{"id":441,"date":"2022-03-03T03:06:01","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T03:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/?p=441"},"modified":"2022-03-03T03:06:02","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T03:06:02","slug":"blog-post-6-wild-literature-and-the-wild-in-literature-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/2022\/03\/03\/blog-post-6-wild-literature-and-the-wild-in-literature-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post 6: “Wild” Literature and “the Wild” in Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ernest Hemingway\u2019s The Good Lion<\/em> and Maurice Sendak\u2019s Where the Wild Things Are<\/em> both entail their own idea of the \u201cwild.\u201d Hemingway\u2019s story utilizes the \u201cwild\u201d to describe his ideals of civilized versus uncivilized individuals. His comparisons between the lions metaphorically demonstrate Hemingway\u2019s underlying racist ideology through the fictitious lions to compare European and African culture. Sendak\u2019s work uses the \u201cwild\u201d to illustrate the protagonist\u2019s 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 \u201cwild\u201d to illustrate the racial disparity between Europeans and Africans. Sendak uses the \u201cwild\u201d to illustrate the desire to be free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hemingway\u2019s short story uses \u201cwildness\u201d 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 \u201cbad\u201d lions are described as savages and wicked creatures. They differ from the \u201cgood\u201d 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, \u201cAdios,\u201d he said, for he spoke beautiful Spanish, being a lion of culture. \u2018Au revoir,\u2019 he called to them in his exemplary French. They all roared and growled in African lion dialect.\u201d By making this distinction of different dialects used by the lions, Hemingway demonstrates which languages he deemed \u201ccivilized.\u201d 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 \u201cwild\u201d in comparison to others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cwild\u201d like him. However, Max soon realizes that he wants stability and structure rather than freedom. Sendak writes, \u201cAnd Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Anna Allen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ernest Hemingway\u2019s The Good Lion and Maurice Sendak\u2019s Where the Wild Things Are both entail their own idea of the \u201cwild.\u201d Hemingway\u2019s story utilizes the \u201cwild\u201d to describe his ideals of civilized versus uncivilized individuals. His comparisons between the lions … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-welcome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":455,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/wild-things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}