On the surface, it would seem that the short story is pretty straightforward. Walter Mitty, a man constantly badgered and hen pecked upon that he purposely escapes into a fantasy world in his mind just to escape his wife. But let’s look deeper past the surface and there we will find a darker reason for these “daydreams” to happen in his everyday life. Walter’s daydreams are a symptom of his mental illness, dementia, not his desire to leave his dull, boring life behind. Walter’s progression of violence in his dreams portray how his cognitive stability is devolving. In the beginning his daydream starts off much more benign. He’s a pilot, a commander to be precise. But while he is engaging with his fight to get his hydroplane off the Naval Ship, he is also driving in traffic. Meanwhile his wife is asking him to slow down because he is driving too fast. Leading directly into “Hmm?' said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd.” (Thurber). This deals directly with how his mental state is not what it should be and is symptomatic of dementia. Webster’s Dictionary defines it as a “Deterioration of intellectual faculties, such as memory, concentration, and judgment, resulting from an organic disease or a disorder of the brain.” His actions and reactions to these situations show how tenuous his grasp on reality really is. Directly after Mrs. Mitty says, “It’s one of your days. I wish you’d let Dr. Renshaw look you over” (Thurber). This gives even more credence that Walter is sick and has a physician he sees to monitor his health. Walter also can’t seem to stay engaged in real life activities like he should if he was in good health. The perfect example is that after dropping off his wife he once again loses touch with reality while driving, now alone. It continues into a fantasy whe