Talk:Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz/Archive 1

Archive 1

Incoherent

I found the article incoherent -- it looks like there isn't any kind of consensus on Baum's meanings, just lots of fragments and half-serious suggestions. Isn't an encyclopedia supposed to be about knowledge? Or about some kind of controversy between well-defined positions? 84.75.167.57 (talk) 18:17, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Pseudo-Intellectuals

None of your opinions matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.80.136.172 (talk) 15:03, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

• Meaning that the most likely things is, it's is just a good story with no hidden meaning? Agreed. 213.114.28.141 (talk) 10:12, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Title

First of all, thanks to Rjensen for undertaking this split, in accordance with the consensus reached at Talk:The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This took admirable humility and was very much in the spirit of Wikipedia.

Second, I wonder if the article is at the best title (currently The Wonderful Wizard of Oz--Sources and Meaning). The two hyphens look clumsy (that was originally a typewriter method for making an mdash, and should be obsolete now that we can type "—"). Also, putting "Sources and Meaning" after the title makes the article look like a content fork (hence the merge notice that was briefly on the page). (Although I can see how this page could be interpreted as a content fork, I believe it is a spin-out of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in accordance with the guideline given here.)

I think it would be better to move the page to something like Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which I think is more in keeping with Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles. I'm not committed to that name, but I think the article's name should be something phrased that way. Anyone have any other thoughts? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I don't think the abbreviation "WOZ" is very encyclopedic. Although the book's title is properly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, I think we could refer to it as The Wizard of Oz or Wizard of Oz in subsequent mentions in the article's text, rather than using "WOZ". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it to Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and fixed all the links to the page. I hope you don't mind. While I was at it, I changed a few of the references to make them fit more smoothly in the article: see Emerald City for an example. I hope that I got the details of the interpretation correct. I think it's better to have relevant information presented with a piped link to the larger article than to say "See this article for more details" over and over again — but that's just an aesthetic judgment. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Littlefield points out his theory has "no basis in fact"

From: http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm

In the summer of 1896, the year of the election that would mark what has been called "The Climax of Populism," Baum published a poem in a Chicago newspaper:

{poem}

Hardly the writings of a silverite! Michael Patrick Hearn, the leading scholar on L. Frank Baum, quoted this poem in a recent letter to the New York Times. Hearn wrote that he had found "no evidence that Baum's story is in any way a Populist allegory"; Littlefield's argument, Hearn concluded, "has no basis in fact." A month later, Henry M. Littlefield responded to Hearn's letter, agreeing that "there is no basis in fact to consider Baum a supporter of turn-of-the-century Populist ideology."

I think this needs to be included in the article, Littlefield made a mea culpa (An acknowledgment of a personal error or fault.) I would do it but I would probably just mess it up, since I know little about the subject.Travb 05:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

All the symbolism read into The Wizard of Oz is entirely in the minds of people looking for it and insisting it's there. Baum was a republican, edited a republican paper, supported McKinley and opposed the Populist movement -- he opposed anything that didn't support Woman's Suffrage, which was the one political movement that had his strong support. Littlefield never once even attempted to say the similarities he saw were intentional on Baum's part. Discussions like this one should start with the very clear message that they do not reflect the author's intent or interests.

The Soviet version may have been especially political

Aleksandr Melentyevich Volkov translated Wizard of Oz into Russian and called it "The Magician of the Emerald City". Volkov's rather free translation was first published in 1939 when Stalin had achieved totalitarian control of the Soviet Union. This was in the wake of the draconian collectivisation of agriculture, Stalin's Great Terror when he liquidated the original Bolsheviks who conceivably had the bona fides to challenge his hold on power, and the terror-famine in the Ukraine that very possibly killed more people than Hitler's death camps.

The cyclone (revolution) was not an act of God (inevitable historical event), but the result of a spell cast by the evil witch Gimgena, who incidentally was crushed when Ellie's (Dorothy's) house (changed to a big wagon without wheels in which Ellie and her parents live) lands in Oz. So is Gimgena perhaps the great Lenin who was so instrumental in the Bolshevik putsch that seized power, only to be severely wounded in 1918 when an assassination attempt by the Socialist Revolutionary Fanya Kaplan apparently led to a series of strokes and then Lenin's death in 1924? Or does Gimgena stand for all the old Bolsheviks who had plotted and promoted revolution, only to be crushed by Stalin's machinations?

