Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Encyclopedia
Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
include treatments of the modern fairy tale (written by L. Frank Baum
and first published in 1900) as an allegory
or metaphor
for the political, economic and social events of America in the 1890s. Scholars have examined four quite different versions of Oz: the novel of 1900, the Broadway Play of 1901, the Hollywood film of 1939, and the numerous followup Oz novels written after 1900 by Baum and others.
The political interpretations focus on the first three, and emphasize the close relationship between the visual images and the story line to the political interests of the day. Biographers report that Baum had been a political activist in the 1890s with a special interest in the money question of gold and silver, and the illustrator Denslow was a full time editorial cartoonist for a major daily newspaper. For the 1901 Broadway production Baum inserted explicit references to prominent political characters such as President Theodore Roosevelt
.
outlined an allegory in the book of the late 19th-century debate regarding monetary policy. According to this view, for instance, the "Yellow Brick Road" represents the gold standard
, and the silver slippers
(ruby
in the 1939 film version
) represent the Silverite
sixteen to one silver ratio (dancing down the road).
The thesis achieved considerable popular interest and elaboration by many scholars in history, economics and other fields, but is not universally accepted. Certainly the 1901 musical version of "Oz", written by Baum, was for an adult audience and had numerous explicit references to contemporary politics, though in these references Baum seems just to have been "playing for laughs." The 1902 stage adaptation mentioned, by name, President Theodore Roosevelt
and other political celebrities. For example, the Tin Woodman wonders what he would do if he ran out of oil. "You wouldn't be as badly off as John D. Rockefeller
," the Scarecrow responds, "He'd lose six thousand dollars a minute if that happened."
Littlefield's knowledge of the 1890s was thin, and he made numerous errors, but since his article was published, scholars in history, political science and economics have asserted that the images and characters used by Baum closely resemble political images that were well known in the 1890s. Quentin Taylor, for example, claimed that many of the events and characters of the book resemble the actual political personalities, events and ideas of the 1890s. Dorothy—naïve, young and simple—represents the American people. She is Everyman
, led astray and seeking the way back home. Moreover, following the road of gold leads eventually only to the Emerald City, which may symbolize the fraudulent world of greenback paper money that only pretends to have value. It is ruled by a scheming politician (the Wizard) who uses publicity devices and tricks to fool the people (and even the Good Witches) into believing he is benevolent, wise and powerful when really he is selfish and cruel. He sends Dorothy into severe danger hoping she will rid him of his enemy the Wicked Witch of the West. He is powerless and, as he admits to Dorothy, "I'm a very bad Wizard."
Littlefield and other historians have suggested that Baum modeled the Cowardly Lion
after politician William Jennings Bryan
, or politicians in general. Republicans
mocked Bryan as indecisive, or a coward, which became the basis of the character.
Taylor also claimed a sort of iconography for the cyclone: it was used in the 1890s as a metaphor for a political revolution that would transform the drab country into a land of color and unlimited prosperity. It was also used by editorial cartoonists of the 1890s to represent political upheaval.
Other putative allegorical devices of the book include the Wicked Witch of the West as a figure for the actual American West; if this is true, then the monkeys could represent another western danger: Native Americans
. Baum even displayed an early sympathy for Native Americans of the plains, symbolized in the story of the winged monkeys in the West, whose leader tells Dorothy, "Once we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. […] This was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land."
Other writers have used the same evidence to lead to precisely opposite allegorical interpretations.
Apart from intentional symbolism, scholars have speculated on the sources of Baum's ideas and imagery. The "man behind the curtain" could be a reference to automated store window displays of the sort famous at Christmas season in big city department stores; many people watching the fancy clockwork motions of animals and mannequins thought there must be an operator behind the curtain pulling the levers to make them move (Baum was the editor of the trade magazine read by window dressers).
Additional allegories have been developed, without claims that they were originally intended by Baum. The text has been treated as a theosophical allegory. In 1993 W. Geoffrey Seeley recast the story as an exercise in treachery, suggesting the supposed "Good Witch Glinda" used an innocent, ignorant patsy (Dorothy) to overthrow both her own sister witch (Witch of the West) and the Wizard of Oz, leaving herself as undisputed master of all four corners of Oz: North, East, West and (presumably Oz being) South. "She even showed her truest Machiavellian genius by allowing the story to be entitled after the weakest of her three opponents." Glinda could have told Dorothy that the "ruby slippers would easily do the job [of returning Dorothy to her beloved home] but decided that a destabilizing force such as Dorothy might be just the thing to shake up her other rival [The West Witch]." Kassinger, in her book Gold: From Greek Myth to Computer Chips, purports that "The Wizard symbolizes bankers who support the gold standard and oppose adding silver to it... Only Dorothy's silver slippers can take her home to Kansas", meaning that by Dorothy not realizing that she had the silver slippers the whole time, Dorothy, or "the westerners", never realized they already had a viable currency of the people.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
include treatments of the modern fairy tale (written by L. Frank Baum
L. Frank Baum
Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
and first published in 1900) as an allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
or metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
for the political, economic and social events of America in the 1890s. Scholars have examined four quite different versions of Oz: the novel of 1900, the Broadway Play of 1901, the Hollywood film of 1939, and the numerous followup Oz novels written after 1900 by Baum and others.
