The Wizard of Oz - book review

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

With my wife trying out for a part in this play soon, I got interested, and read the book and watched the movie at the same time. The book was published in 1900 and the movie in 1939.

A positive take: the movie was a hit during the depression, encouraging people to face the reality of a hard life. You can escape to fantasyland, Oz, for a while, but there’s no place like home – black and white Kansas - and you should want to be there, even if it’s hard. The movie’s premiere of technicolor was a dramatic demonstration of this. Going from black and white Kansas to technicolor Oz was a striking cinematic first. But Dorothy longed for black-and-white Kansas in the end.

A more cynical, and I think realistic take: this is an insidious story. The plot is an inversion of Pilgrim’s Progress. Instead of Christian’s hopeful journey to the Celestial City, where all hopes are fulfilled, Dorothy finds her hopes in the Wizard at the Emerald City dashed. Her faith winds up in her companions, not in the God who inhabits the city she journeys toward. He is an illusion, a sheister, a conman. The scarecrow wanted brains from the Wizard, but always had them. The Tinman wanted a heart, but had one all along. The lion sought courage from the wizard, but had it himself all along. We don’t need God to give us these things – we can find it within ourselves.

In the movie, the same good witch who sends Dorothy on her journey knew from the beginning how she could get home. But without the journey she wouldn’t have helped her companions discover their own inner strengths. The trek to the Emerald City wasn’t for any value in the destination, but to discover what they could learn about how they themselves were strong. This is the exact opposite of the Christian message of Pilgrim’s Progress, where we learn our weakness, and God’s power to give us strength for the journey beyond ourselves. The modern cliché that the journey is the thing, not the destination, comes from this, and it is WRONG. The destination in God’s Celestial City is the main thing, though He certainly teaches us much along the journey.

In the book, the good witch at the end serves as a sort of just and merciful God, sending Dorothy home, and sending each of her companions to their lands to rule. There is a subtle hint of dominion: as the lion, scarecrow, and tinman will rule their lands, Dorothy is sent home to her beloved Kansas, to take dominion there by loving and being content in it.

But the message in the end is a strong rebuke of escapism. Don’t long for a fantasy land like Oz – hoping in a Wizard to give you what you want is pointless. You need to look within to meet your hopes, not somewhere over the rainbow. This became the gold standard of 20th century pop psychology, and is a perversion of the Christian message.

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