Examples Of Allegory In The Wizard Of Oz

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Allegory in ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ with Contrast between ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ and ‘Wizard of Oz’

Tom Kim
Us History Block 1
Dr. Friedman

Numerous stories that target children as their readers contain their authors' ideas or analysis, buried in symbolism, satire, and allegory. Despite the fact that books following such type of literacy had flourished in Europe, one of the most famous allegorical stories had been written in 1900 by an American writer, L. Frank Baum: 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'. Since the book gained fame dramatically, it was created into a screenplay as soon as technology allowed to deliver the beauty of the realm of Oz, in visual formation. However, the movie lacked the allegorical message …show more content…

The most distinctive protagonists should be Dorothy and her three companions: the scarecrow, the tin-man, and the lion. Dorothy represents a common citizen that is willing to support the Free-Silver Act. At the beginning of her journey to the center of politics and economy, the scarecrow and the tin-man joins her, symbolizing the individual farmers and the industrial workers, who mostly supported the Populist Party. On their way, they meet the cowardice lion, who represents William Jennings Bryan, a candidate for presidency who made the famous Cross of Gold speech. However, he was often considered as a cowardice among people, since he was a better orator than an executioner. Chronologically accurate, the groups had joined the Populists and aimed for the presidency. There are other characters that represents certain groups during the Gilded Age. For instance, by reading what the winged monkeys say after they were freed, the reader can infer that those monkeys controlled by the golden cap represent the Native Americans, that were heavily influenced by the flow of economy. On the other hand, the film did not include any unnecessary dialogs that let the readers to finding the

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