The political interpretations focus on the first three, and emphasize the close relationship between the visual images and the story line to the political interests of the day. Biographers report that Baum had been a political activist in the 1890s with a special interest in the money question of gold and silver, and the illustrator Denslow was a full time editorial cartoonist for a major daily newspaper. For the 1901 Broadway production Baum inserted explicit references to prominent political characters such as President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
.
Overview
In a 1964 article, educator and historian Henry LittlefieldHenry Littlefield
Henry M. Littlefield was an American educator, author and historian most notable for his claim that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a political satire, founding a long tradition of Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
outlined an allegory in the book of the late 19th-century debate regarding monetary policy. According to this view, for instance, the "Yellow Brick Road" represents the gold standard
Gold standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
, and the silver slippers
Silver Shoes
The Silver Shoes are the magical shoes that appear in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Dorothy Gale's transport home. They were originally owned by the Wicked Witch of the East but passed to Dorothy when her house landed on the Witch...
(ruby
Ruby slippers
The ruby slippers are the shoes worn by Dorothy in the 1939 MGM movie The Wizard of Oz. Because of their iconic stature, they are now among the most treasured and valuable of film memorabilia. As was customary for important props, a number of pairs were made for the film, though no one knows...
in the 1939 film version
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
) represent the Silverite
Silverite
The Silverites were members of a political movement in the United States in the late-19th century that advocated that silver should continue to be a monetary standard along with gold, as authorized under the Coinage Act of 1792...
sixteen to one silver ratio (dancing down the road).
The thesis achieved considerable popular interest and elaboration by many scholars in history, economics and other fields, but is not universally accepted. Certainly the 1901 musical version of "Oz", written by Baum, was for an adult audience and had numerous explicit references to contemporary politics, though in these references Baum seems just to have been "playing for laughs." The 1902 stage adaptation mentioned, by name, President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
and other political celebrities. For example, the Tin Woodman wonders what he would do if he ran out of oil. "You wouldn't be as badly off as John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
," the Scarecrow responds, "He'd lose six thousand dollars a minute if that happened."
Littlefield's knowledge of the 1890s was thin, and he made numerous errors, but since his article was published, scholars in history, political science and economics have asserted that the images and characters used by Baum closely resemble political images that were well known in the 1890s. Quentin Taylor, for example, claimed that many of the events and characters of the book resemble the actual political personalities, events and ideas of the 1890s. Dorothy—naïve, young and simple—represents the American people. She is Everyman
Everyman
In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
, led astray and seeking the way back home. Moreover, following the road of gold leads eventually only to the Emerald City, which may symbolize the fraudulent world of greenback paper money that only pretends to have value. It is ruled by a scheming politician (the Wizard) who uses publicity devices and tricks to fool the people (and even the Good Witches) into believing he is benevolent, wise and powerful when really he is selfish and cruel. He sends Dorothy into severe danger hoping she will rid him of his enemy the Wicked Witch of the West. He is powerless and, as he admits to Dorothy, "I'm a very bad Wizard."
Littlefield and other historians have suggested that Baum modeled the Cowardly Lion
Cowardly Lion
The Cowardly Lion is the main character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. He is a Lion, but he talks and interacts with humans....
after politician William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
, or politicians in general. Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
mocked Bryan as indecisive, or a coward, which became the basis of the character.
Taylor also claimed a sort of iconography for the cyclone: it was used in the 1890s as a metaphor for a political revolution that would transform the drab country into a land of color and unlimited prosperity. It was also used by editorial cartoonists of the 1890s to represent political upheaval.
Other putative allegorical devices of the book include the Wicked Witch of the West as a figure for the actual American West; if this is true, then the monkeys could represent another western danger: Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
. Baum even displayed an early sympathy for Native Americans of the plains, symbolized in the story of the winged monkeys in the West, whose leader tells Dorothy, "Once we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. […] This was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land."
Other writers have used the same evidence to lead to precisely opposite allegorical interpretations.
Apart from intentional symbolism, scholars have speculated on the sources of Baum's ideas and imagery. The "man behind the curtain" could be a reference to automated store window displays of the sort famous at Christmas season in big city department stores; many people watching the fancy clockwork motions of animals and mannequins thought there must be an operator behind the curtain pulling the levers to make them move (Baum was the editor of the trade magazine read by window dressers).
Additional allegories have been developed, without claims that they were originally intended by Baum. The text has been treated as a theosophical allegory. In 1993 W. Geoffrey Seeley recast the story as an exercise in treachery, suggesting the supposed "Good Witch Glinda" used an innocent, ignorant patsy (Dorothy) to overthrow both her own sister witch (Witch of the West) and the Wizard of Oz, leaving herself as undisputed master of all four corners of Oz: North, East, West and (presumably Oz being) South. "She even showed her truest Machiavellian genius by allowing the story to be entitled after the weakest of her three opponents." Glinda could have told Dorothy that the "ruby slippers would easily do the job [of returning Dorothy to her beloved home] but decided that a destabilizing force such as Dorothy might be just the thing to shake up her other rival [The West Witch]." Kassinger, in her book Gold: From Greek Myth to Computer Chips, purports that "The Wizard symbolizes bankers who support the gold standard and oppose adding silver to it... Only Dorothy's silver slippers can take her home to Kansas", meaning that by Dorothy not realizing that she had the silver slippers the whole time, Dorothy, or "the westerners", never realized they already had a viable currency of the people.