Post by curlitop on Apr 19, 2005 22:23:14 GMT -5
www.llewellyn.com/archive/fate/25/
Dorothy's Progress: The Wizard of Oz as Spiritual Allegory
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of a children’s book-The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. And 1999 was the sixtieth year since the release of the motion picture based on the book starring Judy Garland. Baum went on to write a total of 14 books about Oz before he died in 1919. All of these books are still in print. At this moment, an amusement park based primarily on the movie is being built in Kansas. We might be curious about what accounts for the continued popularity of this fantasy over a period of a century. Other children’s books published around the same time, including a few of Baum’s, have languished into obscurity. What’s special about The Wizard? Obviously, the story appeals to a wide spectrum of people of all ages and has continued to do so for a good long while. It takes more than just a good fairy tale or even Madison Avenue hucksterism to achieve this popularity. There’s more here than meets the eye. Almost everyone is familiar with the outlines of the tale. That fact alone attests to the universal-dare I say “mythical”-nature of the story. The story begins when Dorothy, a little Kansas girl, is carried away by a cyclone. She soon arrives in another world altogether-the magical fairyland of Oz. So far, this sounds like an allegory of death and transfiguration. The tale then follows the classic lines of the archetypal hero myth as outlined some years ago by Joseph Campbell: She receives help from a goddess-like being (the Good Witch of the North), meets several companions, and finally defeats the Wicked Witch of the West. At last, she returns to Kansas with a wisdom she did not possess before she left. This new knowledge is represented in the movie in a rather watered-down form as “There’s no place like home.” Of course, both the book and the movie stress that you already possess whatever your heart desires-be it a brain, a heart, courage, or a trip back home-it’s “right in your own backyard.” This sounds an awfully lot like the doctrine of the mystics of several religions that you are already spiritually fulfilled; you just have to open your eyes and realize it. Tat tvam asi-“You are it.”<br>
Dorothy's Progress: The Wizard of Oz as Spiritual Allegory
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of a children’s book-The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. And 1999 was the sixtieth year since the release of the motion picture based on the book starring Judy Garland. Baum went on to write a total of 14 books about Oz before he died in 1919. All of these books are still in print. At this moment, an amusement park based primarily on the movie is being built in Kansas. We might be curious about what accounts for the continued popularity of this fantasy over a period of a century. Other children’s books published around the same time, including a few of Baum’s, have languished into obscurity. What’s special about The Wizard? Obviously, the story appeals to a wide spectrum of people of all ages and has continued to do so for a good long while. It takes more than just a good fairy tale or even Madison Avenue hucksterism to achieve this popularity. There’s more here than meets the eye. Almost everyone is familiar with the outlines of the tale. That fact alone attests to the universal-dare I say “mythical”-nature of the story. The story begins when Dorothy, a little Kansas girl, is carried away by a cyclone. She soon arrives in another world altogether-the magical fairyland of Oz. So far, this sounds like an allegory of death and transfiguration. The tale then follows the classic lines of the archetypal hero myth as outlined some years ago by Joseph Campbell: She receives help from a goddess-like being (the Good Witch of the North), meets several companions, and finally defeats the Wicked Witch of the West. At last, she returns to Kansas with a wisdom she did not possess before she left. This new knowledge is represented in the movie in a rather watered-down form as “There’s no place like home.” Of course, both the book and the movie stress that you already possess whatever your heart desires-be it a brain, a heart, courage, or a trip back home-it’s “right in your own backyard.” This sounds an awfully lot like the doctrine of the mystics of several religions that you are already spiritually fulfilled; you just have to open your eyes and realize it. Tat tvam asi-“You are it.”<br>