Baum asserted that he wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz “solely to please the children….” The simple story of a child’s adventure with its triumph of good over evil, its underlying optimism and its happy homecoming ending has pleased children for over 100 years. And yet…even a perfunctory look into the various interpretations of the book affords many different interpretations.
There are the strong connections to Romanticism, poetry, pastoral philosophy and theosophy. There’s the intriguing question of just who does have the power in this saga and why. A symbolic & ironic lesson about self-discovery drives the tale, as each character looks for the characteristics already possessed. What is illusion? Reality? How are they distinguished?
Then there is the whole economic and political allegory explicated by critics and professors for years. Dorothy = the American people: plucky, good-natured, naive.
Oz= the almighty ounce of gold
Yellow Brick Road = a path paved with gold bricks that leads nowhere
Dorothy’s Silver Slippers walking on the yellow brick road = the bimetallic standard
All the good guys = populists
Bad guys = Eastern banking & industrialists
Wizard = President McKinley
Et cetera.
Think that’s far-fetched? How about the theory that the story parallels the Book of Exodus? Dorothy & companions are enslaved, water is essential in their deliverance, they are “prisoners in a strange land” and the day of deliverance will be a holiday then and forever after.
Then there is the theory of colors. The colors of Oz are not arbitrary, but change from region to region in accordance with the principles of color theory. The three major areas are each a primary color. The travelers must journey through a secondary color to get to another primary one. For example, the green country of the Emerald City is the link between the blue land of the Munchkins and yellow Winkie country.
(Baum also wrote The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors in 1900.)
There’s more, but you probably get the idea. So, if you have been hesitating to read a simple child’s story, give it another read. See what interesting implications you can unearth.
Did you know that Baum's mother-in-law was a suffragette?