Trabajo de Fin de Grado (code 31099) Degree in English Studies Session 2020-2021

Student’s first name Pablo Esteban

Student’s surname Arenas Filardi

DNI 48801505J

“A Modernized Fairy Tale”: Revisiting Title of your TFG Americanness in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of .

First name and surname of your Tutor María Teresa Gómez Reus

Abstract:

The Wonderful needs no introduction. Being a literary success since its publication at the turn of the century, this story has surpassed the limits of time and space, becoming part of the history of America as well as one of the most recognizable children's books of all time. Nevertheless, it is not a conventional fairy-tale. Its singularity relies on its relentless Americanness and L. Frank Baum's purely American concern of creating something new: a modernized fairy tale. This undergraduate dissertation seeks to explore a topic that has been greatly overlooked by critics: the elements that make this classic a quintessential American story. The dissertation argues that, by distancing himself from European traditions, by asserting American values, and by the use of explicit national imagery, L. Frank Baum achieves something never seen in American Literature: a fairy-tale Americans can call their own.

Children’s Literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Thematic keywords Americanness, Fairy Tale, Innovation.

Total number of words 8288

Student’s Signature: Tutor’s Signature:

Contents

1. Introduction ...... 3

2. Lyman Frank Baum’s American Experience ...... 7

3. American Children’s Literature: Tradition and Rupture...... 9

4. The Wonderful Wizard of America ...... 12

4.1 Transcending European Fairy Tales ...... 13 4.2 American Ideals and Imagery ...... 20 5. Conclusions ...... 25

6. Works Cited ...... 26

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1. Introduction

“Almost every great nation has its immortal work of juvenile fantasy. In

England it is Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. [...] Italy’s classic is Pinocchio. In

America the classic fantasy is, of course, L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz.” –

(Martin Gardner, Preface xi)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is not only the American fairy tale par excellence, but it epitomises America. Since its publication in 1900, The Wizard has imprinted itself in the nation’s folklore, displaying and transforming the American character and becoming “a millstone as much as a milestone in American culture” (Hearn xiv). In his forging of a pioneering children’s classic, Baum created a symbol for the nation, for it was not until The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, at the dawn of the twentieth century, that the United States would have its own and exclusive children’s masterpiece, one that would make a priceless contribution to the literary scene (Hearn xiii; Zipes et al.

555).

What particularly makes this book so quintessentially American is its innovative quality, a newness, which, according to Zipes (555) and Kincaid (40), has to do with

Baum’s capability to create a fantasy land that amalgamates the American Midwest landscape, the American Dream and the American Experience through recognisable

American characters: a unique combination of elements which have provided

American children with a fairy tale they can call their own.

Apart from the status this book enjoys, it is worth mentioning The Wonderful

Wizard of Oz’s powerful and original imagery. It is undeniable that the voyage of

Dorothy and her odd party still echoes in our minds, having transcended time and space and existing in a continuum within the American imagination. Needless to say,

Victor Fleming’s 1939 screen adaptation also contributed to enhancing the book’s fame, but the popularity of the film has not diminished the vitality of the book itself.

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A number of scholars have debated the question of which medium consecrated

The Wizard, with some critics prioritizing the book over the film, and others the opposite. Michael Hearn has firmly opposed the argument that it was the film that made famous the tale, claiming that the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer “bought the property in first place because The Wizard was already the most beloved American children’s book of the twentieth century” (xiv). Contrary to this, Paul Kincaid has suggested that it was the film version that “did most to cement its place in the

American popular imagination” (50). Deborah Cartmell takes a step further considering that in the case of The Wizard of Oz “the film becomes the ur-text in the minds of its viewers” (168) and regards Baum’s text as a “little-known work” (172).

Notwithstanding, the fairy tale was a vast success, printing 90.000 copies during the first year of its publication which brought L. Frank Baum to write 14 sequels. His literary saga was continued after his death in 1919 – data which shows that in 1939 the book was still a highly esteemed literary piece.

Yet the film, according to Carol Billman, “transcends its original in American popular culture [...] by acts of both omission and commission” (248). The filmmakers achieved to make The Wizard of Oz more explanatory to the audience, avoiding

Baum’s disparities, and creating in the screen adaptation a more approachable and attractive version of the tale which is nowadays perceived as the default medium

(Billman 248).

But if the disparities of the text were a problem to create a film, they are doubtlessly what gave this fairy tale its singular literary quality. Nonetheless, half a century had to pass after its publication in order for it to be considered a genuine work of literature worthy of scholarly consideration (Gardener x; Hearn xv). Simply, and despite its economic success, it was bypassed by critics, who considered it shallow, naïve or poorly written (Hearn xcviii; Littlefield 47). As Hearn claims, “this paradox is not surprising, for historically Americans have been notoriously careless in recognizing their own visionaries” (xiv).

