Further Studies in Prose Final Exam Essay

Another final task. This is a final task for Further Studies in Prose. In only a month (not fully a month, though), I am obliged to finish a novel, 3 short stories (one of it is actually the longest short story I have ever read. 40 pages, like, seriously? 'short' story?), and several other reading materials, which actually reminded me to my previous totally-horrifying reading lesson. That was one of the hardest semester, and I have feeling another ones will be the most hardest (yes I'm using double superlative here, sorry).
Anyway, this essay is about daydreaming. I wrote this essay in only 2 hours (you know me, fellas). So, yeah, there are many flaws here, and I will really appreciate it if you'd like to give your comment for this essay. I suggest you to read the short story first, this one is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber, and this one is Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield. Happy reading ^^

DAYDREAMING IN BOTH STORY OF WALTER MITTY AND MISS BRILL

We, all, as human, have problems in life. Some people usually share their problems with other people; family, friends, or even strangers (you know, in social networks like Twitter or Facebook). But there are also people who prefer to keep the problems for themselves. Probably because they don’t talk much. So how about these people? How do they deal with their problems? Well, for me, escaping the reality by drowning into my own imagination really does help. Reality is sometimes too painful, with so many unsolved problems, unreached dreams, and so on, that you try to create another story in your imagination. This is what people usually call Daydream. And this is what the main characters of both stories do to escape from the reality. They daydream, and this is quite interesting to be analyzed, so I choose this topic as a main topic for this essay, daydreaming as a way to have a life they wished they live.
The main characters of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Miss Brill are explained as characters who like to daydream. For Walter Mitty, he drowned into adventurous imaginations, like commanding a navy hydroplane, being a famous surgeon, and even being a British pilot. He seemed to daydream everytime he touched or saw something. He probably got distracted by reality sometimes, but then he could always create a ‘new story’ in his imagination. As for Miss Brill, she imagined herself as an actrees of a weekly show in the park that she thought everyone would notice if she did not come.

“They were all on the stage. They weren't only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all.” (page 3)

From that paragraph, we can see that Miss Brill was imagining herself as an important part in everyone’s life, while in fact, nobody knows her or is aware of her existence. She is a lonely middle-aged woman who loves to go to the park every weekend. The emptiness in Miss Brill’s life is explained in the last line of the first paragraph.

“And when she breathed, something light and sad—no, not sad, exactly—something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.” (page 1)

She refused the emptiness feeling in her heart and pretended to be happy as she prepared herself to go to the park. That ‘no, not sad, exactly’ phrase is repeated in the 10th paragraph, ‘no, not sadness’. Miss Brill convinced herself that she was not sad, while in fact, she does feel lonely and sad. Her effort to be happy was all destroyed when she met a young couple who mocked at her fur.
It’s quite different with Walter Mitty, he got distracted easily but he could always manage to stay calm and go back to his own world. He was probably tired of his nagging wife, who always told him to do this and that and never listened to his opinion, but he seemed to ignore that reality and prefer to drown in his imagination. He did not seem mind the fact that her wife is so bossy over him.
Walter Mitty and Miss Brill are considered as escapists. They escape from the unpleasant realities into more comfortable place where they feel respected. Miss Brill daydreamed as an important part of everyone’s life and Walter Mitty daydreamed as a famous surgeon who was trying to save a life of President’s close friend. That’s how they maintain to be happy, at least in their dream.
Some people might think daydream as a mental disorder, but actually it is a very common thing. Mike Nichols gave his opinion about this

“Everybody daydreams, whether they admit it or not — or are even aware of it. Psychologists estimate that one-third to one-half of a person’s thoughts while awake are daydreams. Most psychologists consider daydreams a natural component of the mental process for most individuals.”

We could not ignore the fact that we all did the same thing like Walter Mitty and Miss Brill, in our own way, of course. As I have mentioned in the introduction that we all have problems and that reality is sometimes too painful to be faced. Because the reality is not exciting and comforable to live in, we create our own fantasy. We modify our story with what we think we deserved. Our fantasies are probably related to our unreached dreams. Walter Mitty probably once wanted to be a surgeon or pilot, and Miss Brill too, she probably wanted to become an actrees. So to fulfil that emptiness in the reality, they escape to their fantasies and enjoy their own little pleasure.
It is true that fantasies will give us nothing in the end, but at least we can free our mind for a while from uncomfortable feeling that we feel.