Volkov added an ogre (cannibal) whose carnivorous tastes had escalated from cattle and horses, to the servants of his castle, and so on to passers-by on the yellow brick road to the emerald city, lured into the ogre's clutches by a sign that read, "all your desires realized here". Good heavens, it's a miracle Volkov didn't get a bullet in the back of his head for that one alone!

And so on, etc. up to the unmasking of the main wizard, who turns out to be quite a disappointment. Really!

Also the language is entirely too advanced for children. My Russian teacher tells me it's about 10th grade level, and I'm encountering plenty of words that aren't in my fairly comprehensive Oxford dictionary at all. So Comrade Volkov may actually have been working in the satirical tradition of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, a tale intended for discerning adults.

Alas, Volkov seems to have overestimated his audience. The book became a bestseller and enjoyed multiple printings. Sequels were written, some based on Baum's subsequent works, other not. Screenplays were written and filmed. Evidently the political subtext was ignored or overlooked and Volkov became a sort of Soviet success story despite himself.

Original research, eh? Let's see... The "Gimgena is Lenin" part would've been quite enough to make both the book and its author quietly disappear back then, so I don't believe that any evidence for that can be found.

The ogre part - heh, hadn't though of it this way. I guess you have to actively look for such things to find them. I think even the most innocent tale can be interpreted to suit one's political orientation if one tries hard enough.

The "unmasking of the main wizard" happens pretty much the same way as in the original Wizard of Oz.

I read the series when I was about 10 the first time. 10th grade? Naah.

Also please note, that all books of this scale were scrutinized for "political/ideological correctness" at the time by "specially trained" people. If it slipped through this scrutinity without even being censored, it's quite likely, that there was nothing there...

The last book (about the aliens) was rather politicized, with the "class struggle" and all, though, but in the opposite direction.

PS: Ogres aren't cannibals - they're not human! :-P --Illythr 11:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Major omission

No mention of Free silver interpretations of the book. I suspect that this should be added before GA status is granted. Don't consider this a failedGA, though, just a heads up. Sorry, I reread the GA criteria and I believe this fails "all major aspects of the topic are addressed." Look in the Free silver article itself though for places to start. I can tell you theres one part where theres and X number of stairs and Y number of doors and XY amounts to some year which corresponds to some event "crime of XY year". Also I think William Jennings Bryan is supposed to be the lion. Sorry I cant help you more, except to say that the Free silver interpretation needs its own section. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 09:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Also there are quite a few of the allegorical examples missing. The witch of the west would have been drought, which is why throwing water on her fixed the problem. The East did not have the same problem with droughts, but had housing shortages, which is why the witch was killed by dropping a house on her. Farmers (scarecrow) could be helped with education (remember this is part of an era in which the farming population was transitioning from 30% to 5% of the population) Lumber shortages could be fixed with oil, and the fix for cowardly lying is courage. The intent of the allegory is open to interpretation, but can anyone possibly doubt that "cowardly lion" being fixed by courage is a pun of some sort on "cowardly lying"?

Original research?

The bulk of this article does not cite sources, and reads like original research. I see that there are a bunch of references listed at the bottom, but it would be helpful to note which sources, if any, support which speculations. 74.67.180.228 03:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

That would indeed immensely help this article. Goldfritha 00:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Possible different meanings?

I was under the impression the wizard was the president and the silver shoes was the silver standard that the populist party fought for in the 1890s

It's similar to what is in the "U.S. monetary policy sources" section. ~ UBeR 18:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Question on U.S. monetary policy references

This article states "the U.S. was operating under a gold standard From 1880 to 1896."

The article Bimetallism states " The 1896 election saw the election of William McKinley who implemented the gold standard ... It was abandoned in 1934..."

So was the gold standard introduced or abandoned in 1896 ?

Dorothy and Theodore

I think it should be noted that rather than a simple switching of the syllables, as is currently posited in the article, Dorothy and Theodore actually have the same two Greek roots in their names, only switched, presumably for "feminizing" effect in Dorothy (the words are δώόρον - "gift", nominative singular and θεου - "of god", genitive singular expressing source). 204.52.215.69 (talk) 08:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The Significance of Omaha

There is a significance to the fact that Omaha appears on the balloon which will take Dorothy back to Kansas. It has nothing to do with geographic proximity though. This is something my history teacher in McCook, Nebraska explained thoroughly, but I was young and new to the state that semester. Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ddperk80 (talk • contribs) 00:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

William Jennings Bryan --the presidential candidate in 1900--was Congressman from Omaha.Rjensen (talk) 20:57, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Sympathy for Native Americans?

