Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are is a classic of children's literature. On the surface, it is a simple, yet entertaining tale of a young man named Max who, after being punished for his mischief, imagines a world where he is king and the "Wild Things" must do as he bids. In the end, he becomes lonely with this existence and returns home, with a warm dinner waiting, and revealing that his two-year odyssey was only a brief flight of fancy. However, there is a deeper level to this book, which moves it beyond being merely a children's tale, but also showing it to be an important tracing of the stages in life, from youth and adolescence to a more mature adulthood.
The first realization that one must make is that time is not a fixed quantity within the universe of Where the Wild Things Are. Rather, it is illustrative of various stages and changes of perception. Thus, when the first line dead "The night Max wore his wolf suit", we should not take this as a literal span of hours, but rather a dark time in the relationship between parent and child. Max acts destructively (as we are shown by the pictures on pages two and four), but each act can be seen as attempts to establish his independence. Page two shows him constructing his own home, and page four shows an attempt at securing his own food; it is the family dog, of course, but that Max holds a fork shows the intent behind the action. That he is in a wolf suit is also telling; wolves, in addition to being Wild Things, are also hunters, and Max seeks, throughout the book, some sort of life for himself.
Max's acts of mischief are actually the acts of a rebellious adolescent, not simple children's antics, as evidenced by Max's vow to "GOBBLE YOU (the parent) UP!" This is representative of the anger that many adolescents show towards their parents as they become more independent; a desire to destroy the parents, and what they stand for enters at this stage. The parent still attempts some control, seeking to punish Max in traditional ways (sending him to his room without supper), but Max has grown beyond that, and he steps into the larger world when the restrictions become too much for him to bear.
As an aside, Max's room itself must play a dual function in this piece; on the one hand, it is a place of punishment, in that Max is sent there in order to contemplate his behavior. On the deeper level, however, it is also a place of change; not only is Max supposed to change his behavior while in his room in the surface story, each time Max's room appears in the underlying story, Max undergoes a profound paradigm shift. The first is an exposure to the wider world, as his room (which is part of his parents house) ceases to hold him, and he steps into the wider world.
Max sees this wider world as a place of adventure, but the tone of the drawings becomes frightening, representing the parental anxiety about sending their child into a world full of "Wild Things." Max, in his naivete, appears contented with his entry into the world, but his first confrontation with a Wild Thing on pages fifteen and sixteen shows that he learns that all the world isn't smooth sailing; his face betrays a look of fear as the Wild Thing appears behind him and the waters become much rougher than they were in previous panels. Time again enters into the picture, with Max sailing "through night and day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year"; this is properly juxtaposed against similar lines on page thirty-three, and will be discussed, there.
With page seventeen, Max has fully entered into the adult world; he is in a distant wilderness (representing the world outside the protective shelter of his parents' house), surrounded by "Wild Things" (the people of the world). Max, however, draws upon a "magic trick" which is revealed to be nothing more than self-confidence, and tames the Wild Things. With his self-confidence, he is able to form his own life amongst the Wild Things. He forms a coterie of friends (represented by the recurring images of the same Wild Things), but his life is essentially shallow; it is simply a "wild rumpus", and they all act as Wild Things (pages 17-28).
Max finds this ultimately unsatisfying, however; while he had the love and companionship of the Wild Things, he felt that it was fundamentally lacking, as evidenced by page twenty-nine's "And Max the king of all wild things was lonely, and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all." He senses that there is another world like this, but he must give up being a Wild Thing. In the underlying story, we see this to mean that, after his time acting like a Wild Thing, Max wants to settle down. His friends, like bachelor friends throughout time, do not wish him to leave; they see a form of destruction in his ceasing to be a Wild Thing, and feel that they must submerge him further into being a Wild Thing ("we'll eat you up") in order to keep him with them. Max, however, resists, and sets out for the respectable life which he craves. Again, we come to the reference to days, weeks, and a year, but this time in reverse order. The first time we see this, on pages thirteen and fifteen, it is in ascending order of length, representing a youthful perception of the progress of time; when one is young, a day can seem to last a week, and a week can seem to last a year. However, on page thirty-three, the order is reversed, and we see that Max has a more mature view of time; the years pass quickly, until they seem as but weeks or days within a long span. The picture on page thirty-four is somewhat ambiguous in meaning, and to the advantage of the underlying story. On the one hand, Max's expression is somewhat subdued, as though he mourns the end of his life as a Wild Thing. However, he is still clad in his wolf suit; he is still hunting for something, and in this case, it is the stable life that he craves.
On page thirty-five, Max returns to his room, which we know to be a place of transition between life's stages. He begins to remove his wolf's suit, as he is no longer seeking, but has rather found the life that he desires; that life is represented here by his supper waiting for him. Max has now come full circle; whereas in the beginning of the book, he rejected his parents' values and sought his own independence, he now finds comfort in their way of life. Thus, he can come to a warm supper and feel contented, though he has left the more exciting life of a Wild Thing behind him.
Sendak's story functions on these two levels; that of the overlying narrative and the underlying tale of growth to adulthood; to aid in a parents job of raising a child. The overlying tale keeps children entertained, while the underlying tale can be seen to provide a parent with a sense of an improved end. "Despite the tribulations of raising a child," it says, "eventually they will settle down and come to the life you wish them to have." Of course, this leaves out the important fact that not all children will return to the life of their parents; others will stay amongst the Wild Things, or seek a far distant shore that the parents have not imagined or abandoned for their warm supper. But, as a tale of reassurance, these considerations are intentionally left out; there would be scarce comfort in speaking of those things, so they are left out.
Seeing this story through allegorical terms brings the reader up short, however, and begs the questions "How have I lived up to the expectations of my parents, and what varieties of Hel did I inflict upon them as I came to maturity?" Given the importance of parents in shaping the adult that a child becomes, this is an important question, if for no other reason than it forces the reader to acknowledge their role in who he or she has become after their years of dedication or inattention.