter has finished shopping and has nothing to do, so without realizing it, he falls into a dream. Thurber shows how Walter falls into dreams when he is bored, such as when Walter smokes a cigarette while Mrs. Mitty is at the drugstore and he slowly drifts into a dream (47). At this point in the story, Walter realizes that he is falling into one of his heroic action-packed dreams and does nothing at all to stop it, this is his escape from boredom..