Under the Additional Sources section of the original entry, the following content appears and attempts to explore possible interpretations of the flying monkeys: "Baum even displayed an early sympathy for native Americans of the plains, symbolized in the story of the Winged monkeys in the West, whose leader tells Dorothy, 'Once..we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master... This was many years ago, before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land.'"

But while serving as editor for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, Baum wrote scathing and startling indictments of Native Americans, while advocating their genocide. Following the Wounded Knee Massacre, Baum published the following: "The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are."

A follow up editorial ran on January 3, 1891, which urged once again for the extermination of Native Americans: "The PIONEER has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one or more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands."

Given Baum's obvious issues with the race, I find the claim of his sympathy to be either incredibly misunderstood or wholly disingenuous. Many of the other interpretations of the monkeys could be argued favorably. It surprises me, though, that with Baum's affinity for William Jennings Bryan, best known as the opponent of Darwinism in the Scopes Monkey Trail, no connection is made to the monkeys as insidious parodies of the progressive West's promotion of evolution theories. As a populist and devout Methodist, one could make a strong case for Baum refuting the idea of evolution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bretbass (talk • contribs) 17:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Article for your consideration

I found an article was not mentioned in the Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz entry and posted it HERE if editors involved in this page would like to take a look. Saudade7 23:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

here's another: http://www.thebluegrassspecial.com/archive/2009/october2009/ozindianoct09.php Mang (talk) 22:49, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

President McKinley was a Freemason

The article should maybe consider examining whether the Masonic allegiance of President McKinley might be relevant in the whole debate about the political significance of this fable. Many American politicians of that period were trained in the deep symbolism of the Masonic lodges, some of which have traditionally involved magic crafts comparable to the wizardry described in the tale. It also appears that the name Oz is similar to that of Boaz, which was the name of the left one of The Two frontal Columns of Solomon's Temple (the other being Jachin). [1] ADM (talk) 10:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Tribute to Yip Harburg Interview on Democracy Now!

The article suggests that Yip Harburg believed in the theory that The Wizard of Oz was written as a political allegory. The actual interview, with Yip Harburg's son, says nothing of the kind, but rather seems to reflect Ernie Harburg's own understanding of the story. Overall, this article lends too much credence to a theory that unfortunately has very little evidential support. This bias should be removed while retaining an objective summary of an idea that has currency in some economics textbooks and elsewhere. ==

Wiki reports what the experts say, and the article is buttressed by many scholarly articles in history and economics journals. Rjensen (talk) 22:18, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

rewrite

I have done some pretty heavy editing -- I removed things that weren't specifically sourced; the whole thing was heavy on WP:OR and WP:Synth. The cartoons should not be restored unless and until we have WP:RS that cites (for example) this Puck cartoon as specfically imitated in Wizard of Oz, oir this Yellow Kid image as specifically representing Munchkins. The article gave the impression that these theories are given serious credence in litcrit circles. The claimed allegories are now reduced to bullet-points of specific points made by specific writers. Nothing should be brought back that doesn't have such a specific reference. DavidOaks (talk) 19:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

More: I read the interview with Yip Harburg's son -- I don't think it's very strong as proof that the son thought his father was pursuing a conscious political agenda, and as proof of the claim that the father really was following a political agenda, it's bankrupt -- the assertions are modelled on those of Littlefield, twenty-six years after the film, sixty-four years after the novel, but decades bef9ore the interview -- in short, there's some retrospectivity going on. The whole topic is really affected by a powerful urge to believe something really counter-intuitive. DavidOaks (talk) 21:59, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

