“Wild” Literature and “the Wild” in Literature

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