In school, Max is frightened by a science teacher’s lecture on the eventual burning out of the sun. Apparently a rather demoralized individual, the teacher informs his young students not to worry about the demise of the sun, because “any number of calamities” will already have befallen the human race by then anyway. It’s all very frightening to Max.
When it gets to be too much for him, he dons a homemade wolf costume and goes roaring around his house, disrupting his mother’s visit with a boyfriend. As she struggles to calm him, he bites her in a fit of rage. His mother tells him he’s out of control as he runs from the house. Max doesn’t stop until he arrives at the seashore near a wooded …show more content…
Some have horns and sharp teeth. Each of these creatures embodies a different aspect of Max’s personality, or represents an emotion we have seen him experience in the earlier sequences. Their behaviour and words reflect the difficult experiences in Max’s life, and often incorporate direct quotes from his mother or himself. The entire sequence in the land of the Wild Things is essentially the depiction of a young boy working through his feelings, reconsidering his behaviour and learning to empathize with others, especially those he has hurt and finding his sense of