Wizard of Oz, The (1900), widely considered the most popular American fairy tale, is the first in a series of 14 Oz books by L. Frank Baum. Hard hit by the brutal economic depression of 1890, this actor, journalist, and window decorator established himself as an author of children's books with Father Goose: His Book (1899). From rewritten nursery rhymes, Baum turned to the wonder tales of Andersen and the Grimms. Writing during the vogue of utopian novels, he wanted a ‘modernized fairy tale’ that would omit both romance and nightmare‐causing violence yet still provide an entertaining morality for children. He also modernized the talking beasts of folklore into sentient machines like the Tin Woodman: in this way, he could introduce turn‐of‐the‐century industrialization into a fairyland where no one is injured (wicked witches notwithstanding). First illustrated by W. W. Denslow, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (as it was first entitled) was a runaway best‐seller of the first half of the century, although it received scant literary acclaim. Indeed, the entire Oz series, consisting of 14 novels published between 1900 and 1920, was essentially blacklisted during the McCarthy era by librarians who dismissed it as subversive popular culture of poor literary quality. Nor was the 1939 MGM musical a critical success, losing $1 million in its initial run. Filmed during the Depression when America needed escapist fare, it only began its rise to cult status in 1956, with its first annual televised showing. The public has since re‐evaluated both the film and book, which boasts 10 million copies in 22 languages.
This is the story of Dorothy Gale (played by Judy Garland). Ignored by foster‐parents on a bleak farm in Kansas, she is transported by a cyclone to the utopia of Oz. Dorothy, however, wants to return home, and sets out to find the Wizard for help. On her quest, she encounters a Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion seeking a brain, a heart, and courage. The Wizard refuses to help unless they kill the Wicked Witch of the West. Dorothy accidentally does this, but Oz cannot keep his promise because he is not really a wizard. He does, however, bestow the physical attributes of the intelligence, compassion, and valour that the trio have demonstrated all along. In the end, it is Dorothy who takes herself home: she has learned that her silver shoes (ruby slippers in the film) have always held the power to fulfil her dreams.
Dorothy's journey to Oz and back is therefore a child's quest of self‐discovery, a rite of passage in which she overcomes challenges by learning to use her talents. This individual and societal maturation is neatly underscored in Victor Fleming's Oscar‐winning film, whose host of screenwriters tightened Baum's storyline. They eliminated sub‐plots and introduced new characters to the prologue (Miss Gulch, Professor Marvel, the trio of farmhands) that are ‘ozzified’ into the Wicked Witch (Margaret Hamilton), Wizard (Frank Morgan), Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), Tin Woodman (Jack Haley), and Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr). The film also unifies Dorothy's narrative point of view with songs like ‘Over the Rainbow’ (by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg), and faithfully exploits the metaphor of grey Kansas vs. Technicolor Oz. The endings of book and film, however, diverge: where Baum's Oz is real, Hollywood's is a dream.
Dreams and the collective unconscious figure in the film's psychoanalytical interpretations. Jungians stress Dorothy's quest for self in which she is aided by personified characters (Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, etc.). Freudians address ineffectual parent figures and posit a ‘family romance’ that replaces them with good witches and wizards. They cite numerous images of castration (Oz's floating head, the Tin Woodman's mutilation), note the phallic imagery of the cyclone and witch's broomstick, and find that Dorothy comes to sexual maturity when she appropriates the broomstick and gives it to Oz. Sexuality is further underscored by the colour red (for menstruation) of the film's ruby slippers.
Critics analysing the book, however, equate Dorothy's silver shoes with the silver standard of 1890s Populist debates. William Jennings Bryan, farmers, and public‐wary presidents are represented by the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, and Wizard. Midwestern politics are futher allegorized in the Tin Woodman's dehumanization from flesh to tin—a metaphorical industrialization that is vanquished by the Jeffersonian agrarianism of Kansas, geographic and symbolic centre of the United States. This model presents Kansas as a secular Garden of Eden, but Oz‐as‐Utopia is championed in socio‐political commentary of the later Oz books. Feminists cite the numerous emasculated males and analyse the suffragette‐type leaders of The Land of Oz. Others find in the illness‐free Emerald City of Oz a (socialist) paradise where poverty and money need not exist because happy workers share their wealth and talents. Solidarity and pacifism rule Oz, where a giant Love Magnet imbues all who enter with selflessness. In short, Oz is what a disenchanted America is not.
Baum would probably be amused by all these interpretations, for he stressed that he wrote only for children, at their behest. Today, his utopian tale continues to inspire with its hopeful message of individual growth and social reform. In fact, there are more than 100 sequels, parodies, and pastiches of Oz, with notable reinventions from black Broadway musicals (The Wiz, 1975) to parallel worlds (A Barnstormer in Oz, 1982) to metaphors about Aids (Was, 1992). Indeed, the recent auction of Dorothy's ruby slippers for $165, 000 attests to Oz's continuing mythic relation to the American collective unconscious.
Bibliography
- Harmetz, Aljean, The Making of The Wizard of Oz (1977).
- Hearn, Michael Patrick, The Annotated Wizard of Oz (1973).
- Littlefield, Henry, “‘The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism’”, in Hennig Cohen (ed.), American Culture (1968).
- Nathanson, Paul, Over the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America (1991).
- Zipes, Jack, “‘Oz as American Myth’”, in Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale (1994).
— Mary Louise Ennis
