What I researched and why: When I began to look around the web for things related to “Where the Wild Things Are,” I wasn’t sure of what I was looking for. I found a few slightly animated versions of the story on Youtube and a short video clip that talks about how Disney almost made it into a CG animated movie in the 80’s. I really wanted to find something that interpreted the illustrations and hopefully bring a few answers to some of the questions raised in class while discussing the book. After a long while I gave up on looking for anything of the nature, and began to search Sendak’s name to see if I could dig up something interesting.
What I found: After a while of browsing around I came across an interview with Maurice Sendak from 2004. http://www.library.northwestern.edu/exhibits/hca/interviews.html The full interview is 45 minutes, but there is also a 5 minute version of the interview also. Carefully taking my work ethic/attention span into consideration I clicked on the 5 minute version. During this interview, however, Sendak says some very interesting things. He talks about trying to come up with the sort of monsters that he wanted for the “Wild Things.” At first he was drawing traditional children’s literature monster, but he says that he “detests” these sorts of characters. So after an epiphany he created the monsters based on his relatives from Brooklyn! I found this to be very interesting; he even calls his relatives “dreadful,” and says that it was a way to get revenge on them. He then begins talking about how the Wild Things are not supposed to frighten children, but he admits that they do scare adults. He talks about how they scare adults because adults are scared to frighten the children, but he claims that children are already frightened. He then goes on to say that children see things inherently different than adults do, and it is this gift that allows them to work through frightening things in their own way. The last interesting point that he briefly touches on is the idea of overprotection of children by adults.
My interpretation/what this adds to our class discussion: I think it is very interesting that Sendak chose to use his relatives as models for the Wild Things. He started out trying to use “typical” scary monsters, but felt that they just did not cut it. Instead he chose to use something much more personal to represent the Wild Things, his very own family members. On another website I read a biography of him where it discusses this matter, and it said he used his relatives as the monsters because they had bad nose hair and he never liked them. They also were always hovering over him, pinching him, saying “you’re so cute, I could just eat you!” In this interview Sendak even says that he used them to exact revenge on them. I guess the revenge is turning them into monsters, but perhaps he also seeks revenge by having Max become King of the Wild Things. This way he is turning the tables on the people he disliked while growing up. In class we had discussed how Sendak has used therapy his whole life, and perhaps this is another form of therapy that Sendak uses to resolve some of his issues.
I also enjoy Sendak’s view on criticisms of his books. He says that adults are more scared of the book than children are. He says that children look at things differently than adults do, and when they read this book they immediately identify with Max. He says that Max leads the child on the adventure of the book, and they are not concerned about the scary monsters. I find a lot of truth in what Sendak says about adults being more scared of the monsters that children are. There are so many instances of adults raising a fuss about this being bad for kids, or that corrupting the minds of our children; and a lot of the times it is over extremely silly things. Most of the time it is the adults who concern themselves so much about protecting the children that they end up being the one’s terrified. This, I believe, is our current view of childhood; we value the innocence of childhood so much, that we try to protect them from anything that may be a little bit perverse. We have this view that once children are tainted with reality (the perverse); they have lost this innocence forever.
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2 comments:
I agree about adults being much more intimidated by things than children are. We can see this idea expressed in movies such as "E.T." or "The Iron Giant" where a child befriends creatures that adults are too scared to understand. In a way, to me, this represents how scared adults are of children's literature itself. Much like the parents in the movies are afraid of the creatures or monsters, parents in the real world are afraid of the effect that literature, art, music, and film will have on children. They are quick to reject anything out of the ordinary, anything that isn't "nice". I wonder if parents could take a lesson from Sendak and others and allow children to work through issues rather than shelter them from their own fears.
I think it is interesting how he says that "the children are already frightened." I think that adults, in wanting to shelter and protect their children, forget that childhood is inevitably a time of great fear and confusion (as well as its various positive aspects.) Children are just learning how to approach the world and are figuring out its various intricacies. While they may be "innocent" as compared to adults, it is normal for every child to have a host of fears and uncertaincies in their lives, even if it is something as common as "the monster under the bed." Children's own imaginations and misunderstandings can often scare them much more than any illustrations of cute monsters in a picture book.
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