Monthly Archives: March 2022

Hemingway’s The Good Lion and Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are both reflect ideas of wildness in a similar manner, using it to describe beasts out in nature. The Good Lion features lions out in the African wilderness. Likewise, Where the Wild Things Are has fictional monsters, called “Wild Things” who have “terrible teeth” and “terrible claws” like the lions. This also shows a similarity in how both sets of creatures act “wild”. The lions are shown to “roar and grow” while the WIld Things “roared their terrible roars”, establishing wilderness through making loud and threatening noises. These roars later culminate into proper threats in both stories. The good lion is attacked by the wicked lioness after saying “I think I shall kill you and eat you, wings and all”. Interestingly, the Wild Things threaten Max similarly, telling him that “We’ll eat you up!” These scenes showcase wild as a destructive and antagonistic force, with both main characters being threatened to be consumed.

One aspect of wildness that The Good Lion showcases that Where The Wild Things does not is in its main character, the good lion. The good lion is shown to be almost the complete opposite of the wild lions of Africa. He prefers “a Negroni or an Americano” over “the blood of the Hindu traders” that the lion pride was drinking and is called out for being a “pasta-eating lion”. The good lion also speaks in a multitude of romance languages, compared to the lion pride’s African dialect. The differences between the good lion and the African pride showcase what wildness is not. The African lions are highly “uncivilized” in comparison to the good lion, not having refined palettes of pasta & wine, and speaking in the non-romantic African dialect. However, the good lion still shows wildness through his wings. Having wings is incredibly unorthodox for a lion and in combination with his differences with the lion pride, his wildness is shown by being abnormal.

Max from Where the Wild Things Are portrays wildness much more light-heartedly. Max is shown to be a boisterous child, making mischief and yelling at his mother that “I’LL EAT YOU UP!” While he is behaving in an undomestic manner like the lions, he does not act as maliciously as them. Max’s actions are more playful as he wants to be free to act as he wishes, without his mother stopping him.

– Kenny Ly

The meaning of the word “wild” can be contextualized across different pieces of literature. In The Good Lion by Ernest Hemingway, there is a good lion from Venice who visits Africa on a trip and encounters many bad lions. The good lion regards the bad lions as uncivilized, and “wild” because they eat humans and lack proper manners. The bad lions view the good lion as pretentious, as he eats pasta/wine and acts like he is above everyone else in Africa. The wildness in this story manifests itself in the nature of society in Africa and Venice, and the level of domestication it holds. The good lion is characterized as very tamed, as “the good lion would sit and fold his wings back and ask politely if he might have a Negroni or an Americano.” The way he acts very polite and does not resemble a characteristic lion shows how he represents civilization. The bad lions “would roar with laughter and eat another Hindu trader and their wives would drink his blood, going lap, lap, lap with their tongues like big cats.” They are seen to be unrefined in their manners, and act seemingly unhinged in a way that comes across as uncivilized. However, they act like how typical lions would in what they eat and how they act. Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are presents “wild” in a pretty similar way. This story is about Max, a young boy who feels isolated and misunderstood. He escapes through his imagination on a journey with wild animals and nature. Sendak noted, “and when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.” The wildness in this context is similar in that the animals are untamed and barbaric. Max is seen taming the wild things with a magic trick, and he, himself represents civilization. “Wild” could also be interpreted in the way this fantasy land is a representation of Max’s fantastical, nonsensical imagination. 

In both stories, there are similar themes of traveling away from home and strong use of personification. There are clear dichotomies between “tamed” vs. “untamed” for allowing the reader to understand the meaning of wild. Wildness exists in the undomesticated nature of the animals in both stories, and are similar in that aspect even though they are vastly different stories with different plots and characters.

When comparing and contrasting Hemingway’s The Good Lion and Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are there are some similar and different meanings of “wildness”. The Good Lion features a lion with wings who traveled to Africa and lives with the other wild lions there. He describes them as “bad” lions because they eat meat and humans and have an animalistic and carnal way of behavior. He sees himself good lion because he does not eat humans and has more polished behavior than the other lions. Hemingways describes the bad lions as, “..[roaring] with laughter and [eating] another Hindu trader and their wives would drink his blood, going lap, lap, lap with their big tongues”. In this particular paragraph of the piece, Hemingway describes the wild in the eating styles of the bad lions and shows the carnal desire of hunger and for food coming out in the behavior of the animals. By describing the movement of the animal’s body parts, he shows how desperate they are for food, in turn showcasing the “wild animal” inside of them. Maurice Sendak showcases the “wild” in a similar way by showing a story about a boy who takes a magical sort of journey to a place where a lot of wild things are. He is crowned king of the wild kings but gives up his throne when he smells dinner coming from his room. When he first reaches the land of the wild he describes the creatures there who were, “[roaring] their terrible roars and [gnashing] their terrible teeth’. Similar to the Good Lion, Sendak shows the wild and scary side to the animals by describing their physical characteristics and actions. By describing their teeth and sounds, he showcases the wild as untamed and scary. There is also a similar theme of the carnal desire of hunger and how that plays into wildness shown by how the boy leaves the wild animals because he smells good food. 

In both Hemingway’s The Good Lion and Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, wildness is portrayed in the form of short stories which can be interpreted by both children and adults. In Hemingway’s written piece, the theme of domestic vs wild is embedded through the tail of a “good lion” who has a more sophisticated, civilized taste compared to the “bad lions” living in Africa who are deemed as savage. The first writer used the word “wicked” in describing the African lions who like to kill and eat animals/humans rather than pasta and wine. In one instance, Hemingway describes the lioness “who was the wickedest of them all” as a savage hunter with “yellow eyes..[and] blood caked on her whiskers.” These beastly characteristics “frightened the good lion very much” and evoke the sense of fear from the audience regarding the bad lions. This use of descriptive imagery paints wickedness to be synonymous with untameness and savagery- something that is seen as less civilized compared to other beings. In similar light, Sendak uses the word “wild” to describe abnormal, strange beasts that the main character discovers after sailing to an imaginative place. The wild things “roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth,” depicting the savagery of the beasts the young boy had encountered. The repetition of the word “terrible” suggests that these beasts are not friendly, and things that should be feared. This use of the word “wild” in Where the Wild Things Are is most similar to the uncivilized use of “wicked” in The Good Lion. On the other hand, Sendak describes the young boy as a “wild thing”,  in addition to the beasts, after causing trouble in his home. This use of the word takes on a meaning that is closer to a theme of good vs evil rather than domestic vs wild. In this case, a well-mannered child would be considered normal/good whereas a child chasing the family dog or hammering holes into the wall (pictures from the book) would be described as “wild” and bad. This definition is slightly different than the savagery and uncivilized meanings “wildness” takes on in both short stories.

Vivian Nguyen

Where The Wild Things Are and The Good Lion are completely different stories, yet they kind of have the same themes. Where the Wild Things Are kind of focuses on one’s imagination and one’s ability to think abstractly. In the book, it takes on a journey through the protagonist’s eyes into the wild with wild animals. The Good Lion focuses on the wild in Africa. It talks about the differences in culture between Africa and Italy, as the wild lions in Africa eat humans, while the Good Lion is outcasted because of his wings and food choice of pasta and scampi. These stories are similar in the fact that they both have a lot of personification and symbolism. They are also similar because they both have this underlying idea of being away from home, or “in the wild.” The Good Lion literally travels away from his home in Venice, while the protagonist in Where The Wild Things Are figuratively travels away from home in his imagination. 

One line I chose from The Good Lion that illustrates being away from home was, “They all roared in African Lion dialect. Then the good lion circled higher and higher and set his course for Venice.” The first sentence represents the wildness of Africa, and the wild nature of the lions in Africa, as they all roared together trying to get the good lion. The good lion then used his magical wings to escape this wild place and head back home.

One line in Where the Wild Things Are that illustrates the wild place away from home was, “Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye… and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him.” He was forced to leave his wild imagination and his wild animal friends in his imagination as shown in the first sentence. The second sentence illustrates the reality of being present minded in his home, as his dinner was ready.

-Major Wheless