Back to Blog
Where the wild things are book5/7/2023 ![]() ![]() Max’s imaginative journey to where the wild things are is an encounter with the idea of wilderness, and not wilderness as a physical place. To illustrate how spare this is, this paragraph is also 338 words. All in all, Sendak tells the story in relatively few words: 338 to be precise. Max then reverses his journey, standing stiffly and with eyes closed at the prow of his ship. Fatigued, and no doubt hungry, Max’s thoughts then turn, not to home exactly, but to where “someone loved him best of all.” In their grief at the loss of their king, the wild things tell him that he is indeed loved, though admittedly they also threaten him with consumption. Six out of 34 pages of the book are devoted to rumpusing or to express it differently, Where the Wild Things Are is almost 18 percent rumpus. ![]() ![]() At journey’s end, he reaches “the place where the wild things are.” He’s appointed king-this is accomplished by means of the mildest hypnosis the wild things and wild Max rumpus. He boards a boat, a private one also named Max, and the little boy sails away. Floor, vines dangle from the ceiling, and then the walls are gone: where once there was a bedroom, there is now “the world all around.” Already Max is cheered he steps into this forest. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |