“The most wild thing of all”: as representações simbólicas no sonho de Max em where the wild things are (2012 [1963])

Abstract

Originating at the end of the 19th century, psychoanalysis generated fruitful developments for science, not only in its clinical content but also for criticism. Nowadays, we are able to interpret literary personalities that develop complex dilemmas along the way. Therefore, Where the Wild Things Are (2012[1963]) presents itself as a rich cultural material of analysis for literary criticism, specifically psychoanalytic literary criticism, revealing a deep connection between the human mind and the symbolic representations present in this narrative. The story focuses on the experiences of Max, a boy with a vivid imagination through which, in his dreams, he creates a distant scenario where he finds refuge from the tensions of reality. With this brief description in mind, we aim to answer the following question: what are the meanings of the symbolic representations in Max's dream in Where the Wild Things Are (2012[1963]), based on psychoanalytic literary criticism? In order to answer this question, the following general objective was established: to investigate the meanings of the symbolic representations in Max's dream in Where the Wild Things Are (2012[1963]) from the standpoint of psychoanalytic literary criticism. In order to achieve this general objective, the following specific objectives were defined: (i) to discuss the theoretical grounds of Freudian psychoanalytic literary criticism with special attention to the concepts of dreams and symbolic representations; (ii) to relate the symbolic representations in Max's dream in the literary work Where the Wild Things Are (2012[1963]) and the expression of his unconscious from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalytic literary criticism. As far as the methodological approach is concerned, a qualitative, bibliographical, exploratory study was carried out, essentially based on Lois Tyson (2015), Jean Bellemin-Noel (1978), Sigmund Freud (2013), among others. From these developments, we were able to understand that Max's most primitive found a way to “materialize” his latent desire to be free from the seemingly and led him to better see and understand the complexities inherent in his unconscious.