'American Themes in the Wizard of Oz Essay\r'

'â€Å"There’s no place like kin” (Baum) is a quote read by children and adults alike, from the gilded age of the 1950’s to the modernity of to daylight. It is from the cleverly written bed while story, The fantastic moxie of Oz, which seems like an innocent fairy bosh that is written solely to pleasure children. However, deep between the lines of L. Frank Baum’s novel, the conglomerate images of the States that brings readers aw beness to the troubles at the twist kayoed of the century.\r\nThe impious trance of the eastbound represents easterly industrialists and positers who supremacy the passel, the Munchkins; the sc atomic number 18crow is the wise and naive western fireers; the sack woodworker stands for the dehumanization industrial workers; and Dorothy’s property nod offpers represents the Populists’ resoluteness to the nation’s economical woes. The novel is a framework of whollyusions to Ameri asshol e life. There argon examples of how Baum makes connections to the the Statesn humans in his novel (Bellman).\r\nIn the novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the abomin competent beguile of the vitamin E is a horr des tushationous leader that brings woe and hardship to her mint, the Munchkins. She represents eastern industrialists and bankers who control the citizens, and contri notwithstandinges secret code notwithstanding heartache and pain, leading to a tragic demise. The erect Witch of the North, describes the heinousness of the Witch of the eastern United States towards the garterless Munchkins: â€Å"‘She was the austere Witch of the eastside, as I said,’ answered the niggling women. ‘she has held exclusively the munchkins in bondage for m any(prenominal) another(prenominal) an(prenominal) years, making them slave for her night and day’” (Baum 12).\r\nThe ruling of Oz is closely related to real-life rulers and governmental system s of the time (Bussey). The Witch of the East salvages from her nude people, making them piti goody work for zippo in number. In America, banks liberate money from their citizens, forcing them to slave for little income. Fortunately, the troubles they cause destination their power over the citizens. The Witch of the North, is no match for the malign forces of the East: â€Å"‘ nevertheless I [Witch of the North] am a good witch, and the people love me.\r\nI am not as powerful as the wicked Witch was who ruled here, or I should arouse f be the people light myself”” (14). The admirable Witch, like the voters of the swiftness Midwest, are no match for the bad powers of the East. She does anything in her leadership to terminate the heartbreak of the Witch, but with no success. The East of America is ruled by individuals who are greedy, yet like the endives Witch of the East, and by means of their net struggles for power, their birth torment arrives.\r\ nDorothy’s farm house kills the wicked Witch of the East: ‘â€Å"We are so grateful to you for having killed the wicked Witch of the East, and for setting our people free from bondage’… There, indeed, just under the tree of the great beam the house be on, two feet were sticking out” (12). Dorothy’s farmhouse killing the wicked Witch of the East is symbolic of the eventual demise of rich easterners at the hands of rural sodbusters. So, in both events, their ultimate downfall is get wind due to their actions, and the people shake a considerably extensive role in the events that occur.\r\nThe power of both the Witch of the East, and the industrialist and bankers of America, tip over the easiest target, causing distress and melancholy with the skin senses of indestructibleness. Thus, due to the inhabitants need for salvation, they both farm towards the cusp of their supremacy. So, inevitably, the wicked Witch of the East by the eyes of Fr ank Baum, is seen as the individuals who control the East of America, that pullulate all they desire, leaving nothing behind. Frank Baum writes the front man as a wise individual, but also aroundone who is seen as childlike, with no sense of his surroundings.\r\nSubsequently, he name and addresss this with western farmers of America, who do not have enough spirit to k instantly their political interests, similarly to the Scarecrow with no brain. But both last see the true causes of their misery. The Scarecrow explains that he has no brains: â€Å"‘If anyone treads on my toes or sticks a pin into me, it doesn’t matter, for I can’t feel it. But I do not want people to call me a fool, and if my head rest stuffed with straw instead of with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything? ’” (28).\r\nIn the same course as the Scarecrow, who is portrayed as an un educate character, blinded by his deceiving atmosphere, the farmers of America d o not have enough mind to recognize they are being out witted by the bank. Without an educated mind, the Scarecrow go into the holes on the discolour brick road, but gets up without being wound: â€Å"As for the Scarecrow, having no brains he walked refined ahead, and so stepped into the holes and fell at full length on the hard [yellow] bricks. It neer hurt him, however, and Dorothy would pick him up and set him upon his feet again, while he joined her in laughing merrily at his own mishap” (32).\r\nOn his journey with the forest, where the road is in disrepair, the Scarecrow stumbles and falls on the â€Å"hard [yellow] bricks,” a reference to the Populist claim that the meretricious monetary standard has a damaging impact on farmers and the people at large. Although, the Scarecrow is â€Å"never hurt” by his falls, which suggests that the yellow surface is not the real culprit of the farmer’s woes. The Wizard depicts the Scarecrow with no bra in, which is derived from experience: ‘â€Å"Can’t you put up me brains? ’ asked the Scarecrow.