1. It’s striking how iconic The Wizard of Oz has become, not just in its characters, but its story structure, the meeting of the companions, the common goal they all share, the confrontation with a great evil, and the reward for all at the end.
    You’re also right to call it a distinctly American fairy tale, and I give Baum kudos for pulling it off. So many fairy tales and stories have their origins in merry old England. American contributions seem to be far fewer.
     

    • Fred Warren says:

      It’s striking how iconic The Wizard of Oz has become, not just in its characters, but its story structure, the meeting of the companions, the common goal they all share, the confrontation with a great evil, and the reward for all at the end.

      It was sort of the Harry Potter of its time…Baum didn’t intend to write a sequel, but the demand for further Oz stories was so great he wrote 13 more books, then delegated the sequel writing to Ruth Plumly Thompson, who wrote 21 more.

  2. Kessie says:

    And Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have. 🙂
     
    That’s too bad about his beliefs. But lots of people have beliefs I disagree with, but I still enjoy them and their works. Love the sinner and hate the sin, you know?
     
    Somebody said somewhere that Wizard of Oz was a story about economics. But unfortunately I don’t understand enough about economics to even explain the metaphors. (The yellow brick road was the gold standard, that’s all I remember.)

  3. Fred Warren says:

    Somebody said somewhere that Wizard of Oz was a story about economics.

    The Wikipedia entry on the story discusses that idea at some length. It was proposed in 1964 by a high school teacher who tried to make an allegorical connection between some elements of the story and historical events of the day, particularly a political fight over a gold vs. gold/silver monetary standard. The theory never gained traction, and Baum never indicated that was his intent.

What do you think?