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Although Edward Wagenknecht’s Utopia Americana (1929) was the earliest attempt to give the tale a critical response, it was not until 1964 that The Wizard of Oz earned the recognition it deserved. It was thanks to Henry Littlefield’s article “The Wizard of Oz: A Parable on Populism” that the book finally received the scholarly attention it deserved (Hearn lxxxix; Liebhold; Radell 274). Littlefield did not only consider the children’s classic to conceal “an unsuspected depth” (50), but he also contemplated the much-debated question of whether Baum filled his tale with multiple political and contemporary references: the so called “allegory debate”. Littlefield defended and illustrated that Baum’s masterpiece was a parable of the turn of the century Mid- western populist movement. In his eyes, the represents the Eastern industrial workers, deprived of humanity, the becomes the Mid-west farmer, stigmatized as ignorant, and the Lion embodies William Jennings Bryan, the democratic candidate who lost the elections for not being sufficiently brave (53).

With this theory, Littlefield pioneered the first work of criticism, delving deep into

The Wizard, considering it a work of art and opening an insatiable desire to decipher the hidden meaning behind the text.

From then onwards, critics have bountifully discussed the question of whether L.

Frank Baum truly tried to convey a coded message in his tale. Two distinct attitudes may be traced: on the one hand, the critics who, in the same fashion as Littlefield, found intrinsic meaning in the fairy tale, and, on the other, the ones that are sceptic of this theory, and who, as Littlefield puts it, “see in it only a warm, cleverly written fairy tale” (50). Quentin Taylor, Hugh Rockoff, Gretchen Ritter and William Radell, for example, fully conceive The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as an allegorical tale and firmly support Littlefield’s theory, “considering the idea that Baum had monetary, topical and political metaphors in mind when he wrote The Wizard” (Radell 274).

Ranjit Dighe, on his part, “rejects the idea that Baum had deliberate allegorical intent”, assenting that the story closely matches the socio-political context (Radell

275). Taking issue with this line, Michael Gessel, David Parker, Katherine M. Rogers,

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Evan I. Schwartz and Bradley Hansen have denied any glimpse of allegorical signs in

The Wizard of Oz, maintaining, instead, that the hypothesis that Baum aimed to imbue his tale with satirical or allegorical content derives “from the overactive imaginations of interpreters” (Radell 274). Even Michael Patrick Hearn, who could be considered the most prominent of all the Oz scholars, in his annotated edition of The Wizard of

Oz, undermines Littlefield’s parable on populism theory, claiming that it “far outweighs its critical value” (xc), and asserting that the tale was meant to be nothing more than an innocent story and a piece of youthful entertainment (Hearn xlix).

There is, therefore, no critical agreement on whether The Wizard presents real literary depth. A century and two decades after its publication, the tale remains a complete enigma. In any case, the disputed allegories or concealed meanings of the tale, although blurry and elusive, are arguably quite noticeable to be omitted. Recent critics have taken different directions from the earlier reading. They have moved from political allegory into new fields such as psychoanalysis (Beckwith), consumer culture (Leach), queer studies and the use of food and cannibalism (Pugh), or ethnic studies Liguore). These inquiries are indeed exciting, but it has come to my attention that despite the apparent consensus that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an American tale, and that it oozes Americanness (Kincaid 40; Zipes et al. 555), there has been no publication elaborating on what exactly contributes to make this tale so American in nature. I would suggest that many critics have preferred to concentrate on more innovative aspects rather than on the question of the Americanness itself, a feature they have taken for granted, for it is The Wizard’s most obvious quality.

Paradoxically, they have focused on innovation, while overlooking the blatant element that makes this fairy-tale “original and attractive” (Townsend 109): its

Americanness.

The aim of this dissertation is to bring some light on what specifically makes this tale quintessentially American. I would like to propose that Baum was trying to shape the American Fairy Tale, or as he called it, a ‘Modernized Fairy Tale’ (5), by

6 conferring his book with a series of qualities and strategies that complement each other in order to conceive an original and purely American narrative. But before elaborating on these ideas, it is necessary to refer to the context in which the Wizard of

Oz emerged. Two aspects must be considered: the biography of L. Frank Baum will illustrate the influence that the author’s life and mindset had on the tale, whilst the

American children’s literary tradition will show the radical shift that The Wizard involved. Once all these features have been dealt with, we can proceed to explain what makes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz an American Classic and what did Baum to vouchsafe the tale such qualities. I intend to demonstrate that Baum achieves it through three different steps: first of all, by distancing himself from the European literary tradition, then by instilling American values and concerns in his narrative, and, finally, by addressing recognisable motifs and topics of the American imagination.

2. Lyman Frank Baum’s American Experience

L. Frank Baum is a little-known author. Compared to the success and worldwide fame that his masterpiece has achieved, the creative mind who composed The

Wonderful Wizard of Oz is almost an unfamiliar figure in the literary scene (Hearn xv).

Notwithstanding, America’s fairy tale encompasses the influence of Baum’s fascinating life. Our author’s career, led by his strong American principles and sentiments, embodies the American experience itself, and becomes the starting point of The Wizard.

