Wild Things Project

In both stories, “The Good Lion” by Hemingway and “where the wild things are” by Maurice Sendak, the use of “wild” is used in context to civilized and uncivilized. In the Good Lion, we see the difference between what a “good” lion and a “bad” lion is. The bad lion is considered wild and evil because of their choice to eat Hindu people with no regard. On the other hand, the good lion is viewed as good for only eating pasta and scampi. In this story we can see the way wild is used due to the lions actions and choices. On the contrary, In Sendak story, wild is used to describe attributes and environment associated with wild. The main character is a boy who dresses up in a wolf suit and takes a journey to the wildness. In this setting, he is appointed as the king of all wild things for being frightening. The difference of wild in Sendak’s story, is that the protagonist is a mere human but is viewed as wild due to his suit and frightening impression. However, after being king, he longs for love in a normal and domestic society.

These both stories shed light in the different meaning of wild(ness). In the Good Lion, Hemingway uses “wild” to define the acts and savageness of untamed animals. For example, Hemenway writes” the bad lions would roar with laughter and eat another Hindu trader and their wives would drink his blood.” This act shows the differences between good wild and bad wild. Having consumed humans with no regard or shame, expresses the gruesome behind wild animals. On the contrary, since the good lion chooses not to consume Hindu traders, we view this lion to be good. Although they are both lions and considered “wild”, the use of words and imagery highlight the difference between good and bad in a wild setting. On the other hand, Sendak story uses wild to describe wild creatures that are associated with “terrible” characteristics. For example, the story says, “they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.” Wild is used in an observatory way for abnormal characteristics. The protagonist is considered “wild” due to his wolf suit and the wild animals are established as “wild” because of their abnormal teeth, eyes, and claws. Although both stories use wild, the context of it differs and shows a different meaning for each of them.

-Jaileen Gutierrez

Ernest Hemingway’s The Good Lion and Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are both entail their own idea of the “wild.” Hemingway’s story utilizes the “wild” to describe his ideals of civilized versus uncivilized individuals. His comparisons between the lions metaphorically demonstrate Hemingway’s underlying racist ideology through the fictitious lions to compare European and African culture. Sendak’s work uses the “wild” to illustrate the protagonist’s desire to escape reality. He uses wildness to express the desire to be liberated rather than be contained. These works differ because Hemingway uses the “wild” to illustrate the racial disparity between Europeans and Africans. Sendak uses the “wild” to illustrate the desire to be free.

Hemingway’s short story uses “wildness” to differentiate savagery and civility. The good lion is characterized as a civilized and cultivated individual. Rather than kill other animals and humans to eat, the good lion only eats pasta and other Italian food. In contrast, the “bad” lions are described as savages and wicked creatures. They differ from the “good” lion because they make fun of the way he looks, and their violent nature demonstrates their barbarity. In the story, Hemingway describes the disparity between the “good” and “bad.” He writes, “Adios,” he said, for he spoke beautiful Spanish, being a lion of culture. ‘Au revoir,’ he called to them in his exemplary French. They all roared and growled in African lion dialect.” By making this distinction of different dialects used by the lions, Hemingway demonstrates which languages he deemed “civilized.” This only perpetuates the idea that some cultures are uncivilized compared to others, in this case, African versus European culture. By doing this Hemingway indirectly states that certain cultural groups are seen as “wild” in comparison to others. 

Sendak incorporates “wildness” as means of escape. The protagonist, Max, is sent to his room by his mother. To retaliate, Max creates an imaginary world where there are creatures “wild” like him. However, Max soon realizes that he wants stability and structure rather than freedom. Sendak writes, “And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.” This demonstrates the dilemma of craving freedom while also needing support and stability. Sendak uses “wildness” to create the dilemma of Max wanting to live by his own rules while also desiring structure and love from his mother.

-Anna Allen

Hemingway’s “The Good Lion” and Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” both incorporate themes of wildness in their stories, but they engage with this theme very differently to reveal messages antithetical to each other.

In “The Good Lion,” Hemingway quickly establishes a sharp contrast between The Good Lion and the other lions in Africa. The main character is described as “good,” eating “only pasta and scampi” while the other lions are “bad,” eating “Swahilis, Umbulus and Wandorobos and they especially liked to eat Hindu Traders.” Hemingway emphasizes the wildness of the lions from Africa, and how they are much more wicked and violent than the civilized Good Lion.

