I dug back through my Children's Literature work to pull out notes I'd taken on the book before our class discussion. Then I went to find my copy and it's disappeared. auuughhhh. I hate it when things go missing on me. Eventually I will track it down and scan the pages to go along with my notes. Until then, use your own copy and follow along...
This reading is just a cursory nod to the issues of size, of thresholds and boundaries that define and defy concepts of the miniature and the gigantic that are inescapable throughout children's literature and Where the Wild Things Are.
Following the illustrations in order:
1. The central focus is tight on Max's destructive capabilities. The while frame around the illustration constrains the narrative as tightly as it will until the final page of the book. The wolf is predatory by nature, as is Max. The hammer and and nail are enormous. Max stands on top of the books, creating his own narrative in his destruction of the wall. What has been knotted together to make the line? Whose sheet has been turned into the tent? Why has the bear been executed by hanging? And why are the bear's eyes wide, his arm in what appears to be a posture of solidarity with his raised arm?
2. Max's face, hungry as a wolf, is centered in the frame. The vitality and momentum of this illustration extends even to his wolf tail. He is leaping from the threshold of the staircase and driving the wary domesticated dog through another threshold, rejecting Max's wildness. Max's artwork is the lone wall decoration. Something about walls and boundaries, mischief and imaginiation and art connects the first picture to this one. It is all interior. Max is stir crazy. Why is one foot always sticking up? Note, too, that he is chasing the dog with a giant fork. This ties itself into the theme of eating, which in this book is tied to love.
3. "I'll eat you up" get Max banished. The threshold of cannibalism, even the hint of this taboo, sends him unwillingly across the threshold of his own room . Both feet are on the ground for the first time. The door knob is above his head, demonstrating his size. But this is not a child's room. Look at the furniture and lack of anything remotely child-like. Out another frame, the window, is the full moon and all it symbolizes. There are no stars. The white frame continues to shrink.
4. The indoor/outdoor threshold begins to blur. Max's eyes appear closed in prayer, one foot slightly raised, as he wills the growth around him. Stars appear.
5. The growth continues, Max's foot rises higher, eyes still closed, and he suppresses a giggle. The beige interiors fade, the greens take over, and the frame is almost gone.
6. The frame has disappeared, the exterior fills up the entire space, spilling over. Max's back is to the viewer now, as he ignores us and howls at the moon in the wildest of all places in children's literature: the forest.
7-9: The Trilogy of the Boat
7. It is suddenly day. An ocean tumbles by, turbulence continuing the vitality of the text. There seems to be a tree in the middle of the ocean and it breaks the boundary of the facing page. Max is now gigantic in his boat. Check out the miniature rigging. The seas are always stormy. Max is smiling directly at the reader.
8. Now the wild sea thing stands on the text side of the boundary, not terribly menacing, just creating a wake that, on the other side of the page, pushes the boat aground. Max appears afraid, arms half raised as if to try and threaten the beast without any conviction. And there is a big pink tree.
9. Now Max is no longer aground (??) and he scowls at his greeting party of wild things from the safety of his boat. There are four wild things all mimicking the posture of Max earlier in the book, arms and feet raised. The girly wild thing (Tzippy, sans horn) is behind all the boys, but she is present.
10-12 New Reign on the Island Trilogy
10. The four wild things, keeping their exact order, are joined by the Buffalo wild thing who peeks from the forest. The moon is no longer full. Max makes his magic on the Things through eye contact, a threshold of significance. This is the last time we'll see the small goat wild thing.
11. The lead monster in the previous illustration who was closest to Max is now cowering in the forest, as though the boy is too hot to handle. Buffalo Wild Thing (Bernard) is now joined by Eagle Wild Thing (Emil). Max's eyes are again closed as they take turns paying homage to him, his scepter raised, allowing their worship.
12-14 The Trilogy of the Wild Rumpus
12. The frame (inferiority) is completely lost even between pages. The image overflows the entire book altogether. Language is lost as all text disappears. There are four wild things, two new on either side. Their numbers continue to grow as language is lost. They stare at the moon, which is full again. Max however, has closed his eyes again, claw and paw raised in his own worship.
13. Different wild things return, all ones we've already met. It is daylight and they are all suspended from the trees. Again, only Max's eyes are closed, one foot raised very high. The three male monsters look shifty, something is going on with their eyes. Tzippy seems to be listening intently to Bernie and Emil, her legs demurely crossed.
14. The conga line dance adds one of the big nosed wild things of the four from illustration #13. Max is riding Bernie's back and once again, only Max's eyes are closed. His foot and scepter are raised. The two monsters on the left page are arm and arm, as are the three on the right side, and Tzippy is behind all the boys again.
15. The frame reappears, as boundaries return, the rumpus ended. The colors of dawn fill the sky and the wild things are able to sleep. Max is not. He sits at the threshold of his tent, the only figure with his eyes OPEN this time. He has sent the wild things to bed without their supper, for he loves them just a little less. Wanting to be "where someone loved him best of all" is what allows his to connect to the power of scent (the most powerful sense tied to memory) and smell his supper. He is hungry to return home.
16. Compare Max's departure here with his arrival in illustration #9. Now he is smiling and waving goodbye. The monsters' threat, "we'll eat you up -- we love you so!" again connects love and eating, but with much wilder connotations of ingestion and oneness. Tzippy's posture is finally threatening, as Max moves to leave her. The stone cave hasn't been seen until now, perhaps symbolic of the primitive, naturalistic impulses to which Max bids farewell.
17. The illustrations begin to close up in the same manner they opened. Again, there is a lone tree in the ocean that crosses the boundary between the pages. Note that this tree is tropical, whereas the earlier tree in #7 resembled an oak or ash. The return trip is by night, but the sea remains turbulent. The full moon lights the boat, as Max closes his eyes again in prayer.
18. The frame has been restored to the narrative side of the book. The door stands as the threshold between the words and illustration. Unlike. #3, there is no white frame constraining the picture. Max is removing his wolf suit, looking tired but happy as his dinner (love) awaits him.
19. Now the entirety of the book lies as a white field, "and it was still hot" filling up the space. No capitals, no beginning, no thresholds, just completion and closure that wraps up time and space completely.
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