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.
Chapters 18-23Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary: “Aberdeen, Dakota Territory 1889”
In the earlier timeline, Frank’s obsession turns from the store to baseball; he starts focusing his efforts at the store around the game and funding the uniforms and equipment for their baseball team. Maud worries that he’s losing focus, but she appreciates his shift away from her and her condition. She is pregnant and worries about giving birth, about whether Frank will remarry if she dies, and what will become of the family without her.
Meanwhile, a drought hits Dakota and the previous years of bumper crops in wheat are matched by the deficit this year. Fields wither and the farmers worry about how they’ll all make it through. Maud worries about Julia and Magdalena and writes again to offer Magdalena a home with them. Julia again refuses, this time citing Maud’s pregnancy as the reason for keeping her daughter.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Aberdeen, Dakota Territory 1889”
In the earlier timeline, Maud’s mother arrives in the new state of South Dakota to help her daughter through the end of her pregnancy and the beginning of her new baby’s life. She comes equipped with science and faith, ready to do whatever she can to keep Maud alive. When Maud confesses that she still worries about Julia, her mother brushes the topic off, saying Julia doesn’t have their strength. Maud gives birth to her son, Harry, and gets through the birth and days after without developing a fever. However, the bank takes Frank’s store due to his not paying the mortgage.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Aberdeen, Dakota Territory 1890”
In the earlier timeline, Matilda and Frank throw themselves into finding Frank a job and studying spirituality. As hope dwindles in Aberdeen, the two believe that all they need to do is secure votes for women and everything will change. Meanwhile, Maud struggles to maintain the household, especially with Matilda and Frank home all the time. When the vote for suffrage finally comes, it does not pass. Frank slides into a depressive episode, while Matilda goes home. Julia messages asking if Magdalena can come to live with them. This time, Maud declines because of their difficult living situation.
Julia falls ill and Maud comes to visit her. She finds a dead infant in her sister’s room, and Magdalena regularly plays with her imaginary friend Dorothy. Frank comes and mentions Magdalena coming with them. Julia becomes furious because Maud already said no. Julia decides that Magdalena must stay with her, even though she wants to go with her aunt and uncle. They manage to convince her to stay with a story about a rainbow—the Rainbow King’s daughter goes between the Rainbow Kingdom and Earth. When she sees a rainbow, she can imagine it’s a bridge to the kingdom where she can play with the Rainbow King’s daughter and be happy. Magdalena sends Dorothy with her aunt and uncle, but her dog Toto stays with Magdalena. As they travel home, Maud and Frank have hope for a brighter future for the first time in a long time.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Hollywood 1939”
In the later timeline, it’s time to film the Emerald City. Maud knows she’s running out of time to protect the story as she intended to. Workers begin painting the Emerald City green, which offends her until she talks to the lyricist over lunch with Judy, and he explains that the movie magic of Technicolor fills the role of the green-tinted spectacles. During lunch, Judy and Maud talk about the film process and the amount of pills the executives force Judy to take. Maud insists Judy needs to stand up for herself because nobody else will.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Chicago, Illinois 1891”
In the earlier timeline, the Baums arrive at their new home in Chicago, where Frank now works with a newspaper that’s promised to pay $20 a week. When he’s paid for the first time, he only receives $17.50. This causes an argument between Frank and Maud—Maud wants Frank to stand up for himself and be more practical in his life approach, while Frank does not see the problem with dreaming big. In the end, he gives up his job at the newspaper to work as a traveling salesman, which Maud both appreciates and hates. She knows they need the money but wants Frank to follow his passions.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Chicago, Illinois 1893”
In the earlier timeline, Frank takes Maud to the fair to see a moving picture and ride the Ferris wheel with the extra money he’s earning as a traveling salesman. He explains his big dreams and apologizes that he’s dragged her down into obscurity with him. He promises her that, despite the need to be practical with their finances, he will find a way to give her the emeralds and the life he wants to.
Chapters 18-23 Analysis
The consequences of Maud choosing experience over education begin to come to light. Frank acquires many life experiences—he can do many things—but he has never settled down and found the one thing that he can do well. He chases experiences because he wants to embrace life, and believes that there can be easy solutions to all their problems. For example, he believes that the vote for women’s suffrage will save them, and starts writing a newspaper specifically for women. Frank’s excessive optimism is evident in his proclamation that “[the] vote will save us! Mark my words, darling! In three years, we’ll most likely be up to ten thousand subscriptions and wondering why we don’t have more” (252).
Frank’s belief in people and things working out for the best makes him oblivious to risk. Maud is again his foil and tries to bring him back to reality—“[we] all hope to see women win the vote, but the success of the movement is far from certain. This is your first time dabbling in these waters” (253). Frank and Maud’s different ways of seeing the world create a divide between them. Maud wants to approach things rationally. She wants to think through their actions and have plans in place if their hopes don’t materialize. She has to “quiet her growing feeling of impatience” when Frank comes home loud and filled with hope (252). Her impatience with him stems from his impatience with life. As the embodiment of experience, Frank wants to believe that his endeavors teach him more and more, and because he learns more, he believes he can change the outcomes that Maud foresees. He struggles to understand his wife’s perspective, especially when she bluntly tells him: “How long do you think we mothers will have to wait to get our fair share of ‘the dream,’ as you call it? Why, we can’t even vote!” (253). Here, the conflict in the story is one of character versus character. Maud and Frank’s contrasting beliefs represent the struggle between practicality and imagination, and The Value of Education Versus Experience.
The rainbow is a symbol of hope, one that connects Maud’s life to the movie. In the earlier timeline, life for the Baums has reached its darkest moment—they have to leave their niece, Magdalena, behind in a difficult situation. No matter what their experiences have been in the past, they always have done everything possible to help others, and this time they can do nothing. All they can do is keep their promise to look after the imaginary Dorothy that Magdalena leaves in their care. As they make their way home, “Maud looked up at the rainbow. It appeared to start just over the cluster of lonely buildings that made up the town of Edgeley, but then it arched up and disappeared into the clouds” (270). For the first time, Maud considers that there may be more to life than living in the present. She opens herself to the possibility that hopes and dreams may sometimes be enough if only to escape the darkness for a moment.