Baum was born and raised on the East coast, more specifically in Chittenango,

New York, in 1856, to a wealthy family of new money. His creative genius and insatiable curiosity would drive him to a life of continual exploration, undertaking very different occupations and interests, but with an enduring concern in writing.

His complex professional life as well as his trademark positivism are accentuated by the historic period in which he lived, the Gilded Age. Susan Wolstenholme claims

7 that “only in the America of the late 19th or early 20th centuries, could one pursue such career as Baum’s” (xii) and it is in indeed his career, impressed by an endless faith in himself and perseverance despite successive failures and disappointments, which makes it so indisputably American.

His firsts steps were in theatre. He wrote, directed and starred a musical- melodrama, The Maid of Arran, in 1882, becoming his earliest success. But the event that would change his life forever was yet to come. In 1888, L. Frank Baum and his wife went West, like many other Americans had done before, in search of a better future. It was in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where his beloved children’s fantasy began to materialize and, as Frederick Turner would defend in 1893, it was there in the

Western frontier where his American character was forged. In this little prairie town

Baum entrepreneur’s facet was reprised, opening his own business, ‘Baum’s Bazaar’, and becoming journalist and editor of the Saturday Pioneer, both ventures failing after a short time. This professional experience, together with his fascination for the Great

Plains landscape and the life and endeavours on the West, would mark him forever, becoming motifs deeply engraved in his imagination (Liguore 78; Littlefield 49).

With the firm ideal “that the country belonged to him from coast-to-coast, and if a fortune was lost another was only to be gained” (Wolstenholme xiii), so ubiquitous in the America of his time, he moved to his next destiny, Chicago. There, as he worked as a salesman, his first children’s fiction came into existence: Mother Goose in

Prose (1897), intended to make Perrault’s tales more attainable to the younger readers. It was closely followed by Father Goose: His book (1899), which could be considered the most direct predecessor of The Wizard. It was an original collection of nursery rhymes, with illustrations printed in colour by the American artist W.W.

Denslow, who would illustrate the Oz tales as well. This illustrated text has been arguably regarded as “the first fully conceived American picture book”

(Wolstenholme xvii).

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These early works anticipate L. Frank Baum’s desire to break with tradition, while already manifesting his commitment to an accessible, pleasant and original kind of children’s literature. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz will epitomise Baum’s ambitions, and together with his own set of principles based on positivism and self-reliance, deeply-rooted in the American mind-set since the forging of the country, and the sceneries and places of his life, especially the Mid-West, he will put an end to the

American children’s tradition, which so far had been constricted by European imitation and moralizing values. But before asserting this, we must familiarize ourselves with the tradition of children’s literature in America.

3. American Children’s Literature: Tradition and Rupture.

Isaiah Thomas made the earliest attempt to “Americanize” English children’s literature in the second half of the eighteenth century. He adapted some of the most popular children’s stories at the time, such as Goody Two Shoes by the great ancestor of modern children’s literature John Newberry, in order to make them more recognisable to the audience. Through his modifications, the town of London became the town of Boston. Besides, during this era, the didactic and moral purpose which had been so notorious in the European tradition, particularly during the Age of

Reason and in Rousseau’s treatises on children, became even more accentuated in

America due to the ongoing influence of Puritanism as well as the lack of a genuine

American folklore. Thus, realism became omnipresent in children’s literature, while fairy tales and fantasy were sentenced as irrational, useless and of dubious morality.

As a result, they were erased from the maps of literature (Townsend 47; Zipes et al.

554).

However, after the American Revolutionary War, once political independence had been obtained, the desire for an artistic independence became the target. Hence, literature was thought to represent “the spirit of independence, democracy and nationhood” (Ruland and Bradbury xi). Romanticism permitted the country to

9 explore their patriotism and imagination, restoring thusly, in the area of children’s literature, the previously frowned upon fairy tales and overcoming some of the previous stigmas against them.

Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne were among the first to attempt to establish America as a land of fairies and to explore an “indigenously American mythology” (Hearn xlix). Although they partly succeeded, they failed in creating their stories out of American materials. Irving based the legends of his Sketchbook

(1819) on German folktales, relocating them in American landscapes, while

Hawthorne made use of Greco-Roman traditions in the Wonder-Book for Boys and Girls

(1852). Although their contributions confirmed America as a country where fairy tales could occur, both authors were haunted by the idea that “America was a blank sheet, offering no materials or language for literature” (Ruland and Bradbury 96), which ultimately made them turn to the Old World for inspiration.

James Fenimore Cooper also shared with Irving and Hawthorne the obsession for their country’s neglect of imaginative sources; yet, and ironically enough, he prospered in displaying the fictional and fantastic potential of America. In the

Leatherstocking Tales (1827-1841) Cooper establishes for the first time a mythography that revolves around the frontier, creating an essential motif that is imbedded in the national identity (Kincaid 37).

