Wild Things Project

Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright and poet born in 1854 and became popular in the 1890s. He was gay and considered different and wild for his different views and attraction. Wilde was thrown in jail and exiled for his consentual gay acts, where he later died. Wilde was involved with the aestheticism movement and published many poems. He wrote the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” where he was criticized for lacking morality. The main character, Dorian Gray, upholds admired beauty but also engages in “sinful” lifestyle choices. His work was not as celebrated due to his controversy of homosexual acts and for his character that followed a more hedenistic lifestyle. At the time, homosexual acts were illegal and extremly look down upon. Due to this, Wilde was considered “wild” and out of the norm. Oscar was also described as

Wilde was also considered a “wild” writer. Many of his poems had homoerotic messages and he had written many letters to his lover Douglas. 

-Stephanie Wilhite

It’s honestly funny, I have spent an entire semester contemplating, analyzing, and interpreting a single word: wild. Now here I am coming to the end of my semester and with that my deepening comprehension of the wild in a scenario relating to a patient’s tongue. I say this because all this research and analysis on this singular word is what will shape the answer I have about “How to tame a wild tongue”. Simply put you don’t necessarily tame a wild tongue directly; it is a mental thing. Your brain is directly connected to the rest of your body but more so through your senses. Control and relaxation of your nerves, senses, and mind cohesively will work to quiet and tame a wild tongue. The mindset and perception we hold mentally in regard to a certain event or scenario reflect how our body behaves. Hence, a wild mindset ensues a wild tongue and a calm mindset reflects a calm tongue. I think this was designed to spark a deeper conversation of how to tame situations, things, and ourselves when in wild environments, whether that may be mentally, physically, or even perceptually. In a way this question kind of closes the chapter in my personal opinion on how we understand and see what “wild” and “wildness” is in today’s society.

Niraj Patel

Over Christmas break I went to Hawaii with my friends. At the beach some wild woman was sitting there screaming at random people for no reason. 

Some person in the grocery store was screaming outrageous things so I went to see who it was as soon as I turned the corner I saw a wild man.

My parents called me a “junglee” which in our Gujarati language means wild animal, because over spring break I didn’t wake up until 11 almost everyday. 

I was in the forest with my friends and we heard some noises that we’ve never heard before, next thing you know it’s a wild beast, the infamous black bear, and it began to chase us. 

The most wild thing happened to me last week, I was driving to get groceries and I stopped at a red light. I looked at the person driving next to me then looked away, just making a normal observation as most people do when you drive. This man rolled down his window started yelling at me and followed me down that street, it was very strange and wild. 

Niraj Patel

Oscar Wilde who was born in 1854, was known as one of the best playwrights during the Victorian era. Not only a playwright, but he was also a poet, critic, and novelist. Wilde because popular during the late 1880’s and was also a major part in the Aesthetic Movement at time. They believe that art should be seen as a satisfaction indeed, not to send messages. Back then his reception was a toss-up in the air, but after he got sent to prison for “gross indecency” and having multiple homosexual acts. Wilde was sent to prison for his acts, as being homosexual was not of one’s best interest back in the day. Nowadays, I believe that he just stood up for what he thought was right and there is nothing wrong with that. I do believe that Oscar Wilde was a “wild” writer. I say this because even though back in the day he got arrested for being homosexual, he did it what he wanted to do, even if it caused him harm, he stood up for what he believed was right. His novel that he wrote during his time behind bars exemplifies his actions of wild things or wildness. Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol during his time in prison. I would say this poem says a lot of the emotion that Wilde felt in prison, “each man kills the thing he loves most”. I believe Wilde is using his homosexuality was reference point during that line of his poem, as other did not except that form of Wilde. He revealed his homosexuality because he loved it so much, that inside he killed himself by revealing it since he was sent to prison at the time. Pathos is seen as he writes his poem from his prison cell, knowing what he did was nothing wrong, but he got punished for it.

Niraj Patel

In the short story The Good Lion, I thought the story was “wild” how it was related to a good and bad lion. Also it was “wild” to me how racist the writer actually was when describing African lions, also consistently talking about Hindu traders since they don’t eat meat. I’m not sure what his intention was when he was writing this, but he comes off as that. I also found this “wild” because it talked about lions, hence untamed animals that live in the jungle. When Hemingway says “All Hindu traders are very fat and delicious to a lion” that made we laugh because I’m a vegetarian, as well as a Hindu. And on typical stereotype that we have is that are “fat”, aren’t really seen as the “fit” individual, so it personally did not bother me but I found it funny that he said that. In both stories I felt there there were comparisons of good v evil, tamed v untamed, and domestic v wild in their own different ways. In the story Where the Wild Thing Are” I thought the story was “wild” as to how after Max falls asleep, his dream is outside in nature in the vast sea, so that was wild to me, out of all places it was the ocean so he can get away from his mom’s rules. He soon finds himself with the wild untamed creates, so again, in my eyes it’s “wild”. When Sendak explains how “when Max has finally had enough, he puts an end to the craziness by sending his subjects to bed without their dinner, just as his mother did to him” this shows how Max finally realizes what his mom was doing after he got to experience things himself for a couple of days. Us humans tend to realize things way better when we experience them first hand which is wild, that is what happened with Max he starts to miss his mom after realizing how difficult it is to be in charge. 

