48 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth LettsFinding Dorothy
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the Episodic Narrative
L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900 with illustrator W.W. Denslow. The book, which Baum wrote for children, tells Dorothy Gale’s story. Dorothy lives with her aunt and uncle on a farm in Kansas when a cyclone sweeps their house away and drops Dorothy and her dog Toto in the magical land of Oz. The narrative continues along the famed Yellow Brick Road that goes from Munchkinland to the Emerald City, where the powerful Wizard of Oz lives. Dorothy steps away from the path to encounter creatures, people, and places that make up the world.
Baum structures the story as an episodic narrative. While all parts of the story are cohesive and tell a singular plot, the story is broken up into multiple episodes, either based on a chapter or an event arc. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, new episodes occur when Dorothy diverts from the Yellow Brick Road. When Dorothy and her friends return to the road, the narrative continues its path. The Yellow Brick Road serves as a throughline for the story.
Though the story is one continual narrative, each episode can be read apart from the rest of the text. This ability to read episodes in isolation is a defining characteristic of the episodic narrative. Each of Dorothy’s encounters—such as with her companions the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion—are complete stories within themselves, with a clear start, middle, and end before Dorothy moves on.
However, it is only through looking at all the episodes together that the overall meaning of the text becomes clear. Each episode offers something that the protagonist needs to learn, or contributes to the story’s overall meaning, such as the message that everyone already has what they believe they lack within themselves.
Cultural Context: Making The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939) adapts Baum’s children’s book into a major motion picture, keeping its whimsy and fantastical nature intact, such as with shifts between sepia (to portray Kansas) and color (to portray Oz). However, the making of the movie was filled with challenges. These included the mistreatment and injury of cast members and unsafe working environments.
The star of the movie, 16-year-old Judy Garland, was paid far less than her colleagues. According to estimates, Garland made 1/6th or less what the actors who played the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow made, though their roles were less prominent. Production also forced Garland to take a series of drugs to keep her lively onset. To counter the drugs she took during the day, Garland had to take pills to sleep at night.
Safety restrictions on film sets focused more on what made the movie look good, rather than ensuring the safety of the film’s cast and crew. For example, pure asbestos was poured on the actors in a scene to replicate snow falling. Additionally, the actress playing the Wicked Witch of the West received severe burns on her hands and face due to the pyrotechnics used in an early scene; her injuries kept her off-set for three months. Since 1939, safety measures on film sets have drastically increased.