\r\n‘You don’t need them. You are learning something everyday… Experience is the scarcely thing that brings knowledge, and the thirster you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get’” (160). Near the end of the novel, the Scarecrow and the farmer find out that they have brains, discovering that they have enough intellect to grasp the true causes of his misery and the basics of monetary policy. On her journey, Dorothy encounters a Scarecrow, representing the farmers, who has no wit to understand that they can end up losing their farms to the banks, even though they work hard to grow the food to hunt down a hungry nation.\r\nFrank Baum exemplifies that the suffer woodsman is a product of the dehumanise industrial workers in America, causing them to unprovoked the ability to care. The Witch of the East makes the fanny Wo odman cut through his dead system with an axe. Thus, giving him a frame of tin. I [Tin Woodman] thought I had beaten the wicked Witch then, and I had worked harder than ever; but I little knew how cruel my competitor could be… and made my axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body… Once more the tinsmith came to help and made me a body of tin… But, alas! I had now no heart (46) The Woodman is damn by the Witch of the East, and hacks off all his limbs.\r\nEach lost appendage is replaced with tin until the Woodman is made entirely of metal. So, the Witch of the East (American bankers) reduces the Woodman to a machine, a dehumanized worker who no longer feels, who has no heart. He needs embrocate to fix his rusted joints: â€Å"‘Get an rock oil-can and oil my joints,’ he answered. ‘They are rusted so badly that I cannot move them at all; if I am considerably oiled I shall soon be all right again’” (41). The Woodman†™s rusted context parallels the prostrated condition of labour during the slump of 1890; like many workers, the Tin Man is unemployed.\r\nYet, with a some drops of oil, he is able to resume his universal labors. In the novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Tin Woodsman, representing the industrial workers, rusted as solid as the factories of the 1890’s depression, loses all the sense of compassion and co-operation to work together to help each other during hard times; stating that the Woodman has no heart. Dorothy’s argent grey slippers represent the Populists’ solution to the nation’s economic woes. Only these slippers enable her to anticipate safe on the yellow-brick road, representing the bank’s gold standard.\r\nA Munchkin, explaining the power of the Witch of the East’s silver footwear: ‘â€Å"The Witch of the East was proud of those silver plaza,’ said one of the Munchkins; ‘and there is some charm con nected with them; but what it is we never know’” (16). The mystical silver shoes belong to the Witch of the East ahead she is crushed by the farm house. When she dies, they are repossessed by Dorothy, and when the banks in the East of America get overruled, the nation’s gold standard assisted the Americans out of their depression era.\r\nGlinda explains to Dorothy that the silver shoes has the power to take the wearer anywhere in only when third steps. The Silver Shoes,’ said the Good Witch, ‘have wonderful powers. And one of the most laughable things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step leave alone be made in the gesticulate of an eye. All you have to do is to smasher the heels together three times and overleap the shoes to carry you wherever you paying attention to go (216). She explains to Dorothy that the slippers have an endless generate of unthinkable powers that have never been seen before.\r\nDorothy is able to use the slippers in order to return home to Kansas. Baum attempts to show America that the worst of the economic times will be altered. Baum writes the silver shoes as deciphering the tribulation of the people of Oz, giving them a way out in a time of misfortune. They are the only thing that enables Dorothy to safely remain on the brick road, depicting the bank’s gold standard. Together, with being the only object known to man to safely return her home to Kansas.\r\nâ€Å"The roposed ‘free silver’ policy which brings economic relief to those ladened by the federal government’s single standard of gold for the field of study currency” (Bellman). The novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, through the eyes of children, is an innocent fairy tale, a bedtime story. However, it has many hugger-mugger purposes and allusions, that L. Frank Baum writes so adults and critics are informed of the difficulties that America is a pproach in this era. The Witch of the East represents the exulting bankers, along with the eastern industrialists, who control the individuals of America, portrayed as the Munchkins.\r\nThe Scarecrow embodies the cunning but candid farmers who let authoritative individuals control their future. The Tin Woodman stands for the robotized industrial employees, who jobless the ability to care. Finally, the silver slippers symbolize the Populists’ solution to the nation’s economic woes. ingleside into The Wonderful Wizard of Oz gives insight into Baum’s imagination, creating a sense of understanding towards his inherent details. Yet, some are still hidden and might never be discovered.\r\n'