Blog Post 6: “Wild” Literature and “the Wild” in Literature

In both “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak, and “The Good Lion” by Earnest Hemingway, the idea of “wildness” is integrated into both stories, although in different ways. In the former, the word “wild” is not only in the title, but it is also on almost every descriptive page in the book. There are “wild things” and they are acting “wild” during when Max cried, “let the wild rumpus start!” By including the word “wild” so much in the story, Sendak forces the reader to consider the definition of “wild” to be connected to one’s imagination, since the premise of the story is that we are party to a boy Max’s imaginary “wild things.” With this, the term wild is, for the most part, used with a positive connotation. While the actual word “wild” is used many times in “Where the Wild Things Are,” the word is used as more of a concept in “The Good Lion” rather than Hemingway including the actual word. In the short story, the Good Lion, who is “cultured” and only eats human food, visits Africa, where he meets native lions there that eat other animals and humans. During this visit, the Good Lion thinks, “what savages these lions are,” which shows that the Good Lion does not think highly of these lions that are, what Hemingway would consider to be, living in the wild, thus painting the term “wild” in a negative connotation. The word in this negative connotation is being connected to the word “savage” that the Good lion used to describe the wild African lions. While the word “wild” in both stories is used to describe personified and made-up creatures, the light that is painted on the creatures of each story is very different from each other. While both the African lions and wild things are considered to be uncivilized in the stories, the Good lion wants to get away from the “savage” lions while Max wants to be with the wild things, until the end where both of their feelings switch towards the creatures.

Anna Ranslem