Once Upon a Time: My first short paper assignment for Law & Disorder in Literature.

Currently a rough copy only, so no harsh jugements yet. It was hard to construct a strong argument under the limit of 1,000 words, but I'm trying.

When The Wild Things Were

Every social group has its own cultural codes; its own beliefs, customs, designations, and general way of life. However, after years of study and analysis, University of California anthropologist Donald Brown identified in his search for human universals that in every culture law, narrative, and socialization of the young by experienced kin are interconnected and play a significant role (Brown, Human Universals). This relationship is especially visible in the tool of the so-called “bed-time story” employed by many societies throughout history and the world today. These narratives expose children to law for the first time through a series of non-combative hypothetical scenarios; they do not “proscribe” behavior to children, but rather “inscribe” behavior. In a sense, they “lay down ways of being” (Manderson 90), acting as “the contemporary instrument of the subtle, loving, but relentless socialization by which the child becomes fitted out for adult life and law” (Manderson 95). Thus, stories offer societies a vehicle through which to socialize children not just to culture and customs, but to the very laws which govern and shape those entities. In his infamous children’s story Where The Wild Things Are, author Maurice Sendak explores the development of mankind’s initial relationship with the law and his eventual acceptance of his place under its yoke.

In the narrative’s exposition, Sendak introduces protagonist Max, a little boy who has just been banished without a meal by his mother for creating some ambiguous “mischief”. In this sense, Max’s plight simultaneously represents not just the plight all children, but the absolute power of the Law (in this case, Max’s mother) over the individual (Max). Sendal proposes through his deliberate omission of Max’s crime that what he has done is not worthy of examination under the eyes of the Law; as part of Society (in this case, the household) he must be willing to submit to the Law’s absolute power. The mother’s command as law-maker is in this situation so absolute it borders upon actual totalitarianism, and Max’s subsequent escape to the land where the wilds things are represents a desperate search for individual freedom of action and thought.

By the time Max reaches the distant shores of the fantastic beasts, however, the customs of his past have already begun their indelible work on his psyche. Max essentially arrives as a complete alien to the new world and yet immediately takes control, expelling commands as dictatorially and arbitrarily as his own mother had. He controls their means of entertainment, their sleep schedules, and even when they eat, allowing none of the creatures the opportunity to offer input and eventually even accepting the role of “king”, a reward that ultimately results from his exceptionally fearless tyranny. Though some of his edicts proclaim the existence of an absolute freedom (“Let the wild rumpus start!”) the freedom is only valid insofar as he decides it is, a mirror of his mother’s arbitrary sense of punishment that occurs at the closing of the work.

Despite having total control, Max is nonetheless dissatisfied with his orientation; against his will, he craves the presence of established rule and rejects the kingdom of chaos he has created, or, as Sendak puts it, “And Max the king of all the wilds things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all… so he gave up being king of where the wild things are”. He returns to his boat, callously ignoring the cries of the animals he’s tamed, and sails back to the society of his home and the law of his mother. He arrives back to the exact same society and household he escaped from, whereupon “he found his supper waiting for him and it was still hot”, a discovery that clearly illustrates the volatile and arbitrary nature of the law, because though Max has not reformed his behavior in any way that his mother is aware of, his punishment is nonetheless revoked and he is rewarded. By the work’s close, Sendak’s character has essentially undergone the full process of socialization as a child toward adulthood in his understand of and eventual recognition of the law and all its confining mandates; he has gone from following his individual whims to conforming to the rules of a collective society. What’s more, he does this willingly and eagerly; he now “hungers” to belong.

Sendak’s story is the ultimate example of a child’s education in law and acts in itself as a model for educating other children as readers. It is widely understood that children’s stories are both pedagogical and normative, and that they would in fact lose significant value if they were not (Manderson, 91). It is widely acknowledged by society that the socialization of children in relation to law and all other matters occurs not just to facilitate the eventual inclusion of the young in society, but to keep them from disrupting society’s already-established order and function with their lack of understanding and natural inclination toward individual whim. Sendak concludes the book with a new Max, a person who has already begun retreating from childhood and who no longer desires to be a wild thing, let alone escape in search of them. The author proves that the impulse to reject law in favor of indulging in one’s own whims is no more than a passing phase before the slow trudge toward adulthood and acceptance of law, a stage of life no more practical than constantly “playing pretend”.

Works Cited

Brown, D.E. Human Universals. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991.

From Hunger to Love: Myths of the Source, Interpretation, and Constitution of Law in
Children's Literature. Manderson, Desmond. Law and Literature, Vol. 15, No. 1
(Spring, 2003), pp. 87-141.