By the second half of the nineteenth century multiple factors would postpone the desire to produce an American fantasy. While in the 1860s Great Britain witnessed the emergence of its greatest fantasies (Townsend 90), in the United States children’s literature took another direction. After the Civil War, the country underwent a significant change in their psychological and philosophical outlook: from the idealistic principles of transcendentalism to down-to-earth pragmatism. An inevitable effect of this shift was the substitution of fantasy for relentless naturalism

(Kincaid 38). Gender-targeted novels flourished: adventure tales for boys and domestic fiction for girls. In regards to adventure tales, in the New World “the great

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American adventure was the making of America” (Townsend 69). Dime Novels explored the Wild West as a place where adventure was granted. Mark Twain located his adventures in the Mississippi, while Horatio J. Alger with his Ragged Dick

(1868) showed another kind of American adventure: one in which boys could move from rags to riches through hard work and a nobility of spirit (Townsend 69). In domestic fiction, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868) presented a conception of family as a synonym of a warmth and mutual affection.

In fin-de-siècle America, fantasy is rehabilitated once again through the influence of the European sources, in particular from Britain. Howard Pyle was notorious for his lack of American motifs. He chose to recreate the great English medieval legends, but unlike Washington Irving, he did not relocate these stories in an America setting, nor did he imbue them with specific American values, plots or characters. The Merry

Adventures of Robin Hood (1883) or his Arthurian legends, for example, have nothing of America; just the opposite, they rather express a great deal of European nostalgia

(Townsend 107; Wolstenholme xviii). In consequence, by going back to European sources he decelerated the creation of children’s books in America.

Thus, children’s literature in America evolves very much like the adult literary tradition, from imitation to creation, representing gradually a deeper desire for national identification. But when observing children’s fiction, this process seems more intricate; the constrains of children literature are greater than those of adult literature, being innovation not so overtly accepted in the former. The Wonderful

Wizard of Oz represents a rupture in the literary tradition, chiefly because it is fantasy. As Laura Barret asserts, in America there was an “inherent objection to fairy tale” (151). Indeed, the best-known American juvenile works so far were realistic.

American authors never succeeded in this genre without recreating or being inspired by European stories. Besides, children’s literature in America was burdened by the

Puritan heritage, which impregnated the stories with morals: children’s fiction had to teach something.

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Building an American fantasy with no European inspiration and without a stiff moral attached to it sounded rather impossible. And it is in this context that The

Wizard appeared, ready to defy the limits of children’s literature.

4. The Wonderful Wizard of America

In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the story is preceded by an introduction, or, as

Michael Hearn alleges, “a manifesto for the liberation of American children’s literature” (5). L. Frank Baum states in a few lines his purpose with this tale: to conceive a “modernized fairy tale” (3) through rejecting the horrors and archetypes of the European tradition whilst focusing on entertainment and pleasure rather than moral lessons. With this statement, Baum made his own declaration of independence, obstinate in his desire to create a literary work that would settle the bases for a new children’s literature.

These statements position Baum as an authentic American author, particularly sensitive to the concern that has perpetually inhabited in this nation’s literature: the

American experience. According to Ruland and Bradbury, American literature is

“shaped by large questions about the nature of American experience, the American land and landscape, American national identity and the nature of language and expression in the presumed ‘New World’” (xvii), and The Wizard is not an exception.

Our author seems to be aware of the lack of American motifs in children’s literature, and from the very beginning he declares it.

Bearing in mind that “the central factor of American Literature is America” (Fast

55), L. Frank Baum builds his tale, impregnating it with fearless Americanness and weaving it out “of commonplace material” (Hearn xlv). In what follows I shall dissect how the Americanness is employed and displayed in this story through three different methods that enable Baum to make of his all-time favourite a national symbol.

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4.1 Transcending European Fairy Tales

The first barrier Baum had to overcome to achieve the genuine American fantasy was to remove every single vestige of the European tradition. L. Frank Baum, for whom the lack of history of his country was not an obstacle but a blessing, was unique in this respect. He was a fearless progressive man who was most concerned about the “contemporary America [that] inspired his fantasy world” (Zipes et al.

582), and indifferent to the Old World’s motifs in fantasy tales. He despised the past and embraced the present, rejecting the established tradition and exploring, in turn,

“a personal mythology in which many truths could be expressed” (Hearn xlix).

Many were the conventions L. Frank Baum rejected in The Wizard: the so popular horrors that abounded in Andersen and Grimm’s stories felt too unsettling for him, and featuring romance and marriage seemed something unreal and wearisome in his eyes. Furthermore, Baum was utterly against long descriptions, which were more suitable for adult literature than for children’s books, and instead sought to represent a concrete reality through the barest linguistic means, more in line with his desire to please children (Hearn xlviii).

