If I were answering this question I would definitely want
to focus on the element of daydreaming in both of these stories and how they dominate
the central characters. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is of course a story that is
entirely about a man who day dreams to escape his boring, monotonous existence and his
overpowering wife. The dreams he has place him in situations of adventure and allow him
to be the man that he would never be in reality, as he is always the hero of the piece
and the one that everyone looks up to. Dreams for Walter Mitty help him to endure his
painful insignificant existence as he copes with his nagging
wife:
"Not so
fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs. Mitty. "What are you driving so fast
for?"
However, in "The
Necklace," dreams are another escape for Madame Loisel, but ultimately one that causes
her and her husband great pain and suffering. She is a woman who is addicted to
daydreaming a better life for herself, and imagining wealth and luxury that she is not
able to possess:
readability="12">She would dream of silent chambers, draped with
Oriental tapestries and lighted by tall bronze floor lamps, and of two handsome butlers
in knee breeches, who, drowsy from the heavy warmth cast by the central stove, dozed in
large overstuffed
armchairs.Here, however,
dreams function as an expression of Madame Loisel's inability to accept what she has in
life and be grateful for it, in comparison to Walter Mitty, who dreams to survive.
Madame Loisel is duly punished for her daydreaming, whereas Mitty is free, as far as we
know, to continue dreaming and escaping.
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