The Wizard of Oz and the Sailor of Rroma
The Wizard of Oz and the Sailor of Rroma
The Wizard of Oz is full of symbols, like many of the Great Books. Perhaps that’s one reason why it is included in lists of the best novels and not only on books for children lists:
Since I started trying to concentrate on these lists, with the idea that up to the end of my life I’ll read only the great and the good, with no unpleasant surprises, I came up against some excellent surprises (and a few bad ones). A few have been children’s books, with a message: Charlotte’s Web, Are You there God, it’s me Margaret and The Wizard of Oz.
I was familiar with the story, indeed, in many cases it’s a question of reading again, after 30-35 years a book which did or didn’t attract my attention in the first place, or came into my hands for the wrong reason, like The Deccameron.
The simplicity, the clear writing of the wizard and the other kids ‘books are charming. I read with much greater ease than Faulkner, for instance. Faulkner is the case where my difficult approach is paid off by the fascinating talent.
I‘ve read an example of symbols attributed to the Wizard of Oz:
“Dorothy – everyman and woman, a simple, Populist character from the heartland of American Populism, Kansas.
Scarecrow – farmers, agricultural workers, ignorant of many city things but honest and able to understand things with a little education. A strong supporter of Dorothy (Populism).
Tin Man – industrial workers; a woodchopper whose entire body has been replaced with metal parts, thus dehumanized by machinery (robot-like with no heart) in need of oil (liquidity/money) to work, otherwise unemployed (he was idle for a year) without oil.
Cowardly Lion – Wm. Jenning Bryan, a famous politician and Populist Presidential candidate in 1896 and 1900 (Oz was written in 1900) for monetary reform and a terrific orator (i.e., roar). Bryan was attacked as being somewhat cowardly for not supporting the US war with Spain. As a Populist Presidential candidate he sought to go to the capitol city – the Emerald city. Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech is posted below.
Ruby Slippers – these are silver in the book. Hollywood changed them to ruby red to take advantage of the new Technicolor used in the movie version, evidently ignorant of the meaning of the silver. Byran and many other Greenbackers (monetary reformers supporting use of debt-free US Notes like Lincoln’s Greenbacks to increase the money supply and thereby end the depression then) shifted their tactics to the promotion of adding silver to the lawful coinage of America (i.e., to promoting a bi-metallic standard rather than the theoretically purer, fiat Greenbacks) when they realized they could thereby gain the backing of the powerful silver mining interests and still increase the money supply (without debt) to more than just gold. Silver thus became a symbol of overcoming a purely gold standard with the limited money supply and banker control that resulted in. Hence the silver slippers were extremely important in the book, as silver coin was in reality.
Kansas – a Populist stronghold, home of Dorothy, symbolized the national heartland.
Cyclone (tornado) – the free silver movement, compared at the time to a political “cyclone” that swept Kansas, Nebraska and the heartland and aimed at Washington; also the depression of the 1890’s which was compared to a “cyclone” in a famous monetary primer of the time and which robbed people of their homes and farms.
Oz – corresponds to standard measure of gold ounce – “oz”; America, where the gold oz standard held sway, but where the use of the silver oz (slippers) could free the slaves.
Emerald City – political center of Oz /Washington D.C. To get there a politician had to take the gold way (gold standard); everyone there was forced to wear “green spectacles” – to see the world through another color (green) of money. This illusion upheld the Wizard’s power.
Glinda, the Good Witch of the South – the US South, which solidly supported Bryan and reform, as did much of the North (home of the other good witch in the book). The East and West (homes of the bad witches) supported McKinley.
Good Witch of the North – Bryan’s Populist supporters in the North and Northwest. The South and North largely supporter Bryan in his Presidential campaign; the wicked East and West supported McKinley who was for the gold standard
Wicked Witch of the East – Wall Street bankers in NY, led by J.P. Morgan. President Grover Cleveland (of NY) was their pro-gold standard candidate.