DavidOaks wants to erase years worth of progress on this article for vague reasons--he erased scores of citations to RS that document each point. He makes the misleading assertion that the article gave the impression that these theories are given serious credence in litcrit circles. In fact the theories are given serious credence by historians and economists, as demonstrated by the bibliography that lists many scholarly journal articles. If DavidOaks wants to question specific points, this is the page to raise those questions, not wholesale erasure of a third of the article. Rjensen (talk) 02:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Mere accumulation is not a reason to retain anything. The deletions were discussed. By all means, discuss some more. Anyone should feel free to restore any particular item provided it's done with specific documentation that the claim is made by a WP:RS. An encyclopedia article on this subject needs to identify the subject, convey an understanding of it, and communicate its status. This article went beyond reporting what had been claimed to advancing the argument, and did not make it clear that, while it has gotten a lot of pop culture play, it's strictly fringe (essentially a scholarly urban legend). It is not appropriate to elaborate the points of allegory until we have effectively plagiarized all articles on the subject. It would be perfectly approriate to bring forward a WP:RS that says "this theory is generally regarded by economists/historians/literary critics as valid. The body of responsible scholarly opinion holds that Baum was creating an occult allegory of politics and monetary policy." At present, we have a number of sources saying rather the opposite. (here's[2] one more) DavidOaks (talk) 14:07, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

on the one hand you have private websites, like the last one just cited by DavidOaks, which is a website run by their an obscure Oz fan named Jane Albright, and on the other you have dozens of articles in refereed journals in history, economics, and American studies by university professors. DavidOaks now announces that the latter are "strictly fringe" --a conclusion that violates the basic Wikipedia policies of RS and reliance on published secondary scholarly sources.Rjensen (talk) 19:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

If you don't like the sources the NYT uses, take it up with them. I didn't put it in the article, anyhow. Do feel free to bring forward the WP:RS that says explicitly that the community of scholars generally agrees that Baum consciously intended to produce an anti-silver (or pro-silver?) tract and for some bizarre reason inflicted it upon children. Actually, he denied any intention beyond the entertainment of kids: “The story of ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ was written solely to pleasure children of today” (Dighe 2002, 42).

Now: I have pretty much finished the re-write. You will find that much of the good hard work you have contributed over a long time has been retained. Most of your scholars -- historians, economists -- are still there. What changed: the article now makes it clear, using the best sources, that while interpretations have proliferated, from Littlefield onward there has never been a body of responsible scholarly opinion crediting the allegorical intention to Baum. Specific deletions included those things that were not explicitly tied to a WP:RS. For example, referring to the little people in the "Yellow Kid" panel -- was that the act of a specific scholar in a specific journal we can cite? Juxtaposing images of farm-women with cyclones or farm-men hung on posts -- was the similarity of imagery noted by a scholar, and did that scholar ascribe the similarity to allegorical intention? If so, the images belong, with the citations. If not, they are WP:OR and WP:Synth. DavidOaks (talk) 20:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

the New York Times interviewed a fan so DavidOakes cites her personal website as a reliable source--very dubious indeed. The article does NOT claim that "explcitily the communicty of scholars generally agrees that Baum consciously intended to produce an anti-silver (or pro-silver?) tract and for some bizarre reason inflicted it upon children." That is a red herring that is not in the article. Of course the book was a joint project with the illustrator Denslow, and much of what DavidOaks seems to dislike is the illustrations. Historians have long explored the imagery of politics--there is a full length scholarly book on the history of the Tin Man. Historians have also shown that Baum and Denslow were deeply embedded in the politics of the 1890s--Baum as the editor of a political newspaper that gave a great deal; of attention to gold and silver, and Denslow as the full time political cartoonist for a Chicago daily. Their Broadway Oz musical was full of explicit politics, as historians have proven. Scholars have likewise discussed the images of the hick farmer, the malevolent wizard, the naive child, and the wanderer. Rjensen (talk) 20:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

As I keep saying, go right ahead. Just provide the citation for each and every image included, that specifically identifies THIS particular image from Puck, THIS particular panel of the "Yellow Kid" as a deliberate reference to the Wizard of Oz -- rather than, for example, a given Wikipedia editor's having noticed the similarity and including it as an illustration of how such ideas were sort of "in the air" at the time. I understand that historians have long explored imagery in politics. But this isn't the place for such exploration. It's appropriate to report the very specific results of such exploration as previously published, not to provide one's own similar investigations. Did a specific scholar in a specific journal discuss THIS image of a hick farmer and connect it to Wizard of Oz? Now, as to WP:RS, one of the most heavily used here is Quentin Taylor's paper on a private website. Taylor's credentials are in order, and so his contibutions should probably stand, but that website is hardly a juried journal. DavidOaks (talk) 20:45, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Despite warning, you persisted in a mass reversion of numerouus edits. You are now in violation of the WP:3rr policy. DavidOaks (talk) 20:56, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you were the one who suggested we take it in steps, which I am trying to do. Rjensen (talk) 20:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

this diff[3] is pretty clearly a mass reversion. For the sake of WP:GF let me try again: do your citations one or two or three at a time, not going back to the version of the page you last liked. DavidOaks (talk) 21:01, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that it should go one step at a time. Since you were the one who made mass removals without any discussion on the talk page, I think we should start with the most recent long version and them you make one specific change and wait a couple hours for comments before making the next one. Agreed? Rjensen (talk) 21:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

