What I researched and why
When reading about “Rabelais and His World”, by Mikhail Bakhtin, I noticed similarities between Rabelais’ concepts and “Where the Wild Things Are”, by Maurice Sendak. I had never heard of Rabelais before, so I decided to look up some information about Rabelais and his writings. I thought it would be interesting to see how writings from the fifteenth century could have similarities with writings from the twentieth century.
What I found
I ended up finding a few similarities between Rabelais and Sendak. Rabelais’ most famous writing is a series of five novels about two giants. Gargantua is the father giant and Pantagruel is his son. One of Rabelais’ concepts is called grotesque realism. Grotesque realism focuses on the body. Eating is something very important to Rabelais’ giants. In “Where the Wild Things Are”, eating is also a major theme of the book. Max gets sent to bed without supper and he is upset by that. In Rabelais’ writing, he often uses profanities and curses. In “Where the Wild Things Are”, Max says something inappropriate to his mother when he yells at her, “I’LL EAT YOU UP!” Rabelais’ writings also deal with fantasy because giants of course don’t exist. So the reader can use their imagination when reading about Rabelais’ giants and Sendak’s wild things. Both writers were also controversial. Rabelais had some of his books banned for unorthodox ideas and a carefree attitude. “In the Night Kitchen” by Sendak was a censorship target because of the naked drawings of the character Mickey. Bettelheim also thought that “Where the Wild Things Are” was too violent for children for example. Here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Rabelais to a short biography about Rabelais that I found interesting. And this is another link: http://expasy.org/spotlight/images/sptlt066_1.jpg of a picture of Pantagruel the giant.
My interpretation/ what this adds to class discussion
I think it’s neat that these writings from different time periods that are very far apart from each other have so much in common. At first they may seem totally different from one another, but if you dig deeper and do some research, they actually share a lot of common themes. It’s interesting to ponder whether Sendak was influenced by Rabelais at all. What would Rabelais think if he would’ve read “Where the Wild Things Are”? Would he have liked it? Would Rabelais’ readers have liked “Where the Wild Things Are”? It’s something to think about.
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2 comments:
It is really interesting to wonder about what Rabelais would think of "Where the Wild Things Are," especially after today's discussion about the carnivalesque aspects in Sendak's book. I think that Rabelais and Bakhtin might see "Where the Wild Things Are" as an example of wildness ultimately upholding normalcy rather than creating renewal or a lasting change in dominant societal ways, because of Max's mother's role in the story. Even though she is unseen, it is pretty clear that, in a way, she sanctions his wild behavior, even possibly encourages it. She allows Max to wear his wolf suit,(she has even presumably bought or made it for him). Also, Max's drawing of the wild thing is displayed in her house, and judging by its straightness, was probably even mounted on the wall by her. The mother is also the one who names Max a "wild thing" in the first place. So even though the mother (the representative of the 'official' culture, the adult in the adult over child binary) is unseen in this story, her invisible presence seems to guide the wildness, and then bring it safely back again into the normalcy of Max's room with the smell of his dinner.
I agree that there are so many things within the writings of Rabelais and Sendak that are similar. One of the things that I too found similar were the elements of the human body and food being elevated to what I thought was a higher level. It was through this concept of the carnival that I found the similarities between the two authors. Sendak has a sort of carnival type theme in "Where the Wild Things Are" in that the boy enters into the state of mind of fun and games and wild animals. In Rebalais' writings you see this as well, with the break down of all things sacred and the degredation of those things within the carnival.
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