Even so, The Wizard of Oz retains multiple features that relate to the archetypical fantasy adventure of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Very much like Alice or Narnia, , the child protagonist, travels to a parallel fantasy land in which the power hierarchy reverts, becoming she the one who is feared and superior to the rest of adults, but who once back home and deprived of her magic, resumes her place as inferior to and dependent on adults (Nikolajeva 51). Likewise,

Baum’s use of stereotypical European characters also contributes to perpetuate the conventional fairy tale. William Patrick Hearn considers the latter Baum’s greatest failure while trying to construct a “purely” American fairy tale for: “his witches and wizards, magic shoes and enchanted caps, came from Europe to inhabit the same universe as his scarecrows, patchwork girls, and magic dishpans” (xlix).

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Nevertheless, Baum readjusted these folkloric characters to America. When

Dorothy arrives to Oz she is mesmerized by the fact that she has met not only a witch, but also a good one: “But I thought all witches were ” (Baum 21).

Hearn claims that Baum was playing with “conventional wisdom” (41) by challenging the concept of evil witch promoted by European fairy tales. Dorothy, not convinced by the good witch’s response, answers back: “ has told me that the witches were all dead – years and years ago” (21). Then the witch asks our hero where she is from:

“I do not know where Kansas is, for I had never heard that country mentioned before. But

tell me, is it a civilized country?”

“Oh yes;” replied Dorothy.

“Then it accounts for it. In the civilized countries, I believe, there are no witches left, nor

wizards, nor sorceress, nor magicians. But, you see, Oz has never been civilized.” (23).

Obviously, there are no witches in America. The only remnant of witchcraft in the

U.S. materialized in 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials, where it was proved that

“magic” had been annihilated in the country through the Puritan law. Certainly, fairies, goblins, wizards and witches, as well as overall folklore, do not flourish in

America as much as in the Old World. In Hawthorne’s masterpiece The Scarlett Letter

Mr Wilson asks Pearl: “Art thou one of those naughty elves or fairies, whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in merry old England?”

(103), which perfectly fits the convention that these bewitching creatures had no place in the New World. Due to the absence of these beings, the Good Witch sentences Kansas, and in turn America, as a civilized land. Here Baum presents a curious paradox since the idea of civilisation was traditionally associated with

Europe, not with America (Heraclides and Dialla 31). The author reverses the narrative by claiming the civility of his country and by declaring fairy Europe as the irrational and barbaric continent.

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Nevertheless, Oz becomes uncivilised by the presence of these extraordinary beings. But how it can be if the is an allegory of the U.S.? The truth is that, although in Oz wizards and witches live side by side, they are not real fairy tale creatures but illusions. Oz the Great and Terrible is a humbug: he “turns to be nothing more than a common man” (Littlefield 47), who has been “making believe”

(Baum 183) and deceiving everybody around him. The , although presented as the classic villain, is anything but a witch as we understand them. In her brief appearance, Baum displays a kind of witch that elicits more laugh than terror. Afraid of Dorothy and her magic tokens, when she sees the silver slippers, she “began to tremble with fear” (Baum 150). Likewise, she displays childish fears: “The Witch was too much afraid of the dark […] and her dread of water was greater than her fear of the dark” (153). As a consequence of this phobia to water she carries an umbrella rather than a broom. On top of that, her ridiculous death by a sheer accident while quarrelling with Dorothy for a shoe (““Give me back my shoe!” “I will not”, retorted the Witch”; Baum 154), state her as an inoffensive and humoristic character who “is clearly not evil incarnate as the witches of

European folklore are” (Hearn 222).

More evidence that supports that in Oz there is nothing left of European tradition is that here magic does not exist. The characters do not have inherent magical powers, and if they do, they can be “rationally explained”, as they are based on

“certain scientific principles” (Hearn 226) or they are given to them through magical objects. The silver slippers, the golden cap and the silver whistle are the ones that convey fantastical qualities and the ones used by the Wicked Witches to perform their evil deeds. Both caps and slippers are popular and mythical objects that have been appearing regularly in folktales and legends with diverse supernatural abilities.

(Hearn 210; Wolstenholme 274). Still, Baum strips them from their original meaning and simultaneously makes them American: instead of the genie, the golden cap summons the who are limited to three wishes per porter as well.

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Besides, the Winged Monkeys, despite their extraordinary appearance, have no magic: their power resides in their physical attributes. In the same way, the animals summoned by the silver whistle - wolves, crows and bees - have no supernatural qualities either. Thus, although magic exists to a certain extent, it is always diminished by the boundaries of reality.

Interestingly enough, the absence of traditional magic is substituted by a magic related to Baum’s present-day America: technology. Laura Barrett argues that The

Wizard becomes “distinctly American through the incorporation of technology” (157).

In the story technology is another way of creating fantasy. The Wizard has managed to fool everybody through the use of rudimentary technology: in the each person has to wear green spectacles under the threat that if you do not wear them “the brightness and glory” (Baum 118) of the city would blind you, while he deceives Dorothy and her friends about his identity with gaudy tricks and costumes.