As I said, I feel that the rewrite is complete. I think we should perhaps let others look at this diff[:::this diff[4] and weigh in on what needs to be brought back. But if you want to bring something back, I just ask that you provide a specific citation. Did a specific scholar in a specific journal say that the farmer on the post and the scarecrow on the post were consciously linked? THATR'S what we need, for each claim. Otherwise we have an essay, however estimable, but not an encyclopedia article. DavidOaks (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree we should cool off for a day or so and let other people weigh in. When we are talking about the 1890s image of the farmer-as-hick, or the tin-woodman, we need illustrations from the 1890s that show the farmer's image and the tin woodman's image. The article of course is about "Political interpretations" Rjensen (talk) 21:20, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh no that's not how Wikipedia works. If the topic of the section is farmer-as-hick in 1890s, then an illustration from the 1890s that shows the farmer-as-hick is relevant to the discussion. The argument is that Denslow used the widespread image of the farmer-as-hick, which appeared in many cartoons and editorials, to create a farmer-without-brains character.Wendell Barry, for example, shows how these images are used politically: " The image of the farmer as the salt of the earth, independent son of the soil, and child of nature is a sort of lantern slide projected over the image of the farmer as simpleton, hick, or redneck." ["The Prejudice against Country People" The Progressive Volume: 66. Issue: 4. 2002. p 23] Rjensen (talk) 21:42, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

A very simple, direct question: Did Wendell Barry show the particular image of the farmer- as-hick used in this wikipedia article, and explicitly, specifically compare it to the image from Denslow which was used in this wikipedia article? If so, then we are reporting his argument. If the images were supplied by some wikipedia editor, we are forwarding WP:OR. It's that simple. Another version of the same question: Did Outcault use the term "munchkin" in connection with this particular panel of the Yellow Kid? Did another scholar use that term? Or was it the interpretive gesture, i.e., WP:OR of a wikipedia editor? DavidOaks (talk) 16:35, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) No. This IS how Wikipedia works: when scholar X makes a controversial claim, we define the claim, and report it as controversial in the lead, including current consensus, if any. In the body, we typically trace the origins of the controversy; we report that claim and the evidence scholar X advanced for it. We report the contributions of supporters and detractors, including their evidence, always observing WP:Undue, and careful as well to remain in summary mode -- we're not trying to bring forward everything anyone ever said about a given subject. We do not go out and find illustrations that support the claims made by scholar x (nor the counterclaims made by x's opponents). That's WP:Synth and WP:OR -- please review these fundametal, core policies. DavidOaks (talk) 22:16, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Baum's sources

Scholars have emphasized that Baum had significant, rich experiences that he used in his books. For example: "His fourteen months as a newspaper editor also gave the author an unparalleled opportunity to examine, talk about, critique, and satirize the concepts and issues of the 1890s. The rich stew of ideas that critics claim underlies the story line of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and his other Oz books (for example, the regionalism of America, the radical politics of the Great Plains, Theosophy, technological progress, monetary reform, women's rights, utopianism) originally bubbled throughout the pages of the Pioneer [newspaper], receiving satirical treatment in the "Our Landlady" columns or serious explication on the editorial page. From these beginnings Baum went on to craft his fairyland of Oz, leaving the misery of Dakota behind."[quoting Nancy Tystad Koupal in Our Landlady (University of Nebraska Press. 1996. Page 173). Rjensen (talk) 21:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