In “Where the Wild Things Are,” Sendak focuses especially on wildness in children, as Max screams “I’LL EAT YOU UP” to his mother. This tantrum is met with Max not receiving dinner, which shows how a child misbehaving and engaging in their wild side will ultimately backfire for them.

Both stories treat “wildness” as a largely negative concept, as Hemingway highlights how violent the lions from Africa are, and Sendak illustrates how acting wildly will backfire and result in consequences. However, the moral of “The Good Lion” is almost the exact opposite of the moral of “Where the Wild Things Are.” The Good Lion orders a “Hindu Trader sandwich” when he gets back home, despite avoiding the food when he was in Africa. This is surprising because eating Hindu Traders was heavily associated with wildness, as the wickedest lions would have “the blood of Hindu Traders” on their whiskers. This drives home the message that even a being as tame as the Good Lion will inevitably return to their wild roots. Conversely, Sendak ends his story with Max returning home from the land of the wild because “he smelled good things to eat.” Max is smelling his mother’s supper, which he decides to leave the Wild Things for. Sendak is highlighting how one may occasionally indulge in their wild side, but they will inevitably become tame often due to strong bonds of affection with their loved ones. Thus, the messages of Hemingway and Sendak’s stories are fundamentally opposed to each other despite their initially similar interpretations of “wild.”

-Avinash K

In Hemingway’s “The Good Lion” and Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are”, the authors both use the word “wild” to expose the tension between civilized and uncivilized existences. In both stories, the civilized world is conveyed as tamed, domestic, good, and normal; while the uncivilized world is revealed as untamed, wild, evil, and abnormal. However, the protagonist in “Where the Wild Things Are” is also considered wild, while the protagonist in “The Good Lion” is considered the complete opposite of wild.

In “Where the Wild Things Are”, the author uses the word “wild” all throughout the novel as a way to characterize the animals in the forest Max visits at night. When Max’s imagination took him where the wild creatures lived, “they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws” (pg. 21). The repetition of the word terrible symbolizes the untamed and vicious nature of these wild things. Even though the wild creatures warm up to Max and start loving him by the end of the story, he is still referring to them as wild because they are coming from his wild imagination after his mom classified him as a wild thing when he was misbehaving. 

In “The Good Lion”, the author uses the theme of wildness to describe the characters in his story in a very similar way. Wildness is perceived through the wicked lions as they, “roar with laughter and eat another Hindu trader and their wives would drink his blood. They only stopped to growl with laughter or to roar with laughter at the good lion and to snarl at his wings. They were very bad and wicked lions indeed” (pg. 388). The gruesome and descriptive imagery in this passage shows the reader the true extent of the wildness and savagery of these lions. This is also contrasted in the story through the good lion and his seemingly perfect morals.

Katsiaryna Aliashkevich

In both Hemingway’s The Good Lion and Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, “wildness” is conveyed in both, but with separate meanings.  In Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, wildness is depicted as animalistic and imaginative. In the beginning of the story, Max’s mother calls him a “wild thing” with which he responds “I’ll eat you!” This implies his wildness is mischievous and daunting. Later when he reaches the mysterious island, he finds that it is infested with “wild things” or beasts. In the picture book, they have fangs and claws, ready to demolish and destroy anything in their way, yet Max was able to tame the wild beasts. The repetition Sendak uses of the “wild things” is also noticeable as well. The type of wildness portrayed in this book is animalistic as seen with the creatures Max comes across, but there is also wildness in his imagination- as his bed room turned into a forest, he sailed on a boat for a year, and was able to tame their wild creatures. On the other hand, Hemingway’s The Good Lion depicts wildness in a conceptual way demonstrated through good versus evil. The good lion escapes the dangerous lands in Africa which are full of evil lions that just want to kill him. Instead, the good lion is a “past-eating lion” that has no intentions of killing for food. The wildness is also portrayed in the fact that a lion has wings, which ultimately help in his escape from the bad lions. The bad lions were seen as less than and “uncivilized” because of this therefore making a massive differential between good and evil. The wildness portrayed in The Good Lion is more hidden, more between the lines compared to Where the Wild Things Are as wildness here is used repetitively to describe the imagination and animalistic tendencies.  

~Audrey Wines

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

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.