More notorious is the fact that he is a balloonist, and it was through a balloon that he was able to both arrive and depart from the land of Oz. However, the ultimate symbols of the triumph of technology over magic are the Scarecrow and the Tin

Woodman (Barrett 156). Both are fantastical characters that despite being inanimate in the real world are alive in the wonderland of Oz, and display human behaviours and attitudes. This fact is not new, for inanimate objects that come to life are popular in children’s literature. Pinocchio from The Adventures of Pinocchio (1881) by Carlo

Collodi exemplifies the best example of this kind of character: Pinocchio, as well as

Dorothy’s companions, desires human attributes. Nevertheless, there is a major difference between them. Whereas the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman have not come to life by means of magic, the wood from which the puppet is carved is already enchanted (Bauer and Lowne). The Scarecrow realises he is alive while the farmer draws his ears: “Luckily, when the farmer made my head, one of the first things he did was to paint my ears, so that I heard what was going on” (Baum 45); and, the Tin

Woodman, once a human, instead of being bestowed with life, is kept alive; he

16 becomes an inanimate object progressively through the loss of his human body by a curse. The tinner saves his life successively by creating pieces of tin, until he has no flesh left: “the tinner came to my help and made my body of tin, fastening my tin arms, legs and head to it, by means of joints” (61). In short, Baum succeeds in making of the common man –the farmer, the tinner or even Oz the humbug– someone able to create magic with his own hands, without having to rely on lore or fantasy to make incredible deeds, since in his narrative magic becomes tangible.

Intimately connected with the lack of magic is the emphasis on and commitment with reality. In The Wizard there are but a few loose ends. Although children’s stories are full of incongruities, in Oz almost everything is explained through rational evidence, and what cannot be explained nor understood simply forces the characters to turn to reality to find an answer for it. As Henry Littlefield defends: “Not understanding the magic of the , Dorothy walks the mundane –and dangerous–” (53). Baum seems to emphasize how reasonable his work is (as opposed to other tales) through the constant references “to Dorothy's hunger, thirst, and fatigue” (Barrett 156), in contrast to the Scarecrow and the Tin

Woodman’s artificiality: “But the scarecrow and the tin woodman not being made of flesh, were not troubled by the scent of flowers” (95) or “The Scarecrow and the Tin

Woodman stood up in a corner and kept quiet all night, although of course they could not sleep” (114). By describing how factual the actions of his most fantastical creatures are, Baum demonstrates that in his tale American reasonability rules over nonsensical fantasy. Another feature that invests The Wizard with credibility is the way in which death is being described. Albeit L. Frank Baum’s initial rejection to the horrors of European tales, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is crowded with violent killings and mutilations: “So the Woodman raised his axe, and as the Wildcat ran by, he gave it a quick blow that cut the beast’s head clean off from its body, and it rolled over his feet in two pieces” (102) or “The King Crow flew at the Scarecrow, who caught it by the head and twisted its neck until it died” (143). Notwithstanding, these

17 passages, instead of describing death in a morbid and elaborate way like in European folktales, are rather objective and straightforward. Baum stands with his commitment to reality by eliding gruesome descriptions but without omitting the fact that dead existed and treating it with indifference.

Finally, the last European element L. Frank Baum eradicates in his American fairy land is no other than monarchy. As John Hector Saint J. de Crevecoeur already claimed in his essay Letters from an American Farmer, “here [in America] there are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one” (57), and therefore in Oz there is neither. In The Wizard the toponyms contain the words Country or Land –

Country, Land of Oz– but never kingdom nor realm. Baum avoids any formal allusion to a system in which royalty is in control, and although castles and palaces prevail – “the Palace of Oz” (Baum 124) “the Castle of Glinda” (248)– they are not inhabited by royals but by people of unclear lineage or, in the case of Oz, of humble origins. This is closely linked to the idiosyncratic American “democratic tradition that marked each stage of the people's battle for freedom and a better life” (Fast 59).

Oz is chosen, in a way, by the people to rule their land, and “symbolizes the

American criterion for leadership – he is able to be everything to everybody”

(Littlefield 54). But the best cases of democracy and upward mobility are shown at the end of the tale, since Dorothy’s companions have managed to “overcome their humble beginnings to find fame and fortune” (Hearn 352). The Scarecrow and the

Tin Woodman become rulers (the word king or monarch is not used) of the Emerald

City and the respectively, and although Oz bequeaths his position to the Scarecrow, the citizens of the green city agree with Oz’s decision: “The Scarecrow was now the ruler of Emerald City, and although he was not a Wizard the people were proud of him” (Baum 212). With the Tin Woodman democratic values are still more noticeable, for “the Winkies were sorry to have them go, and they had grown

18 so fond of the Tin Woodman that they begged him to stay and rule over them and the Yellow Land of the West” (165).

Yet, Baum does maintain some subtle allusions to monarchy. We know that

“many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds […] there lived here then, away at the North, a beautiful princess” (Baum 173). Hence, in the land of Oz, like in the U.S, royalty existed once, but now it belongs to a distant past. However, monarchy is portrayed most significantly in the animals of Oz, and especially through one of our main characters: the Lion. During Dorothy’s adventures in this land, she comes across multiple animals. Most of the time, these animals appear in group, and among them, there is a leader always entitled as a regent: “The Queen of all the field-mice” (102), “the King Crow” (145) or “the King of the Monkeys” (247).