What purpose does the passage serve? Does Koupal go on to identify any particular items? If so, include those. Or does it just kind of affirm that there could be a lot of satire there, since after all, Baum lived in a certain time and place? What writer does not live in a time, and therefore have "significant, rich experiences" to use in books, "unparalleled opportunity to examine, talk about, critique, and satirize the concepts and issues of " whatever time the writer happens to live in? If the passaage is used as the introduction to a section of WP:OR and a rhetorical carte-blanche to bring in anything from the period as allegorical fodder, without specific citation to a specific scholar, once again, it's WP:Synth. DavidOaks (talk) 22:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Koupal made the synthesis in a RS and Wikipedia reports it. She explicitly mentions the themes of "regionalism of America, the radical politics of the Great Plains, Theosophy, technological progress, monetary reform, women's rights, utopianism" and she gives concrete examples of each throughout her book. on Utopia, for example, she writes, 'Edward Wagenknecht in Utopia Americana (1929) was the first to point out that Baum's fairyland of Oz was uniquely American and to note that Baum's "fancy plays about and transforms not things that he has seen but things he has read about."' [Koupal p 16]. Likewise she details Baum's comments on the silver and gold issue, which he wrote about often. [pages x, 131, 133, 232, 238, 244, etc]

My question was about the rhetorical use you see for this synthesis. It could be used to introduce the existing list of allegorical claims. It cannot be used to introduce a list of observations and illustrations not directly and specifically cited to WP:RSs. DavidOaks (talk) 23:42, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Many leading scholars endorse the political interpretation

A nagging question here is whether the interpretation and is a fringe theory, which is the basis of DavidOaks reverts, or is accepted by scholars. Here is evidence that is accepted in numerous mainstream scholarly studies and textbooks: 1) The Challenge of Democracy: Government in America by professors Kenneth Janda, Jeffrey M. Berry, Jerry Goldman (9th edition 2006) pp 237-38, a full two-page spread in a leading political science textbook; 2) Principles of economics (4th edition 2007) by Professor N. Gregory Mankiw - pp 681-2 says "The story is actually an allegory about US monetary policy in the late 19th century" and gives the full detailed analysis; 3) Economics (2007 by Roger A. Arnold - Page 248 says "Baum blamed the gold standard for the hardships faced by farmers and workers"; 4) the story is also given in International economics: theory & policy (8th ed. 2008) by Paul R. Krugman and Maurice Obstfeld - Krugman, a Princeton professor, won the Nobel Prize in economics; 5) famous economist Milton Friedman endorses the interpretation, in "Milton Friedman on Economics: Selected Papers (2008); 6) Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson in The Cash Nexus: Money and power in the modern world (2001) uses the interpretation to introduce a section on the gold standard noting "few devotees of the classic Judy Garland movie are aware that the original 1900 book by Frank Baum was in part a satire on America's entry into the gold standard." (p 328). Rjensen (talk) 23:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

In general, a textbook does not count in academic circles as a juried publication, and I have never, ever seen one advanced in a scholarly article to settle a dispute. Now, a secondary question is whether these scholars mention the allegory, or endorse it as intentional on Baum's part. We'd need quotes for that. But above all else, I'm looking for the literary critical analyses that you would expect to be prominent when we're talking about a work of literature. I haven't found such an endorsement. Thus far, I see affirmation of the thing as a jeu d'esprit, a pons asinorum, a parlor game and and teaching device[5]. Please bring these forward. DavidOaks (talk) 23:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Here's what I find: Katherine M. Rogers, in a Johns Hopkins UP volume, calls Littlefield’s thesis a “flagrant misreading” even while acknowledging the legs this bizarre idea has had. (Rogers, Katharine M. L. Frank Baum's World of Oz: A Classic Series at 100 (review)

The Lion and the Unicorn - Volume 28, Number 2, April 2004, pp. 321-323) [6] Mark Steyn has some standing in litcrit circles; here’s what he has to say about Littlefield: “Whatever. By that stage, Oz was such a cultural touchstone that anyone could find an angle on it. (Print edition: The New Criterion 22, no. 4 (2003): 65.)[ http://bowman.typepad.com/cubowman/the_new_criterion/] The theory is "fringe" within litcrit circles. As a campfire story for nonspecialists, a bit of pop culture, have at it.DavidOaks (talk) 00:01, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

