Ekphrasis is a literary device that involves verbally describing a visual piece of art; it necessarily features heavily in Wild Thing. How do Prideaux’s descriptions of Gauguin’s work seek to convey its impact and meaning?

Examine the relationship between Gauguin’s artistic project and his political activism in French Polynesia. What does Prideaux suggest about the relationship between his journalism and legal advocacy and his artistic principles?

The biography’s title evokes Gauguin’s self-identification as a “savage.” What different meanings do terms like “wild,” “savage,” and “primitive” accumulate throughout the text? How does the biography engage with these words’ historical entanglement with colonialism?

Compare and contrast Gauguin’s experiences in Brittany and his final years in the Marquesas Islands. How did each location represent a different stage in his search for an “authentic” world, and how did the realities of these places shape the development of his Synthetist style and his anticolonial stance?

Analyze the artistic dialogue between Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh during their time in Arles. How did their fundamental disagreements over painting from memory versus observation catalyze Gauguin’s definitive break with Impressionism and solidify his commitment to Synthetism?

Using the evidence presented in Wild Thing, analyze the power dynamics in Gauguin’s relationships with Tehamana and Pahura. How does Prideaux’s narrative navigate the tension between Gauguin’s apparent affection and artistic reliance on these young women and the inherent colonial, gender, and age imbalances of their arrangements?

How does Prideaux utilize Gauguin’s own writings, such as Avant et après, to weigh his self-mythologizing against his documented actions? What tensions emerge in the process?

Consider the range of figures Gauguin either adopted as alter egos or painted with his own features—Jesus, Jean Valjean, Oviri, the wolf, the fox dog, etc. How do these different figures speak to different sides of Gauguin’s character?