Guide for Responding
Check your Comprehension
1. His wife told him to slow down because he was driving too fast. 2. In all his daydreams he appeared as a very important person, being the one who gave the orders and very outstanding among the others.
3. The second was triggered when he passed in front of the hospital and it ended when the parking lot man told him he was in the wrong place. The third occurred when a newsboy walked past him talking about the Waterbury trial and ended when a dog came up next to him. The fourth was triggered when he looked at photos of bombers and he pulled out when his wife touched his shoulder.
Critical Thinking
1. The real Mitty has a very boring routine and doesn't seem very happy with his surrounding environment, while the daydreaming Mitty is loved by everyone, important and the best at what he does.
2. Real people just treat him like any other normal person, but in his daydreams he is always the most important and highly respected by others.
3. Due to her dominant and cold character.
4. His last daydream is a way of representing Mitty's acceptance of his wife's repression on him and that through his daydreams he intends to escape to become someone strong as in his imagination.
Reading for Success
1. His secret is that he is daydreaming and he has a lot of fantasies about being a person with a lot of power and importance.
2. He does it to escape his monotonous reality and the indifferent attitude of his wife and other people.
Build Vocabulary
Using the Latin Word Root -scrut
1. Scrutiny: the careful and detailed examination of something in order to get information about it.
2. Scrutinize: examine carefully for accuracy with the intent of verification. 3. Inscrutably: in a way that is impossible to understand or interpret.
4. Inscrutability: the quality of not showing emotions or thoughts and therefore being very difficult to understand or get to know.
Using the Word Bank
1. Rakishly: (a) carelessly casual.
2. Hurtling: (c) speeding
3. Distraught: (b) troubled
4. Haggard: (a) exhausted
5. Insolent: (c) disrespectful
6. Insinuatingly: (b) indirectly
7. Cur: (b) scoundrel
8. Cannonading: (c) bombarding
9. Derisive: (c) insulting
10. Inscrutable: (a) baffing
Build Grammar Skills
Antecedent (green)
Feminine pronoun (orange)
Masculine pronoun (blue)
Plural pronoun (yellow)
1. "Hmm?" Said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife… with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar.
2. The crew, bending to their various tasks, looked at each other and grinned. 3. "... The defendant could not have fired the shot… He wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July."
Analysis
Characters: Walter Mitty; He is a man who fantasizes that he has a lot of power, knowledge and importance, however in real life he is submissive, weak and it’s difficult for him to maintain control over his life. Mrs. Mitty. She's domineering and demanding. She wants to control her husband all the time, however she is very irrational and unfriendly.
Walter Mitty’s characters: a naval commander, a renowned surgeon, a skilled gunman, a fighter pilot, and a prisoner in front of a firing squad; are brave, strong, important men who command respect, and control their lives.
Setting: Waterbury and Walter Mitty's mind.
Mood: (in his real life) dull and boring, (in his dreams) elegant and impressive. Tone: humorous and hilarious .
Conflict: man vs himself (inner conflict)
Climax: At the hotel when Mrs. Mitty interrupts one of Walter's daydreams and they start to argue, Mr. Mitty realizes that his wife has been controlling him.
Real resolution: Walter Mitty straightens his position, realizes that he is capable of thinking for himself and faces the firing squad being who he is, Walter Mitty the Undefeated.
