The Secret Life of Walter Mitty vs. Young Goodman Brown

The two short stories I am going to be comparing are The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Young Goodman Brown. At first, these two stories might seem very different but they many similar themes. Both stories have the main character hallucinating about different situations. In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Walter Mitty wishes to hallucinate to escape reality and be part of an unreal world. In Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown, the main character was forced into seeing something not though of as being real by a stranger he met in the middle of the woods. Another similarity between both stories was that the main characters in both the stories had spouses who affected them throughout their lives. The most important reason that I will be comparing both these stories is because they both follow a general plot, leaving the main character very unhappy at the end.

In Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown leaves his wife and heads for the village. There, he meets a devil figure and they both continue the journey. Goodman Brown does get a feeling of turning around and heading back home, but keeps going after seeing some of his townspeople in the woods. After getting to a secluded spot, he sees that most of the townspeople are also going to a meeting to crossover to the evil side. Goodman then sees his wife among the crowd and screams her name out and tries to tell her to look towards heaven and resist the evil. As he screams that statement to his wife, Faith, everything around him goes away and he’s in the forest all by himself. He wonders if what happened was a dream or a reality. He thinks that what he saw was not a dream and lives his life from that point onwards thinking it was real.

Walter Mitty hallucinates in a different way in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Having a dominating wife who never lets him as he pleases, he escapes his existing life daydreaming about adventures. If daydreaming were an illness, his would be diagnosed as life threatening. It was so serious that if he were to pass a hospital, he would start imagining being a very famous surgeon practicing an extremely complicated procedure. His unrealistic experiences ranged from being a commanding officer on a ship in bad weather, to a famous trial lawyer, as well as a courageous member in the armed ...

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The hallucinations between both the characters are very different. Walter Mitty knows that what he experiences are daydreams and never real, but he is not bothered because he is very content with escaping his current life. He also has short dreams which most of the time never make it to a conclusion. On the other hand, Goodman Brown didn’t even know if what he had experienced in the forest was real or a bad dream. However, being so confused, he took it as not being a dream and went on with his life. Logically speaking, it was most likely a dream, and the length of his dream was a lot longer that Walter's. He also didn’t enjoy the pleasure of that kind of a dream, because he felt very uncomfortable when he realized that he was in the forest by himself after what he had witnessed. He also was not able to finish his hallucination completely, leaving it up to question if Faith, his wife ever did cross and join the evil.

The wives of both the characters also affect the main character greatly. In Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown is deeply in love with his wife, Faith. He starts the story writing about how he will miss his wife deeply, even though he is only going away for a night. He also constantly keeps thinking about her well being as the story progresses. When he is quietly watching the evil staging as it progresses, he can’t believe it when he sees his wife there as well. The dream ends when he screams out his wife’s name and tells her to resist evil. Since returning to town the next morning however, he never loved his wife as he did before he saw her in that ceremony in the forest. The reason for a change of heart was because he in a way had lost respect for her, knowing that she was part of evil. The author also states that the day Goodman dies was a gloomy day because Goodman Brown thought that he would go to heaven and his wife Faith would go to hell and they would never see each other again.

On the other hand, Walter Mitty from the very beginning gave us an impression that his wife was a very possessive woman. She would always give him orders and schedule Walter’s day according to her. Having no freedom to do his own things, Walter Mitty began to enjoy his life by daydreaming to escape reality. It was also very amusing to see that his wife was usually the one that abruptly ended his dreams, showing that she also had some control of him when he wasn’t living reality. Where as in Young Goodman Brown where Goodman loved his wife dearly and was very depressed to see that she had crossed to evil, Walter Mitty never really told the readers of any kind of love he had for his wife, and instead portrayed her as a dominating woman that never gave him his space. What is sad in both the stories is how both wives leave their husbands feeling very unhappy bye the end of the story. After seeing Faith at the ceremony, Goodman Browns is never happy and is sad that he will never see his wife in heaven with him. Walter Mitty is sad as well, because his wife is very dominating and never gives him his own needed space and let him live his own life according to his own agenda.

The atmosphere of both stories is very contrasting as well. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a very humorous read, amusing the readers about his ability of hallucinate about things after something as small as passing a hospital or glancing at a court case update on the front page of a newspaper. Contrary to it, Young Goodman Brown is a very serious read informing us readers about its religious connections. The setting of the story is also in a good puritan society where people are scared to sin. It is also a more complex read since it has a lot of symbolism, especially of things such as the devil

In conclusion, in both stories, the main characters hallucinate, but in different ways. The most important distinction is that Walter knows that he has a problem of day dreaming where as Goodman never knew if what he witnessed in the forest was real of not. They both also had wives, which played major roles in the stories as how they affected their husbands. Both stories also contrasted sharply on the atmosphere, one being very humorous to the audience as one being very serious, making many religious connections.

MLA Reference Page

Cummings, Michael. “Plot Summary.” 2004. Online Study Guides.

6 March 2005<>

"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Summary." eNotes to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Seattle: Enotes.com LLC, October 2002. Ed. Penny Satoris.

6 March 2005 <http://www.enotes.com/secret-life/18553>.

"Young Goodman Brown: Summary." eNotes to Young Goodman Brown.

Seattle: Enotes.com LLC, October 2002. Ed. Penny Satoris.

6 March 2005 <http://www.enotes.com/young-goodman/6137>.

Self Analysis on Comparative Essay By Rohan Vohra

What is my argument?

My argument is very simple. I want to tell the reader that both stories had to do with the characters hallucinating but I also want them to know that it was for different reasons. I want to be able to also get across to them that both stories are very different. One is a very serious story including religious symbolism where as the other is a very humorous read. Also, the wives of both stories are very different and unlike Goodman Brown who loves his wife that is not the case with Walter Mitty.

What is my major concern?

My major concern is that my readers will not get what I am saying completely and think that I am talking about the similarities between both the stories. Also, I have a problem with sticking to one tense and I hope that me switching constantly from past to future to present won’t confuse the reader. Since this essay is also longer than the last two we have written, I hope the reader won’t loose interest in reading this as the essay progresses.