In the story “The Good Lion”, wild is represented by the bad lions since, compared to the good lion, they don’t seem to care about others but themselves. “The other lions .. every day ate zebras and wildebeests and every kind of antelope. Sometimes .. people too. They ate Swahilis, Umbulus, and Wandorobos and they especially liked to eat Hindu traders.” The lions show how they were untamed, felt no restriction to doing whatever they pleased, and didn’t try to act a certain way even when their actions were hurting others. When the wickedest of all the lionesses told the good lion “I think I shall kill you and eat you, wings and all”, we see how wild the bad lions can really get since not only did they not care for eating people, but they didn’t care for eating one of their own. On the other hand, in the story “Where the Wild Things Are”, wild is represented by scary monsters, the wild things, and they “roar terrible roars and gnash their terrible teeth and roll their terrible eyes and show their terrible claws”. What makes them wild is the fact they are monsters and act as such but they don’t necessarily hurt anyone, instead, they make Max the king and proceed to have a “wild rumpus” which just goes back to being loud and monster-like but not hurtful like the lions. These stories are different because they each represent wild in a different way, “The Good Lion” represents wild as untamed and with no regard to consequences while “Where the Wild Things Are” represents wild as scary creatures but don’t act out of impulsion and are nice to those around them. Although both the lions and the wild things look like they would do wild actions, only the lions act this way.
I like your summarization of the texts but I’m not sure I would agree with your representation of wild in “the good lion”. Sure, the lions are untamed, as are all lions. the good lion is the only exception and even that is left to question by the end of the text. Regarding your second point where you say that the lions get no consequences from their actions, the fact that lions eat animals, rarely humans, just means that they are just how nature made them. What sort of consequence are we thinking of for the lions? I think the “no consequence for actions” fits better under “where the wild things are”.
I like your summarization of the texts but I’m not sure I would agree with your representation of wild in “the good lion”. Sure, the lions are untamed, as are all lions. the good lion is the only exception and even that is left to question by the end of the text. Regarding your second point where you say that the lions get no consequences from their actions, the fact that lions eat animals, rarely humans, just means that they are just how nature made them. What sort of consequence are we thinking of for the lions? I think the “no consequence for actions” fits better under “where the wild things are”.
I agree that the bad lions are wild by a certain definition of being wild animals but I think that the good lion should be considered wild in his own way. It could be considered wild by a different definition that he is so different from the other lions and does things that are typically done by humans, like eat spaghetti. I do like that you considered the creatures in “Where the Wild Things Are” to be wild, not simply because they are monsters, but because they are nice monsters.
Although everyone interprets things differently, I would like to think wild is more so the environment the good lion is in both physically and figuratively as a whole rather then just the bad lions. Wild because it is something he is not used to and is not prepared for which is usually what happens in situations of the unknown. He seems scared of being there because is wild and the conspectus that he has never seen before are too different for him. Change is whats wild to the good lion, and since most resist change, the other lions are just seen as being bad influences.