Lyman Frank Baum, more commonly known as Frank Baum, was an American author generally known for his astonishing novel, “The Wonderful Wizard of OZ”. However, Baum wrote many other intriguing pieces, including playwrights, journals, and children’s books. Baum was born and raised in Chittenango, New York and had a particularly comfortable upbringing due to his father owning a barrel factory. Frank Baum never earned a high school diploma; he instead spent a majority of his early adulthood pursuing his interests in writing and acting. It was not until 1899 that Baum made his first major appearance with “Father Goose-His Book”. The following year, Baum found himself in the limelight with a captivating novel titled “The Wonderful Wizard of OZ”. Baum’s …show more content…
You would have to decipher each line of content to truly understand what the author was trying to get across to his audience. Both stories include a vast amount of symbolism that may or may not be clearly portrayed to most everyone. Both “A Modest Proposal” and “The Wonderful Wizard of OZ” focus on some sort of social class. “A Modest Proposal” mainly emphasizes the lower class as the story discusses children and parents lacking jobs and being unable to support themselves, while “The Wonderful Wizard of OZ” focuses on the middle to upper class, as OZ is portrayed as a wealthy individual. The social classes discussed in both stories may be different, however, if the readers were to scrutinize both stories, they would be further cultivated about two diverse social …show more content…
The scarecrow claims he has no brain, yet when Dorothy is captured, he is the one who creates the plan to help her escape. The lion says he has no courage, yet he is remarkably brave when he must fight off the witches’ guards to save Dorothy. Dorothy was so eager to return home to Kansas she went through desperate measures to satisfy the wizard enough for him to help her, when she had the power to go home by herself the entire time. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” has brought joy to people all over the world for many generations. As we grow older, the story enhances its meaning from a story about a girl wanting to return home, to a political, informal, brilliant novel. Many people would not hesitate to call Frank Baum a genius for creating this story, and I would not disagree. The amount of hidden meanings this story conveys is breathtaking, and it can open your eyes to many situations and make you look at them in an entirely different way. I believe people study these details because “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” fills such a large space in our imagination, and as we grow older and are able to comprehend more, we wonder if this movie is a part of our imagination, or if this story is based on true and relatable events from a century ago, that could essentially happen at this point in
Frank Baum had a specific purpose, some were used to set up the tone and setting for different parts of the novel such as the colors used to describe Kansas and Oz. Colors were also used to represent the different people in Oz, not everyone in Oz were alike and were different from the way they acted, lived or the characteristic which defined them. This use of color also helped to set up an underlying theme of corruption and greed represented by the journey and the group of travelers headed up by Dorothy, who when she reaches Oz is driven by self interest as opposed to later when she wants to make sure that everyone benefits from the death of the wicked witch. Finally colors where used as representation of ideas from representing joy, death, and danger, whenever a color was used to describe something it represented that character or setting tying together the underlying themes of greed, corruption and social
One of the great movies of all times “THE WIZZARD OF OZ” Dorothy is on a mission to find the Great Oz, who has powers that will help Dorothy and her friends in their time of need. Dorothy’s friends were a cast of strange characters who lacked a key thing necessary to their own lives. Scarecrow desired a Brain, Tin Man needed a heart and the Lion had no courage. They all went through scary dilemmas to find the wizard, only to realize he was a fraud.
Frank Baums, The Wizard of Oz is arguably one of the most popular films made. Even though it was released in 1939, nearly three-quarters of a century ago, the film continues to entertain audiences and speak to them in a personal way. The question that comes to the mind when analyzing this film is: What is it about this film that gives it such timelessness? When reflecting on the film’s timeless qualities, it seems clear the plot is one of the things that enable it to maintain its relevance. Primarily, the plot of The Wizard of Oz is timeless because it is such an excellent example of the heroic journey, both in literally and cinematically. This journey of self-awareness is a metaphor for growth, which is something we all search to discover at some time in our lives.
Frank L. Baum begins The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in Kansas, a land devoid of color and life, to show Dorothy’s dismal world. Her Aunt Em, who had once been a beautiful woman, has become as colorless as the gray and dried vegetation on her farm. When Dorothy is caught in a cyclone, she is transported to a colorful and lively world, but she desperately tries to return to the colorless farm. Inherently Dorothy knows that home is where one’s loved ones live not some beautiful illusion. However, on her journey home Dorothy becomes enticed by the illusion of the prosperous Emerald City and the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy, along with the friends who join her, willingly follow the Great and Terrible Wizard rather than looking within themselves to find their
“Were off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz” One of the infamous phrases from one of the most well know classics of all time. The original movie titled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was made in 1939 by Frank Baum. This film featured stars such as Judy Garland, Jack Hayley and many others. This was not only a movie, it was a fantasy, and a musical storytelling adventure with unusual characters that shook the audience. This was one of the first films to make it to the big screen with color. Because of its success, this film has been remade many times with multiple different spins making it rhetorical. Over the years this film has become one of the best films of all time and is still watched today among all ages
...s. The Scarecrow represents farmers, agricultural workers, ignorant of many city things but honest and able to understand things with a little education. The Tin Man, He represents the industrial worker whose heart has been torn out by the evils of factory work and industrialism. W.J. Bryan embodied the role of the cowardly lion. Bryan was a very loud and booming public speaker but was viewed as a coward because he did not support the Spanish-American war. OZ is the US. The emerald city is Washington D.C. filled with greenbacks and the wizard is the president. Dorothy and her “party” follow the yellow brick way, or gold standard, to find the wizard and fix her problem. When all along they way to fix her problem of how to get back home was to tap her ruby red shoes which were silver thus in the original book thus representing the Populists push for a silver standard.
