ஐ Briansgirl "Book Sale Queen"ஐ's reviews > The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (Tor Classics) (Oz, #1)
by L. Frank Baum

ஐ Briansgirl "Book Sale Queen"ஐ's review

May 20, 09

rating:

bookshelves: classics, own

status: Read in May, 2009

A Populist Parable: When I opened my old used copy of this book, an aged newspaper clipping fell out of the back of it. As best as I can tell its from an old Sarpy County (Omaha World Herald?) Nebraska newspaper, and it was written by Peter Dreier. Here's what he said:

Whether they are fans of Judy Garland and "Over the Rainbow" or prefer the current $20million black film with Diana Ross and "No Bad News," almost all Americans know the characters from "The Wizard of Oz." But few are aware that the story was originally written as a political allegory.
It may seem harder to believe than the Emerald City, but the Tin Woodsman is the industrial worker, the Scarecrow the struggling farmer, and the Wizard is the president, who is powerful only as long as he succeeds in deceiving the people.
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written by L. Frank Baum in 1900, during the collapse of the Populist movement. Through the Populi ...more A Populist Parable: When I opened my old used copy of this book, an aged newspaper clipping fell out of the back of it. As best as I can tell its from an old Sarpy County (Omaha World Herald?) Nebraska newspaper, and it was written by Peter Dreier. Here's what he said:

Whether they are fans of Judy Garland and "Over the Rainbow" or prefer the current $20million black film with Diana Ross and "No Bad News," almost all Americans know the characters from "The Wizard of Oz." But few are aware that the story was originally written as a political allegory.
It may seem harder to believe than the Emerald City, but the Tin Woodsman is the industrial worker, the Scarecrow the struggling farmer, and the Wizard is the president, who is powerful only as long as he succeeds in deceiving the people.
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written by L. Frank Baum in 1900, during the collapse of the Populist movement. Through the Populist Party, Midwestern farmers, in alliance with some urban workers, had challenged the banks, railroads and other economic interests that squeezed interests that squeezed farmers through low prices, high freight rates and continued indebtedness.
In the 1894 congressional elections, the Populist Party got almost 40 percent of the vote. It looked forward to winning the presidency, and the silver standard, in 1896.
But in that election, which revolved around the issue of gold vs. silver, Populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan lost to Republican William McKinley by 95 electoral votes. Bryan, a congressman from Nebraska and a gifted orator, ran again in 1900, but the Populist strength was gone.
Baun viewed these events in both rural South Dakota, where he edited a local weekly, and urban Chicago, where he wrote Oz. He mourned the destruction of the fragile alliance between the Midwestern Farmers (the Scarecrow) and the urban industrial workers (the Tin Man).
Along with Bryan (the Cowardly Lion with a roar but little else), they had been taken down the Yellow Brick Road (the gold standard) that led nowhere. Each journeyed to Emerald City seeking favors from the Wizard of Oz (the president). Dorothy, the symbol of Everyman, went along with them, innocent enough to see the truth before the others.
Along the way they meet the Wicked Witch of teh West who, Baum tells us, had kept the little Munchkin people "in bondage for years, making them slave for her night and day."
She had also put a spell on the Tin Woodsman, once an independent and hard working man, so that each time he swung his ax, it chopped off a different part of his body. Lacking another trade, he "worked harder than ever," becoming like a machine, incapable of love, yearning for a heart.
The Wicked Witch clearly symbolizes the large industrial corporations.
Like Coxey's Army marching on Washington, the small group heads toward Emerald City, where the Wizard rules from behind a papier-mache facade. Ox, by the way, is the abbreviation for ounce, the standard mesaure for gold.
Like all good politicians, the Wizard can be all things to all people. Dorothy sees him as an enormous head. The Scarecrow sees a gossamer fairy. The Woodsman sees an awful beast, the Cowardly Lion "a ball of fire, so fierce and glowing he could scarcely bear to gaze upon it."
Later, however, when they confront the Wizard directly, they see he is nothing more than "a little man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face."
"I have been making believe," the Wizard confesses. "I'm just a common man." But the Scarecrow adds, "You're more than that...you're a humbug."
"It was a great mistake my ever letting you into the Throne Room," admits the Wizard, a former ventriloquist and circus ballonist from Omaha.
This was Baum's ultimate Populist message. The powers that be survive by deception. Only people's ignorance allows the powerful to manipulate and control them.
Dorothy returns to Kansas with the magical help of her Silver Shoes (the silver issue), but when she gets to Kansas she realizes her shoes "had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost forever in the desert." Still, she is safe at home with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, simple farmers.
Baum realized perhaps that the silver issue had been lost, but that silver was not the crucial issue anyway. The Populists had been led astray; the real question was that of power.
With the Wizard of Oz dethroned, the Scarecrow (farmers) rules Emerald City, the Tin Woodsman (industrial workers) rules in the West, and the Lion (Bryan) protects smaller beasts in "a small old forest." In Baum's vision, farm interests gain political power, industry moves west, and Bryan, perhaps, returns to Congress.
Baum's characters resonated with American popular culture at the turn of the century. He even displayed an early sympathy for native Americans of the plains, symbolized in the story by the Winged Monkeys in the West, whose leader tells Dorothy, "Once... we were a free people, living happily in the great forest...This was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land."
The story remains intact in both film versions, but the message has disappeared. Ironically, the first film was made in 1939, during the Depression, when business was once again challenged by farmers, industrial workers and progressive politicians.
In 1977, ALjean Hermetz detailed the history of the 1939 film in a book, "The Making of the 'Wizard of Oz'." He credited Baum but did not mention the story was a political parable. The first full explanation of the book as a parable appeared in an essay by Henry M. Littlefield in the 1964 American Quarterly. (less)

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05/20/2009	page 192	100.0%
05/20/2009	page 144	75.0%
05/15/2009	page 114	59.38%
05/14/2009	page 106	55.21%	"Finding alot that they got wrong or left out in the Judy Garland movie."
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05/13/2009	page 50	26.04%
05/13/2009	page 5	2.6%

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message 1: by Shanon (new) - added it

May 13, 2009 07:12pm

I never knew! Wizard of Oz is my favorite movie and has been for as long as I can remember. I never caught the political stuff but I can totally see it & it makes sense (now that I'm older). I have these books & plan on reading them to my kids when they get a little older.

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message 2: by ஐ Briansgirl "Book Sale Queen"ஐ (new) - rated it 3 stars

May 13, 2009 07:34pm

I've never read the books and didn't realize it was a series. I'm reading the first one now. I never knew the parable stuff either until this aged newspaper clipping fell out of the back of my used book. I thought it was interesting enough to share it.

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message 3: by Shanon (last edited May 14, 2009 08:20am) (new) - added it

May 14, 2009 08:20am

A mega series at that - there's 41 books I think. Luckily all short.

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message 4: by ஐ Briansgirl "Book Sale Queen"ஐ (new) - rated it 3 stars

May 14, 2009 08:51am

OMG!! I didn't realize there were so many. I know you can get many of the first 10 as free downloadable ebooks here on GRs.

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message 5: by Jeanne (new) - rated it 4 stars

Aug 05, 2009 05:16pm