KidLit Forum

Last time (16th March) we discussed about “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum. The story is about a girl named Dorothy who lives in Kansas with her uncle, Henry and Aunt Em. A cyclone moved her house into another world, a marvelous one. On her way to the Wizard of Oz she meets Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and the Coward Lion. They face many adventures together. We also talked about Thesus’ ship regarding Tin Woodman. Shortly, the story is about ship that has been through many wars and each time one piece of the ship was replaced with a new one until he ship was no longer the same but a new one. The question is whether the ship is still the same or a brand new one?

We had a beautiful discussion in class and everybody was eager to share their opinion. Unfortunately the time still is our enemy so the many things we want to discuss will continue here on the forum. Everybody is welcome to share their opinions and thoughts! You don't have to respond according to the numbering of the questions. They are just to help you focus on certain things and to stream our debates.

I will write bellow the main topics of discussion as well as the questions that rose to be debated.
1. Comment on whether this story is low or high fantasy.
2. Is the story fantastic, uncanny or marvelous?
3. Why does Dorothy have to come back? Could we talk about a generation fight? Parent-child thing?
4. Characterize Dorothy.
5. What could the three friends represent? Characterize them.
6. Is it indeed a very typical American story? Why?
7. What are the ingredients that make this story fantastic?
8. What about the silver shoes?
9. Why is Dorothy left alone after Oz is gone with the balloon?
10. What are the differences between the movie and the book? (if you have also seen the movie)
11. What are the faces of Oz? What can they represent?
12. What remedy does Oz give to the three friends of Dorothy?
13. How they react when discovering that Oz is just a humbug?
14. What about the settings?
15. What others stories are similar to this one? Could one of them be the fairy tale we learnt last semester, the Magic Fishbone? Why?

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
This story is low fantasy because there is a portal between the real world and the supernatural one. I perceive this story as being fantastic due to its supernatural elements. We have witches, magical objects like the silver shoes, special friends (a talking lion, a talking scarecrow and a talking Tin Woodman). We may think that Dorothy wants to come back home because she is a typical child. Children always come back to their families despite the adventures they have.
Dorothy is the protagonist of the story. She is a good a carrying girl and one example for this is the fact that when she landed on a wicked witch’s house and killed her, she was sad even if she received gratitude from everyone. Apparently she did a good thing because she liberated the Munchkins but she wasn’t happy because she didn’t want the misfortune of anybody. She is very determined because she has only one goal, to go back home, and she sticks to it. She fights for her dream. We might see her as a brave, selfless and smart child. She speaks her mind. When she is mad, she expresses her anger openly, like in the moment she finds out that Oz is just a humbug.
The three friends of Dorothy (the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion) are not human but the author gives them human qualities. Their most human quality is that they desire something and they fight for their dreams, just like Dorothy. They desire for brains, heart and courage. What they don’t know is that they already have these but they do not know how to use them.
I perceive this a very typical American story because it’s about dreams and desires. American people are all about the American dream. This is a central element for their culture.
The ingredients that make this story fantastic are: the characters (witches, wizard, and Dorothy’s friends), magical objects, spells etc.
The silver shoes, which fall into the category of magical objects, are the answer to Dorothy’s desire of coming home but she doesn’t find out about this until the end. At the beginning she receives them, but finds out at the end that she can use the shoes to return home. This has a more deep meaning because if she were to find out at the beginning about the power of the shoes, she wouldn’t experience all those adventures that at the end help her become a more trustful and mature person. This story may be perceived as a coming of age story, not just for Dorothy, but for all her friends.
I think that Dorothy is left alone and Oz flies with the balloon intended to bring them home because she had other things to do. She meets with another witch named Glinda who explains her that she had the power to return home from the beginning. Now, all her friends found their places and Dorothy is free to go home.
Oz has a different face for each character. For Dorothy, he is a giant head, for the Scarecrow, Oz appeared as a lovely lady, for Tim Woodman, a terrible beast and for the Cowardly Lion a ball of fire. I think Oz appeared in different shapes for each character because they had different needs and he wanted to make use of them in his advantage.
Oz knew that Dorothy’s friends didn’t need those things because they had them, instead he tried to make them think that he would grant these. For Scarecrow, he opened her head and placed inside bran mixed with pins and needles to think that this was his brain. Tin Woodman received a silk heart full of sawdust and the Lion drank the contents of a little vial poured into a gold dish, which represented his courage.
When they discover that Oz isn’t a powerful wizard, they are disappointed. Dorothy tells him that he is a bad person but they agree to keep him the secret because he explains to them that he isn’t a bad person, just a bad wizard.
The story’s setting is mostly the magical Land of Oz, but at the beginning, the story is placed in Kansas. From there, Dorothy felt into a trap door due to a cyclone and arrived to the Land of Oz. This may be perceived as a portal between the real world and the magical one.
We can associate this story with the Magic Fishbone from the last semester because just like Alicia, Dorothy had a magical object which could be the answer to her problems. In both texts, the object isn’t used until the end, but the difference is that Alicia knew of its power and Dorothy didn’t.


by Ursa Ruxandra-Victorita[/size]

I was thinking about The Magic Fishbone and Dorothy's shoes. I believe she didn't want to use her shoes only when it was truly needed, just like the magic fishbone. The fishbone was saved for later, used for a situation that was impossible for the girl to solve so that's when she used it. In the same way Dorothy used her magic shoes only at the end when she saw there was no way getting home just by using magic.
I also want to talk a bit about the side-kick characters: the lion, the scarecrow, the tin man. Everyone lacks a virtue and in the end they observe that it was just in their "head". Because they believe in Oz so much, and believe that he is so powerful, they give him a power (ironically), the power of Oz making them believe in themselves, his gifts were actually just superficial things, not magic. I also believe that these characters, just like us, so often want to have these virtues, always feeling that we are lacking them but in the end, just like Dorothy's companions, we find out that we had them inside us all this time.
When talking about why Dorothy wants to return home, my opinion is that she wants to go back home, to her safe place, where a child always wants to be back after a day of playing outside. Children don't want to run away from home and never come back, maybe it's the case with adults but not children. They want to go out, go play, go in different adventures, but in the end, always return home to their parents, return to safety, stability, to love and care.
In a world where lions, scarecrows and tin men talk, cry and are self conscious, where shoes are magic and witches exist... we can say that this story is fantastic.