Niraj Patel

The target audience of The Wizard of Oz I think are most children. The communicator was the author Frank Baum himself. I see it as a children’s story because it’s more so like a child’s play. I say this because the main message of the who movie is practically that there is no place like home. The main character Dorothy is a child, who from my understand runs away from home, then later realizes what she’s done, misses home and tries to find her way back home to Kansas. Along the way she meet’s many different people that might not all want the best for her. Some of the other characters that were with Dorothy, such as the Scarecrow was looking for a brain which could be tied to having logic, so logos. The Tin-Man was reaching for a heart which can be tied into emotion, so pathos. Lastly, the lion was searching for courage which can be tied with ethos, looking for a purpose. In the end these three indeed get what they were so desperately searching for. I think that’s the authors message for the children, that deep down inside you have the qualities you are looking for, just have to dig deep and not give up. When ever you face adversity, just keep pushing, don’t stop. 

Niraj Patel

The song that I consider “wild” is the popular song Memories, by Maroon 5. It was released on September 19, 2019. In 2020, it was number eight on billboards top 100 songs of that year.  In the music video, a guy is just lip reading with the lyrics as if he is reminiscing past memories of something he loved. This song is a nice song to listen to if you are just trying to lay back and relax get some work done because it is so calm. The reason I see this song as “wild” is because I was listening to it in the car driving back to Austin after winter break in January of 2020, when I heard the tragic news of my favorite basketball player and idol growing up Kobe Bryant, had passed in a helicopter accident. Hearing that news was just tragic, listening to this song then just made me reminisce on those past memories watching Kobe play basketball. I wasn’t the only one, the internet literally broke that day as Kobe was idolized by so many people are the world. Maroon 5, is a pop artist so most of his music is kind well not really “love” songs, but they are around that category. Adam Lavine, one of the singers in the Maroon 5 band, said that this song was for anyone that has ever experienced a bad loss. It was just wild to me how I knew that I had to listen to this song since it was the mood for that entire car ride back to Austin after hearing the news. 

Niraj Patel

College football is the specific sports branch I am giving an analysis about in this blog. No. 1 Alabama played No. 4 Auburn in the Iron Bowl late in the season back in 2013, when Auburn won from an answered prayer walk-off at the end of regulation. The game was tied 28-28 with one second left as Alabama was trying to win it with a 56 yard field goal, which is really far away for most college kickers, noted that this Alabama kicker was a freshman. Well, the kick was short, the Auburn defensive back caught the ball in their own end zone, ran it back for 100 yards and Auburn won the game. For most college football fans, this was one of the “wildest” endings to a game ever. The majority of the audience at the game were Auburn fans since it was being played at Auburn, but on national television most college football fans were tuned in because it was a late game which had crucial playoff implications on the line. College games like this is what recruits dream of playing in where ever they choose to go to school at, so in my opinion this game spoke to the recruits, and the people that do the rankings for the top 25 teams each week. In this video, the players are all males since that was the qualification to play football, but everyone male/female enjoy watching the sport. Personally, I think that any gender should be able to play whatever sport they admire. But, I do think that if females choose to play football, they should have their own league different from males. The reason I say this is because everyone knows football is one of the sports where injury is most prone to occur. Males are physiologically stronger than females so it they would be at a disadvantage if they got tackled by the bigger males which potentially could cause more injuries to the female. In sports, anything “wild” would be like a crazy ending just like in the Alabama and Auburn game explained above. 

A film that I consider “wild” in my eyes was “A Quiet Place”. This film was released in 2018 and directed by John Krasinski. John Krasinski (Lee Abbott) and Emily Blunt (Evelyn Abbott) were the main cast in this film portraying the role of being parents to three children. Traumatic and communication were one of the main ways to describe the theme of this film. This film starts out by the Abbott family inside of a gas station trying to escape quietly but they must walk through the forest to get home, which is on a farm, any slight of sound can cause them their lives by the strange blind creatures around that hunt by sound. Lee and Evelyn try to provide food and shelter to their little kids, as well as trying to figure out how to fight back against these odd creatures that has already hunted most of the human population. I think this film is wild because it is super unique, there are no words being spoken by the cast hence they can’t talk, or they will be hunted down by the creatures. Also, I found it wild because it was out in the forest with wild creatures, and the family living on a farm.

One specific scene that sticks out was towards the end of the film, it could have been a post credit scene for the next film “A Quiet Place 2″, but they decided to add it towards the end of this film. In this scene, the mom (Evelyn) was walking down the wooden stairs with her daughter and stepped on a nail that was sticking out of the plywood, but she couldn’t scream or say anything knowing that she would get hunted by the creatures if she did that. This scene sticks out because as painful as that looked and sounds, she didn’t scream her daughter helped her get the bandage, but then her little daughter dropped something on the wooden floor. Next, all you see from their house cameras are all the creatures are running towards their house to hunt then and this is where the film ends. So, they must learn how to survive with a vast majority of wild creatures running towards their home. 

Niraj Patel

The term “wild” has many various meaning depending on the context that it is used in. But, one of the main things people think of when they hear the word “wild” is uncontrolled, violent, and unexpected. Most people, think wild means living in the nature or wild animals. As I researched what this term means across a multiple different dictionaries, most of them defined it as “uncontrolled” or “untamed”. Despite the fact that this term as so many different meanings to it, we can all agree when we first see it we think of it as something in nature.  

I personally think “wild” means something that is very unique and different, as long as it’s not in the context of the nature. I took this class thinking it would be about “wild” animals in the forest/etc, but I’m sure glad that’s not the case because it seems extremely fun to actually learn about how many different meanings one specific word has, and how different cultures interpret that same word differently across the globe. My family is originated from India, a country in South Asia. My family speaks Gujarati, and in Gujarati the word “wild” is pronounced “junglee”. “Junglee” infers to wild animals in our home language and that is how the word is mainly defined. Even though I grew up in America, looking back at my roots I always under the impression that “wild” referred to animals. But as I grew up, I started realizing that people use it in a lot of different scenarios anything can we wild. For example, someone might say “wow the finish of that football game was so wild” or ” that storm last night was so wild”. 

Niraj Patel