Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
A social commentary on the ethno-centric parenting methods of American mothers.

The ethnocentricity of the American populace and their European ancestors has always been a strong and powerful force in shaping not only the path through history we choose to trod, but the destinies of those peoples who have the misfortune of getting underfoot. European and American authors have historically invoked images of monsters and barbarism not only to represent other cultures with the paradigm of racial self-superiority, but also to criticize that too oft present pompousness through satire. Maurice Sendak is such a critic in his representation of ethno-centric parenting in Where the Wild Things Are.

Between Max, the young boy that is the hero of Sendak's picture book, and his mother is a dichotomy of self-expression. Max, his creativity not yet stunted by social expectations and behavioral scripts, expresses himself through a means his mother misinterprets. As the boy dons his wolf suit and stomps around the house, his self-expression is deemed "mischief" and his mother expresses herself through the more socially acceptable venue of speech and called him, "Wild thing!" In response to this, Max replies "I'll eat you up!"

The mother is presented as "normal" and Max as "deviant." She exists in a world full of a tidy middle-class household of "proper" manners and assumes that her son exists in the same world. Such has been the tendency of our culture since its inception. Where she finds an individual who breaks her social paradigm, she deems him inferior and demands he confirms, as our cultures have demanded of countless peoples. Max is given the barbaric behaviors and the monstrous appearance often utilized in transforming people into inferiorities. Here, Sendak employs a mockery of this unjust representation. Max, the representative of those under the oppressive influence of the ethnically powerful, dons these stereotypical monstrous traits as a costume. Sendak wishes the reader to simultaneously gather what he seeks to represent through Max with the learned associations created by generations of ethic self-superiority and the ridiculousness of this assumption.

Sendak chooses the least harsh explanation of the cruelty exacted under the mindset of ethnic superiority - ignorance. His story identifies lack of understanding and miscommunication as the points where diplomacy and peaceful co-existence deteriorate. The mother in the story makes no attempt to understand Max's reaction to her calling him "wild thing." Rather than querying her son as to his true intent or his interpreation of her words, she takes her son's expression as a literal threat; and, threats being unacceptable social behavior, especially between family members, she exacts a punishment for this perceived ill behavior. Max is sent to bed without any supper. Max is treated inhumanely because he does not follow the behavioral scripts established as "normal" within the American culture.

Even such harsh punishment does not damper the young boy's natural spirit. Rather than adapting to the social scripts set forth before him, Sendak carries his hero into a world where Max's form of expression is the cultural norm. In this world, "where the wild things are," Max's "mischief" is praised rather than scolded and he is made king of the wild things. Many pages are devoted to normalizing Max's behavior in the context of his own world to provide a sharp contrast with the "real" world where his mother's culturally created parenting techniques result in sharp conflict and inhumane treatment. In the end, Max returns to this "real" world leaving behind the occupants of this dreamland. Rather than Max being banished, his comrades protest his leaving using the same expression, "We'll eat you up!" as Max had used with his mother. Being a children's book, Sendak wishes his comment on this social problem to be clear to all readers, parents and children alike, and translates the phrase coupling the "dream world" expression of "eat you up" to the "real world" common phrasing of "love you so much."

While Sendak draws a clear picture of the negative and often inhuman results of forcing ethnic centered parenting upon children who are still developing or may feel conflicted in their ethnic identity, he ends on a note of hope. Despite refusing to attempt an understanding of her son's modes of expression, the mother does recant her punishment and provide a plate of warm dinner for Max and max does choose to return to this conflicted world to attempt reconciliation despite his merits being recognized in the world in which is self-expression is normative.

Appendix: Text of Where the Wild Things Are
The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind

and another

his mother called him "Wild Thing!"
and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!"
so he was sent to bed without eating anything

That very night in Max's room a forest grew

and grew-

and grew until his ceiling hung with vines
and the walls became the world all around

and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max
and he sailed off through night and day

and in and out of weeks
and almost over a year
to where the wild things are.

And when he came to the place where the wild things are
they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth

and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws

till Max said "BE STILL!"
and tamed them with the magic trick

of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once
and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all

and made him king of all wild things.

"And now", cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"

"Now stop!" Max said and sent the wild things off to bed
without their supper. And Max the king of all wild things was lonely
and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.

Then all around from far away across the world
he smelled good things to eat
so he gave up being king of where the wild things are.

But the wild things cried, "Oh please don't go-
we'll eat you up-we love you so!"
And Max said, "No!"

The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth
and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws
but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye

and sailed back over a year
and in and out of weeks
and through a day

and into the night of his very own room
where he found his supper waiting for him

and it was still hot.