In conclusion, the protagonist of The Wizard of Oz Dorothy Gale, is initially unsatisfied with her life on her Aunt and Uncle’s farm and dreams of a foreign land over the rainbow, where there are no worries or disasters. Although as the story progresses, Victor Fleming incorporates a wide range of
“Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.” In case you haven’t seen the film already, the plot to The Wizard of Oz (Oz) is profoundly complex and requires critical inquiry to unravel its intricacies. Dorothy, a forlorn Kansas farmgirl, daydreams of a fanciful fantasia where her dog, Toto, doesn’t have to suffer the nuisance of a nasty spinster witch of a neighbor. So, she plans to run away – far, far away. I know, a little weighty, but stick with me.
After the witch’s threats, the Scarecrow and Tin Man vow to stay with Dorothy. This is when Dorothy feels a familiarity with the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. They are not afraid of the wicket witch. They continue to walk, with the sound of the forest in the back ground, but Dorothy is afraid of meeting wild animals in the forest. Suddenly a lion appears, noisy and acting ferocious; he wants to fight them all. Initially, they are afraid, but Dorothy hits the lion and chastises him; the lion begins to cry and thinks his nose is bleeding. Dorothy calls him a big coward, he agrees and says he even scare himself. They suggest the Wizard of Oz could give the lion courage. He calls himself a dandelion. They head to the wizard to get a heart, a home, a brain, and coverage. The wicked witch of the west is behind the scene making a poison and puts it in the beautiful land scape of miles and mile of flowers. This is an area Dorothy must cross to get to the emerald city. Dorothy and company can now see The Emerald City in the distance. They began to walk across the colorful flowers towards the Emerald City and they can again see the yellow brick road. Dorothy suddenly becomes dizzy and sleepy, her and mentors and allies offers to pull her alone, but Dorothy and Toto and the lion falls asleep. The Tin Man and Scarecrow wants to carry Dorothy when realizing that
Glinda of Oz is the fourteenth land of oz book written by children's author l. Frank baum published on July 10, 1920. It is the last book of the original Oz series, which was later continued by other authors. Like most of the Oz books, the plot features a journey through some of the remoter regions of Oz; though in this case the pattern is doubled: Dorothy and Ozma travel to stop a war between the Flatheads and Skeezers; then Glinda and a cohort of Dorothy's friends set out to rescue them. The book was dedicated to Baum's second son, Robert Stanton Baum.Princess Ozma and Dorothy travel to an obscure corner of the Land of Oz, in order to prevent a war between two local powers, the Skeezers and
Baum took a different approach on gender than many did in this time period. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz reverses the accepted gender roles of its time, women taking control, even helping men in times of need. Throughout the novel are a number of examples of a woman helping a man through a problem, and a woman getting through her problems on her own. This novel was one of the first signs of feminism, putting the woman into power. As Baum said, “Never give up. No one knows what’s going to happen next” (www.goodreads.com).
The Wizard of Oz is my favorite movie because of the interesting adventure that Dorothy goes on and all of the challenges that she faced. One interesting fact that I learned while trying write this essay I learned that they had to put Jell-O on the horses in the Emerald City scene, but it is really choppy because the horses tried to lick the Jell-O off of their hair. “A place where there isn 't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It 's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It 's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain...” (Garland) You don’t really think about it when you are watching the movie, but this movie goes right along with Aristotle’s Poetics in film. Aristotle talks about unities of time and place, how the protagonist starts high end ends low, and it gives you pity and fear towards one of the
The Wizard of Oz is a classic a universally loved film. It’s full of adventure, symbolism, and has a feel good story. It’s interesting though to see some parallels the Wizard of Oz had with other well-known classic fairytales. One example, is the famous story of Alice in Wonderland. A classic in its own right, and a staple in nearly everyone’s film repertoire. The similarities between these two stories are numerous. Starting with the main heroines themselves. Both Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, have a young girl as their main character. Even the character’s appearances and lines are similar. Both sporting a blue dress, and describing their fantasies as curious. When Dorothy arrives in Oz she says, “What a curious place”.
In a period of despair and depression one gleam of light shone through the midst of darkness, Frank Baum’s classic work of fiction, The Wizard of Oz. In 1900, The Wizard of Oz was published. The late nineteenth century was hard on the average American worker, especially farmers. Droughts, tariffs and deflation forced farmers in an economic depression. They relied on railroads to transport their goods to the north, so the railroad companies took advantage of this and raised the prices. Not only that, but the government put high taxes and tariffs on their products. Farmers lost money. Frank Baum struggled too; The Wizard of Oz was his way of escaping the dark times. He wanted to produce happier fairy tale and make a new genre for children and young adults; writing The Wizard of Oz was his way of doing so. Baum wrote the novel during a time called the Populist Movement and many believe this influenced the plot. In a short time The Wizard of Oz flew off the shelves and spread quickly throughout America. The Library of Congress, the official library of the United States, recognized his achievement and that is why for years the novel has been selected for “The Books That Shaped America”, a list of books selected across the country by the Library of Congress. Frank Baum captured the hearts of the young and the old with The Wizard of Oz, yet what was supposed to be the new “sweet fairytale” turned into a controversial political scandal, making it an immensely popular, inspiring writers and young literature enthusiasts to produce similar works.
The Wizard of Oz is a fiction story written by L. Frank Baum. The story has two main settings. The first setting is, Dorothy’s home, the Kansas prairies. The prairies are described as dry and gray. The second setting is the land of Oz. Oz is opposed from Kansas, it is colorful, bright, and full of joy. The Wizard of Oz has a grate theme or message behind the story. The message is that we all have good qualities in us, but it is up to us to use them.