In this manner, Baum seems to ironically relegate monarchy to the realm of wild and irrational animals rather than to civilised humans. The character of the Lion, King of

Beasts, is the one that epitomises this idea. Out of the three friends Dorothy has, he is the most conventional and European-like. He is an animal whose fantastical ability to speak is not given any rational explanation, a fact that renders him closer to classic fables than to modernized fairy tales. Moreover, contrary to his companion’s wishes, which incarnate the classical dilemma of having to choose between reason or emotion (Hearn 103) and that consequently, will enable them to be humans, the Lion wants courage. For this character, courage brings him the opportunity to be what the rest of animals expect of him: “all the other animals in the forest naturally expect me to be brave” (70). He is not seeking for human attributes or human validation, but for a trait that will complete his wild animal form. All these features work together with the ancient assumption that the lion holds the title of King of the Beasts, making of this character a living token of the decaying European fairy tales. This is better exemplified in the coda, since contrary to his friends who will rule over great urban societies by ascending the social ladder, the Lion will rule in an old grand forest. In

19 that gloomy place, “where the trees where bigger and older than any they have seen”

(239), he will regain the same position he used to have, that of a monarch.

In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the presence of America rules over the narrative: Oz becomes an extension of the United States. Therefore, whatever is improbable or impossible in one, becomes just as unlikely in the other. And despite the fact that the author may show some signs of doubtfulness by introducing European-like elements, he is always subversive by depriving them of their original meaning, and transforming them into Americanised caricatures.

4.2 American Ideals and Imagery

Apart from deconstructing the archetypical fairy tale, L. Frank Baum, in order to create the American fantasy, had to furnish his book with distinctive American ideals and imagery. Reasonably, these characteristics are the most perceptible to the common reader since they are part of its startling singularity. Although some representative American values such as democracy, pragmatism, technology or social mobility have already been hinted in the previous section, some unmistakable principles and symbols that The Wizard discloses are yet to be developed.

As previously seen, Baum was overtly against the long-standing tradition of didactic fiction, and prone to “rapturous delight […] in his fairy tales” (Hearn xlviii).

This contempt, however, was not an obstacle to insert some morals as well. After all

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is primarily “a lesson of belief, or the power of positive thinking” (Billman 242). The obvious American positivism, along with the rest of

American feelings that prevail in the story, trace back to the most idiosyncratic of the intellectual movements in America: Transcendentalism, and therefore, to the founder of it, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Harold Bloom asserts that “Emerson […] is the inescapable theorist of all subsequent American writing. From his moment to ours,

American authors either are in his tradition, or else in a counter-tradition” (1).

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L. Frank Baum was certainly under the influence of the Emersonian tradition, which was also revived in fin de siècle America through “a renew interest in utopian ideas” (Kincaid 40). Especially relevant in the tale is the virtue of self-reliance:

Dorothy’s companions discover in the Emerald City that the answer to their problems were within themselves. Self-Reliance, one of the most celebrated essays by

Emerson, stands for the origin of this lesson. For Emerson, the power that resides in the individual is peerless. We do not need to rely on others nor compare ourselves, for each of us is unique. Instead, we have to learn to follow our inner voice, for what we need comes from the inside, not the outside: “he who knows that power is inborn

[…] works miracles” (Emerson 21).

But the protagonists of The Wizard fail to realise about their own inner forces.

Eventually they acknowledge their attributes through the Wizard’s illusions, for they

“require something tangible to represent what they desire” (Hearn 271). After endowing them with physical proofs, Oz yields: “How can I help being a humbug

[…] when all these people make me do things that everybody knows can’t be done?”

(119). With this, Baum unveils the truth about his country: America is all about illusion and deceiving. The Lion, the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow’s inability to be self-reliant and self-sufficient, suggests the early decay of the American Dream.

This is no longer a country based on ideals, trust or spiritual aspirations, but on facts and materialism. As Henry Littlefield’s sentences: “the American desire for symbols of fulfilment is illusory. Real needs lie elsewhere” (57).

But the Wizard’s American magic of deceiving does not work on Dorothy, “for of all the characters she has a wish that is selfless, and only she has a direct connection to honest, hopeless human beings” (Littlefield 57). Truth towards yourself and your community is an appreciated and significant quality in both Self-Reliance and in the

Land of Oz. As Emerson wrote: “If we follow the truth […] it will bring us out safe at last” (14), and that is what occurs to our child-hero. Dorothy is the only character that is honest to herself and to the rest: she knows her limitations and strengths, and her

21 childish innocence protects her from being manipulative and corrupted like Oz. Her nobility of heart becomes her own magic since it “prevail[s] even over the powers of evil and delusion in Oz” (Littlefield 52), and eventually allows her to return home.

