‘There is no place like home.’ (Baum, 2008, p.17)
I picked up L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz last summer. The first thing that jumped out to me was the introduction at the start of the novel where L. Frank Baum claims that, his main goal was to write a modernized fairy tale ‘in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out’ (Baum, 2008, p. 3). His reasoning behind this was that morality has been part of the, then, modern curriculum and therefore, there was no reason to include horrible incidents so often found in the fairies of Grimm and Andersen. This gave me the impression that I would be entering a world full of happiness and fun adventures. However, as I was reading, there were more and more gruesome instances albeit always with a happy ending. This prompted the discussion of differences between the 1939 film adaptation and the novel.
The film seemed to stay true to the features of a modernized fairy tale though they made the decision to go the musical route. I think it was a smart decision – the songs are iconic. The novel, on the other hand, has scenes such as the Tin Woodman explaining how he became a tin man after the Scarecrow questions the Woodman’s want of a heart instead of a brain. The Wicked Witch of the East enchanted the Woodman’s axe which then ‘accidentally’ chopped various parts of the Woodman’s body off – joyful? No. Gruesome? Yes!
These scenes were strangely entertaining, not found in the film adaptation, it opened up the creative process of imagining them – and as an adult with plenty of horror film viewings under my belt, my imagination painted some pretty wild scenes.
As the story unfolded, I became less excited and more bored because of the uncomplicated, repetitive (or episodic) structure of the tale. Dorothy and her companions encounter numerous obstacles; however, each time they find a way to solve their problem with the help of their smarts, courage or just pure luck.
For instance, Dorothy gets so mad that she pours a bucket of water over the Witch – her one weakness:
‘”Didn’t you know water would be the end of me?” asked the Witch, in wailing, despairing voice. “Of course not,” answered Dorothy. “How should I?”‘ (2008, p.64).
According to Appleyard (1991) this structure is often used in children’s books because ‘children between ages 7 and 12 are limited in what they can cognitively grasp and affectively identify with’ (p. 5). Children at this age need stories which feel reassuringly familiar because they are still learning how their world operates. Through these books, via the heroes and heroines, children are able to face and concur an endless variety of danger, evil or crime. Because of this, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is perfect for pre-adolescent children.
It is described to us in the beginning that Dorothy lives in Kansas on a grey and struggling farm. We learn that Dorothy is an orphan and lives with her uncle and aunt who are described as stern and solemn. There are multiple views of why it is common for the heroine to be motherless. One of the views according to Appleyard (1991) is that ‘[because] family issues are not the subject of the books children ages 7 to 12 read, the heroes and heroines of these books have to be at least psychologically parentless if they are to be convincing models of world mastery’ (p. 19). Since the book came out in 1900, we deduced that Baum was referring to the Dust Bowl and the depression. So, I was quite surprised when Dorothy lands in Oz, a beautiful land of many wonders, the only thing she can think about is her home and how worried her aunt and uncle must be. We came to the conclusion that this huge change in environment – going from a simple, familiar, quiet life on the great plains to a world full of bizarre creatures – would be pretty scary for a child.
Even though Dorothy is worried, she puts on a brave face and begins her journey along the Yellow Brick Road. Soon, her party of two becomes a party of five. The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion are the adult characters who support, comfort and help Dorothy on her way to the Wizard of Oz. Without their assistance, Dorothy would not have been able to overcome the numerous obstacles. These characters serve another purpose. Each of them has a wish, something they long after: the Scarecrow wants a brain, the Tin Woodman wants a heart, the Cowardly Lion wants courage, and Dorothy wants to go home. Readers can relate to at least one of the characters and learn that they have had what they were missing all along. Alongside Dorothy, the readers learn about courage, love, caring, and intelligence. Unfortunately, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Lion are simpletons who need the physical gifts from the wizard to truly be happy.
While discussing further patterns in the novel, we realized that the female characters are unusually strong. Traditional fairy tales are abundant with damsels in distress; however, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is ‘the earliest truly feminist American children’s book, because of spunky and tenacious Dorothy,’ writes Michael Patrick Hearn in the foreword to The Annotated Wizard of Oz (2000). It is entirely possible that Dorothy’s character was based on Baum’s mother-in-law, the radical suffragette Gage; Dorothy stands up for herself and deals with her problems rather than waiting for a prince to rescue her (BBC Culture, 2014). The one character who was supposed to save her, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, turns out to be a fraud, a former ventriloquist and circus performer from Nebraska, who happened to also land in Oz by accident.
The wizard might have been an old fraud without any powers, but the four witches of Oz were the real deal. All of them have magical powers and serve a purpose to the story. The good witches tried to help and set others free, just like Dorothy did with the Winkies demonstrating her power of good. While the bad witches enslaved others and so, were defeated by our heroine. Let us not forget that, without Glinda the Good Witch of the South, Dorothy wouldn’t have learned that she could have flown home all along if she just clicked her heels together.
Bibliography
Appleyard, J.A. (1991). Becoming a Reader. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
Baum, L.F. (2008, first published 1900). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz [EBook].
BBC Culture (2014, August 19). The Wizard of Oz: Five alternative readings. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140819-the-wizard-of-oz-hidden-meanings
Baum, L.F. (Author) & Hearn, M.P. (Editor, Introduction by, Notes by). (2000). The Annotated Wizard of Oz. New York, WW Norton & Co.
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