Allegory of Oz

Dorothy has a boring, but nice life. Cyclone comes, brings her to the land of oz. she wants to get back to kansas so she travels on the yellow brick road (Golden Standard), but since her old shoes are falling apart she wears silver shoes (The silver standard). She then meets a scarecrow (Farmers) who has no brain. Then they come upon the tin woodman (Industrial workers). After a while they come upon the cowardly lion (Williams Jenning Bryan) who has no courage. Eventually they came upon a poisonous poppy field (The Dead). They go to the Emerald City (DC). They get told by Oz (The president’s advisor) to go kill the wicked witch of the west. On the way the lion becomes king of all beasts. Once wicked witch is killed the tin woodman is in charge of the winkies. They go back to Oz, he makes a hot air balloon, the ropes snap and he flies away before dorothy can get in. Dorothy travels to the good witch of the south only to find out that the shoes she has on could have gotten her there instantly.

The author, L. Frank Baum’s jobs were many and varied. He ran a small bazaar - a marketplace where people sold a variety of things.

“In his twenties, he raised chickens, wrote plays, and started a business that produced oil-based lubricants, He also started a baseball club, reported for a frontier newspaper, and bought dishware for a department store.” 1

One of my favorite quotes is, “You see, in this country there are a number of youths who do not like to work, and the college is an excellent place for them,” Baum. 1

At age 40, he began to write. He first wrote two children’s books - Mother Goose in Prose and Father Goose, His Stories. When writing Wizard of Oz, his first word was “Dorothy”, and the last word was “again”. There were 13 sequels to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, two of which were written by Baum - The Wonderful Land of Oz and Glinda of Oz. He helped to produce a successful Broadway musical based off his first Oz story. The remainder of books were written by other authors after Baum’s death in 1919 following gallbladder surgery. The movie was produced 30 years after the book was published, following Baum’s death.

Allegory

Link to explanation of allegory

http://paws.wcu.edu/mulligan/www/oz.html