Apart from the numerous America values it endorses, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a tale crowded with, as Clifton Fadiman states, “homely, American things that you hardly expect in Fairyland” (qtd. in Hearn 64). Among the multiple images that recall

America in the book, the most blatant is the design of the land of Oz, which is undeniably inspired by the United States of America. L. Frank Baum was careful enough to portray through the settings of his story not only the scenarios he was familiar with -New York, Chicago, South Dakota- but also how the concept of

America has evolved over time.

The is the first glimpse of the land of Oz we have. It is located in the East, and it is described as a magnificent orchard with trees “bearing rich and luscious fruits” (Baum 18). Hence, Dorothy becomes a pilgrim, experimenting the bewilderment colons felt when they reached America for the first time. Under her eyes, the Munchkin Country is transformed into an earthly paradise, in which richness and prosperity are ensured. Notwithstanding, our protagonist soon discovers that in this Garden of Eden “Nature is beautiful […] insofar as it is controlled” (Barrett 155). In the puritan mind-set, American nature remains a “place of peril and “howling wilderness” beyond the safety of the plantation” (Ruland and

Bradbury 30), and in Dorothy’s journey, nature grows dangerous –the deadly poppy field, the fighting trees- as she leaves the comforting land of the .

Dorothy’s next destiny is the Emerald City, placed in the middle of Oz. Inspired by Baum’s visit to Chicago World’s Fair, it embodies another mythical conception of

America: the utopian metropolis. In this city, progression and technology, “there seemed to be no horses nor animals of any kind” (Baum 124), welfare, “Everyone seemed happy and contented and prosperous”, and consumerism, “many shops stood on the street”, overrule. The urban and economic optimism of the late

22 nineteenth century is perceptible through the Emerald City. However, Baum teaches us that this ideal society is unsustainable without the use of deception (Barret 157;

Warner).

The Winkie Country, in the West, completes Dorothy’s first journey through Oz.

Although by “1890 [the] census's conclusion that the frontier was closed” (Barrett

154) was a reality, and therefore, the rumours about endless wealth in the west untrue, Baum wanted to bestow his fantasy with a space where the westward expansion could exist forever. In this manner, in the Winkie country “there is no road” (Baum 141) and “there [are] no farms nor houses […] and the ground [is] untilled” (142). The West becomes once more, in Baum’s narrative, an unexplored virgin land, where, quoting Frederick Turner, the “most rapid and effective

Americanization is” (2). Furthermore, in the Winkie Country the gold rush and riches of the West are real, for Dorothy and her friends are given jewels and gold once they leave this land: “a goldsmith had made an axe-handle of solid gold” (Baum

162).

Although Kansas does not belong to Oz, it frames the narrative and works as the extreme counterpoint for the fairyland. Baum exhibits in the dry land of Kansas the real and present American Mid-West, where dreams and colour have been extinguished long ago through the inclemency and hard living conditions. In Kansas, as in South Dakota, both the frontier ideal and the romantic view of a benevolent nature have been erased by “the stark reality of the dry, open plains” (Littlefield 48).

Moreover, in the worldly West, the greyness drains joy and youth: “ never laughed […] He was gray also” (Baum 11). Dorothy, a child, has not yet been infected with this grey and devastating truth that adults have to face. That is the reason why she is able to travel to Oz, where the American Dream is still possible.

From the early beginning and even before its independence, the United States have always been considered as a dreamland. But when The Wizard emerges,

America was already losing all its magic: the frontier had vanished, the American

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Dream was beginning to disintegrate and the ills of capitalist society were appearing.

Baum creates in this manner a sanctuary in the land of Oz, where the myth of

America, no matter if truthful or not, is preserved against all odds and where the

American Dream can prosper in contrast to the reality. This idyllic world is protected by an impassable frontier, the desert, that protects Oz and that ensures that this magical version of America remains as an everlasting dimension.

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5. Conclusions

It has been demonstrated throughout this dissertation that The Wonderful Wizard of

Oz is not a conventional fairy tale, but a quintessentially American one, and this is what makes this children’s work outshine the rest. L. Frank Baum succeeded in his goal by the innovative insertion of American motifs and images as well as by the obliteration of the European tradition in all the facets of his masterpiece. Needless to say, The Wizard contains more elements that contribute to the American tradition than those I have identified here, but a more complete exploration of these traits would have been out of bonds of this academic work.

It is time for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to occupy the place it deserves in

American literature. L. Frank Baum makes the same contribution in children’s literature as America’s bard Walt Whitman does in poetry, for both sang the body electric, both chose to ignore Europe and both saw in the United States “the greatest poem”. His modernized fairy tale shows as much of American behaviour and history as the greatest American novels. Nevertheless, unlike in most of these canonical works, Baum’s initial intention with The Wizard was not to write a paradigmatic

American tale, but to write a story according to his principles. His Americanness is inborn, very much like the Lion’s courage, the Scarecrow’s intelligence or the Tin

Woodman’s emotion, and comes natural in his narrative, creating in consequence, the purest American fantasy.

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