Wizard of Oz

Wizard of Oz Interpretation
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a story about a girl named Dorothy who experiences a cyclone that takes her to a magical land of good and bad. When she is in this land she encounters a Scarecrow, Tin Man, and a Lion. These 3 characters are with her throughout the story and they go through different tough situations together. In the end they make their way to the Oz who grants their wishes and Dorothy goes back home. People say that this story is based off of populism, money reforms, and a political movement led by William Jennings Bryan. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is not intentionally written to be linked to the way the economy was because it is a children’s book, it is a made up story, and Baum, the author of the book, never stated that it was.
In the article “The Story Behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” it explains how L. Frank Baum and William Jennings Bryan’s concern was the nature of the money supply then prevalent in the United States, and in the Mid-Western States in particular. Baum was featured in a movie called The Dreamer of Oz that showed how each character was thought of and how he had put the story together. For example, Dorothy was the name of a sweet little niece that he had which is how Dorothy from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz came about. Each character from the book was represented as someone that he had come across in his life at some point in time.
In The Dreamer of Oz it shows how Baum enjoyed telling stories to his children and to the other kids that could come along. His wife would always bring it up to him that he needs to put it into the form of a book. Baum being the stubborn guy he was never really considered it. Sooner or later he finally realized that it all made sense and it all pieced together to become a story with no title. Baum sat down with his wife and mother in law and asked them for their opinion on what he should name the story. This is how the title of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz came about. Therefore Baum had written the book from experiences and people from his past not because of the way the economy was ran in the 1900s.
Last but not least Baum never stated that his story was written to represent populism. In the article “The Story Behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” it explains how each character in the children’s book is represented by a problem that was occurring. For example, the Scarecrow is represented as the farmers and the Tin Man is represented as industrial workers. In the article it states that “Baum and Bryan wanted money to be based on silver, not gold, as silver was readily available in the Mid-West, where it was mined. Such a money supply could not be manipulated by the banks.” Then from there it goes into explaining each part of the story and they link together. Just because Baum and Bryan had these views on the economy does not necessarily mean that he wrote this story secretly about it.
In conclusion, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is not intentionally written to be linked to the way the economy was because it was written as a children’s book, it is a generally made up story that Baum had based off of his lifestyle, and he never stated that it was intentionally written about the ways of being in the 1900s.