Running Head: The Meaning Behind The Wizard of Oz
The Meaning Behind the Writing of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
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Running Head: The Meaning Behind The Wizard of Oz
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An examination of characters, settings and plot in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank
Baum was presented in the article “Money and Politics in the Land of Oz” by Quentin Taylor.
Mr. Taylor claims that, like many classic literary pieces, things are not what they seem. He
asserts that events and personalities as well as political ideas of the late 1800’s are intentionally
represented by the characters and the plot of the story.
In all honesty, as I read the essay, I was intentionally looking for the primary argument.
Several times I thought I had found it, but it wasn’t until the last paragraph that I realized I had
known the argument all along. First, Mr.Taylor presents and defends the conclusion that The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written intentionally as an allegory. Second, he presents and
defends the conclusion that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written as a piece of entertainment
(as the author had insisted all along).
While some of the supporting evidence appears to be oppositional, it is not detrimental to
the author’s (Quentin Taylor) purpose. Sound statements regarding the political climate of the
turn of the century clearly back up the possibility that Frank Baum intentionally wrote The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz primarily as an entertaining piece of literature using the mechanics of
allegorical story telling. It doesn’t appear to be of much importance as to whether he intended to
conceal a message in the text or not. Did Frank Baum protest too much when he stated that his
children’s book was written solely for children? Did he have an elaborate plot to create an
elaborate joke on the public or was he a secret political fanatic? Again, there is not much
evidence to show that even if he did, it made much difference.
For example, as Mr. Taylor inserted correlating evidence to illustrate the political
references, he stumbled upon the use of William Jennings Bryan in more than one way (as the
Lion and the Wizard). Mr. Taylor explains this as representing two sides to the politicians
personality.
Various elements of the political atmosphere are repeated over and over. The idea of
silver and gold and their significance at the time, the devastation of the Midwest by harmful
weather conditions, the attitude of the politicians toward the “little man” and the American
Indian are among some of the repeated themes in the story which Mr. Taylor discovers.
Mr. Taylor’s knowledge of the political climate of the United States in the late 1800’s is
extensive, easy to follow and reasonably analytical. Although the points he made were often
quite small and seemingly insignificant toward his greater purpose, they were interesting and
contributed to the overall historian’s perspective toward the piece.
While possibly a weakness in literary presentation, it was occasionally unclear as to
whether Mr. Taylor was presenting his own opinion, or whether he was joining with other
authors and agreeing with their opinions or if he was critiquing the opinions of others.
Running Head: The Meaning Behind The Wizard of Oz
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Mr. Taylor seemed to introduce a goodly amount of information that while true, was not
directly involved in the argument he was presenting. For example, he briefly mentions that
Hollywood changed the shoes from silver to ruby but gives no reason or support of these facts,
leaving the reader a little puzzled over the mention of the fact.
He seems anxious to jump on the comparison to Populist Party bandwagon and to have
his reader do so as well. Knowing the conclusion, I thought that this was a bit of a red herring for
the reader. Another relatively unimportant bit of research was whether or not Baum was a
Populist, Democrat or neither. It seemed that Mr. Taylor was going to use this with his
conclusions about the underlying symbolism of the book, but he didn’t. His conclusion, from out
of the blue, was that no one could tell and Baum took the secret (if there was one) to his grave
with him.
Unfortunately in his quest to present all previous opinions as to allegory or not, Mr.
Taylor has created a mish mash of statements with no conclusion, leaving the reader scratching
his head as to the purpose for the presented research.
Skipping from previous author’s opinions to a new approach, Mr. Taylor finally gets to
the point. If the story can be fit into the definition of an allegory so perfectly, shouldn’t the
likelihood that it was written as an allegory be concluded?
To defend his premise of political allegory he calls upon previous arguments from noted
authors and adds in his own supporting evidence or comments. To defend his conclusion that the
story is strictly a piece written for entertainment he uses a type of cancelling out methodology …
it is not a pro Populist piece nor is it an anti Populist piece, therefore it is not a teaching piece
and must be simply an entertaining piece.
Therefore, the primary argument was that because The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was not a
pro-Populist piece nor an anti-Populist piece there was no teaching (definition of a parable) and
thus the piece was strictly entertaining.
References
Taylor, Quentin, “Money and Politics in the Land of Oz”, The Independent Review, v. IX, n 3,
Winter 2005, pp. 413-426.