Wicked Witch of the West – draught and/or J.D. Rockefeller, by then a Cleveland banker (still viewed as “out West” from a NY perspective). President Wm. McKinley (a gold standard supporter from Ohio) was his candidate. She was a one-eyed witch , i.e., opposed to the two metal bi-metallic system; in the book she enslaves Winkies in the West much as the Wicked Witch in the East enslaves the Munchkins; dissolved by water symbolizing real water curing draught and/or liquidity ending the depression
Wizard – a charlatan who politician-like can change forms in the book and who tricked the citizens of Oz into believing he is all powerful. Sometimes compared to a behind-the-scenes manipulator “pulling-the-strings” of politicians just as Wall Street’s bankers do today. Mark Hanna, such a man at the time, has been suggested as the real life model for the Wizard. He said “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can’t remember the second”. Such an all-powerful view of money is a deceit noted under the word “Emerald City,” above. Baum was well informed – he knew banks manipulated politicians and the people and commonly used deceit to fool them into submission. $700 billion or we face a “global financial meltdown” ring a bell? Bankers create money – a trickery certainly known to Baum.
Yellow Brick Road – the gold way or standard composed of gold bricks.
Munchkins – the common people of the East, [wage] slaves to the Wicked Witch of the East.
Deadly Poppy Field – the anti-imperialism movement of the late 1890’s which reformers felt was distracting Byran from monetary reform (putting him to sleep on the issue), saved from that fate by the mice (the little people, Populist supporters).
Color themes, the colors of money: gold (coin), silver (coin), green (paper greenbacks)
Winged Monkey’s – Plains Indians: “Once we were free people living happily in the forest.” – Monkey leader. Like the winkies and munchkins, enslaved by the wicked witch and not freed until water (liquidity) destroys her hold on them.
Yellow Brick Road – the gold way, gold standard (yellow bricks)
Dorothy’s “party” – party is used 8 times referring to Dorothy’s followers, a reference to the Populist Party, trying to get Dorothy to the capitol city (Washington).
Oil – liquidity, priming the pump of the economy, enabling employment of the unemployed (the Tin Man had been idle for a year without it).
Toto – the prohibitionists (“with Toto trotted along soberly behind her”), a movement which followed the bi-metallist Populist Party.
Kalidahs – predators in the book probably representing newspaper reporters who overwhelmingly opposed to Byran as their papers were heavily influenced by banking and business interests.
Stork – a female stork in the book referring to the women’s suffrage movement which supported the Populists…”
I don’t know about all of them, but I definitely recognize some which apply in my time and place:
The Wizard becomes a biiiig Sailor, who claims that:
He is a big wizard, he cleaned up justice, he saved the nation, he’s clean as Ariel, his daughter is the best member of the European Parliament that this country can hope for, his insults for journalists (tziganca imputzita, gaoz, etc) for politicians and all- are numbered in their thousands.
I am so much fed up with this president of Oz that I can’t write anymore, he acts as a block out.
In this land of Oz-Dracula, everything looks green because that’s the color of money…
The Cowardly Lions would be the politicians, top managers, intellectual elite who do not rise up to expectations, I’d say they do not rise at all-their language, skills, impact on society is pitiable
With this recent referendum, I could see our “greatest minds” taking the side of the suspended president, even if this is the worst thing that one “thinking man „can do.
What I see lacking, are the good witches, even if I tend to respect Alina Mungiu and Daniel Barbu, to name just two…
Another Land of Oz is Saud…
The House of Saud, Saudi Arabia
I’m watching a documentary on Saudi Arabia, a land of desert tribes, only 100 years ago and now a highly developed country, in monetary terms, but as medieval or more, as Europe in the XVth century.
Women are not allowed to drive, to take part in an Olympic event, London 2012, without their head covered, they can be stoned to death for minor misdemeanors, a thief can have his hand amputated, or indeed he can be beheaded depending on the gravity of the crime. There’s no alcohol, there are strict controls of human rights in what is a middle age type of tyranny, based on the Koran, where sharia is the Islamic law, which rules in all domains.
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