Where the Wild Things Are as Method of Psychoanalysis for Anger in Children

It doesn't necessarily stand alone, but Maurice Sendak's legendary children's book Where the Wild Things Are inarguably has a divided audience on its merits for a child's growing mind. Despite edgier books for children being as common as a Harry Potter reference in the time since Sendak's book was written, Where the Wild Things Are still gets accused of being too scary for children in the age group the book was intended. Those same people who claim being disturbed by reading the book obviously won't be taking themselves or their children to the latest movie adaptation directed by Spike Jonze based on how real the monsters look in CGI.

Yet through all that criticism of the book, it might have been better expressed had those people processed that fear as a psychoanalytic journey toward mastery of emotions.

It might seem impossible to equate psychoanalysis with reading "Where the Wild Things Are." But it isn't a stretch to consider it the truncated book Carl Jung should have written for children that was instead filtered into his mammoth and notorious Red Book, intended for strong-willed individuals fortunate enough to see it let alone read it. Whether Maurice Sendak had the same intention in mind with his book is a mystery to this day despite a few subtle clues. For my intent and purpose, it's clear he wrote a deceptively simple book as an equivalent to Jung taking his recommended journey into the jungle of the collective subconscious.

No, nobody ever said such a psychoanalytic process couldn't be done by a child under age 10.

And this isn't the only time such an idea was extracted from Sendak's book. The key emotion that Sendak played up, of course, was anger in children while going through a time in their life when fierce independence takes precedence. All of us went through the rebellious stage as the young protagonist Max does in the story, complete with growling (as euphemism for something worse) at our parents. Even though not from my own personal experience, many kids dealing with extra pent-up anger may have also chased after family pets with a fork as Max does in the tale.

We can likely be in collective agreement that we felt akin to the wolf persona as Max feels in the beginning--complete with wolf costume if not just our attitudes being conducive enough. Eventually that led to passing the line of tolerability by our parents to outright punishment when our cantankerous attitude presented itself with a vengeance we thought we truly meant. It's right there when the exploration of anger in a child can start to be either illuminating or shielded away.

As with Jung, the child with the overactive imagination was ultimately at a huge advantage as a preventative in it carrying over into front-page newspaper headlines during adulthood.
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If you're familiar with Jung's journey into his dark subconscious universe, then you'll easily recognize the monsters in "Where the Wild Things Are" as perfect specimens of the same type of world. To show the similarities between adulthood and childhood, both Jung and Max use the terrifying people, creatures and self actions in their imaginations as metaphors for people in their real life or collective experience. Then again, the division of adulthood to childhood begins with Jung's more sophisticated world where the worlds, creatures and people he encounters dig much deeper into a wellspring of mythology.

There isn't any surprise Jung's journeys are a metaphorical accumulation of both hid childhood and adult experiences up to that time, if plenty of unknowns even he couldn't understand. With Max, his only experience is dealing with his parents and the frustrations of wanting to be fiercely independent from the routine functions of eating dinner at a set time. It's the shock of something unexpected happening that incites the imaginations in both to flourish as a method of finding why they're acting the way they are.

With Jung, it was the shock of realizing he may be going stark raving mad while already practicing psychiatry with no other than Sigmund Freud. For Max, it's the shock of his mother finally taking his maddening behavior seriously rather than her patiently accepting the vagaries of being a young boy. He's sent to bed rather than having the supper he had without fail each night. And even though the wild forest that then envelops Max in his room appears to be true magic at work, it's really a journey into his subconscious; a seemingly benign dream.

As with Jung's complicated symbolism in all his inner worlds and mystical beings, Max's monsters he meets are easier metaphors of people in his real life. It's quite clear from the trailer of the "Where the Wild Things Are" movie that the parallels between monster and real people in Max's life are made obvious.

For those familiar with Sendak's (short) book, the visitation to the wild jungle and the monsters seems all too brief to really qualify as a complete Jungian psychoanalysis in a young person. Jung's Red Book is vast in comparison and takes place over a 16-year arc in periodic documentations. Max's visit in the book is condensed to less than 50 pages while being absorbed more through the classic illustrations. That's why the movie adaptation was a good idea and prolongs the story to give the sense that Max had to be with the monsters for a long time to sort out his feelings.

Of course, just as Jung did, he comes out of the wild forest completely conquering all of his emotional issues after becoming king of said domain. While we don't always know why some children tap into the rage of a wolf at that age in life, the emotional experience of being away from home ultimately brings the understanding of missing it when we're far away.

For a child, it may not have to take a literal running away from home to stabilize the emotion behind that. Sendak's book has been showing for 45 years now how to get into Jung's wild jungle at any age for discovery of one's soul.

No child of any age should be prevented from being coaxed into that unique and sometimes disturbing exploration to understand themselves long before they enter more dangerous territory of adulthood.

Source:

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Wild-Things-Maurice-Sendak/dp/0060254920/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254122599&sr=1-1