Wizard Of Oz Sparknotes
1. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a modern children’s novel, written in 1900. It educates young readers for the political (but not only) events in America in the 1890s. It metaphorically reflects on the collapse of the Populist movement. However, the novel teaches teenagers progressive and regressive political lessons. A good example of the progressive lesson could be a strike the eye visual images of Emerald city, silver slippers, and Yellow brick road. Baum had a special interest in monetary reform. He didn’t believe in paper money. He paints his Emerald city into the green dollar’s color, implicitly showing how illusory the new money is. To the Emerald city you can get only through Yellow Brick Road, where yellow color symbolized
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the gold standard. And that path is dangerous and doesn’t worth the destination. However, Dorothy’s silver colored slippers symbolized new silver coins, which, according to Baum, supposed to become at a fixed ratio with gold, in order to defeat the bank’s monopoly. Changing a money standard to silver coins could easily solve economical problems of the country. Baum was a politically active person, and he knew that banks could manipulate politicians. He used symbolic colors in order to transfer his ideas into the young people’s minds. The second example would be the Wizard.
He was a Baum’s political allegory on the collective image of the American presidents, as men “behind the scene”. The Wizard is a basic liar, but he is powerful only because people think so.
However, the story teaches regressive lessons as well. There are numerous examples of racism in the book. The Yellow Winkies represents Chinese people, who were brought to California for building railroads. Their labor was cheap, and nobody cared about their lives. The Winkers are yellow slaves; they are the only “people”, who never called “comrade” in the book. It is a kind of racial discrimination, which might teach the white supremacy among other nations.
One more example of racism in the book could be Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. Baum describes her in the U.S. national colors. “Her hair was a rich red in color…Her dress was pure white; but her eyes were blue…”(348). Color symbolism playing a dominant role in that chapter again. Red, white and blue are the colors of the U.S. flag. The flag represents the whole nation. And this nation is white Glinda, who ruled in the Quadlings country. As readers can see in the beginning of the chapter XXII, this country does not favor strangers. “This hill belongs to us, and we don’t allow anyone to cross it”(338). It might lead to the idea that white American nation does not welcome
immigrants.
the gold standard. And that path is dangerous and doesn’t worth the destination. However, Dorothy’s silver colored slippers symbolized new silver coins, which, according to Baum, supposed to become at a fixed ratio with gold, in order to defeat the bank’s monopoly. Changing a money standard to silver coins could easily solve economical problems of the country. Baum was a politically active person, and he knew that banks could manipulate politicians. He used symbolic colors in order to transfer his ideas into the young people’s minds. The second example would be the Wizard.
He was a Baum’s political allegory on the collective image of the American presidents, as men “behind the scene”. The Wizard is a basic liar, but he is powerful only because people think so.
However, the story teaches regressive lessons as well. There are numerous examples of racism in the book. The Yellow Winkies represents Chinese people, who were brought to California for building railroads. Their labor was cheap, and nobody cared about their lives. The Winkers are yellow slaves; they are the only “people”, who never called “comrade” in the book. It is a kind of racial discrimination, which might teach the white supremacy among other nations.
One more example of racism in the book could be Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. Baum describes her in the U.S. national colors. “Her hair was a rich red in color…Her dress was pure white; but her eyes were blue…”(348). Color symbolism playing a dominant role in that chapter again. Red, white and blue are the colors of the U.S. flag. The flag represents the whole nation. And this nation is white Glinda, who ruled in the Quadlings country. As readers can see in the beginning of the chapter XXII, this country does not favor strangers. “This hill belongs to us, and we don’t allow anyone to cross it”(338). It might lead to the idea that white American nation does not welcome
immigrants.