actually textbooks represent the consensus of scholars in a field. They do not introduce new material but teach students what the profession believes. The economics and history and American Studies professions are on record are supporting the interpretation, regardless of its status in the lit-crit world (where DavidOaks has found one rejection). Wikipedia rules are clear: when major interpretations are widely endorsed they must be included. Here are some more cites by established scholars (not in texbooks): 1) Milton Friedman in Milton Friedman on Economics: Selected Papers (2008); 2) Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson in The Cash Nexus: Money and power in the modern world (2001) uses the interpretation to introduce a section on the gold standard noting "few devotees of the classic Judy Garland movie are aware that the original 1900 book by Frank Baum was in part a satire on America's entry into the gold standard." (p 328); 3) A history of money: from AD 800 by John F. Chown (1994) "It has been argued, persuasively, that 'The Wizard of Oz' is really an allegory of money" Page 91; 4) The history of money: from sandstone to cyberspace by J. McIver Weatherford (1997) "Taking great literary license, he summarized and satirized the monetary debate and history of the era'... He was the Wizard of the Gold Ounce — abbreviated, of course, to "Wizard of Oz" and the Munchkins were the Simpleminded people of the East" p 176; 4) American Portraits: Biographies in United States History: Volume 2 by Stephen G. Weisner, William F. Hartford (2001) "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is an allegory of the silver movement that inflamed the prairies P 54; 5) Years of decision: American politics in the 1890s (1993) by R. Hal Williams: the book is "an enduring allegory of the silver movement" p 105; 6) Routledge encyclopedia of international political economy (2001) by R. J. Barry Jones: "However, the silver issue and Bryan's contribution to the debate left an indelible mark on American political culture. An entertaining example is L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. The book was written as a thinly veiled allegory." Vol 1 p. 273; 7) Populism: the humane preference in America, 1890-1900 (1991) by Gene Clanton p. 149-50; 8) Finding Oz: how L. Frank Baum discovered the great American story (2009) by Evan I. Schwartz - "The Yellow Brick Road represents the gold standard, and Dorothy's silver slippers represent the Populist effort to use silver" p 311 Rjensen (talk) 00:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

No, those are sidebars in textbooks devoted to much broader subjects. One more time: citations from textbooks are never deployed as arguments -- the scholar who did so would never live it down. These particular ones are not written by experts on the field at hand, nor are the texts focussed studies on the subject we're dealing with. By your logic, the findings of New Historicist literary critics and Lacanian textual theorists as reported inthe MLA guide to literary criticism must prevail over those of senior historians and practitioners of clinical psychology writing focussed studies in field journals on specific questions; what we have here is NOT a historical question, not an economic question, but a literary critical question. The evidence for Littlefield's finding is not there, Littlefield said as much, and the few, dismissive responses from literary historians probably indicate that the field doesn't see it as worth bothering about -- astronomers don't spend a lot of time on flat earth theories. Having said all that, it's time for others to weigh in, perhaps assessing this diff[7] not as a stark choice so much as a rough indication of which way the article should go. I think the current version shows that the allegories have become a cottage industry, an urban legend, a parlor game (all citable descriptions) that has wide credence but no status as serious literary history. I think the article should convey that clearly. DavidOaks (talk) 14:07, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

No Evidence It's Taken Seriously Except as a Pedagogical Device and By Nonspecialists in Literature

The treatment of Littlefield in Children's literature and the fin de siècle By Roderick McGillis, (International Research Society for Children's Literature. Congress, International Research Society for Children's Literature, Children's Literature Association (U.S.) p.157) amounts to a mention of his treatment of Dorothy as “Miss Everyman.” The theory just doesn’t count for much. A specialist in science fiction and fantasy writes: “biographical information shows that it is unlikely that Baum had any such allegorical intention.” (The Wizardry of OzR Berman - Science Fiction Studies, 2003)

Certainly people think about all kinds of things in connection with literature. While I do not have JSTOR access where I presently sit, I found articles that treat Oz as a homoerotic fantasy, as a model for the Soviet aviation industry, as an allegory of cannibalism… A mythographer I don’t admire all that much, but a specialist nonetheless, Jack Zipes, says Littlefield got it exactly backwards: Baum’s work actually dismisses the American male model of socialization based on commercial competition in favor of a feminist utopia (Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. NY 1983, rpt Methuen 1988 121-31)

Our job here is not to validate theories, but to represent the field. It is possible for a teacher of economics, writing in a journal on teaching economics, to think about economics in connection with Shakespeare (Kish-Goodling, DM 1998. Using The Merchant of Venice in teaching monetary economics. Journal of Economic Education 29 (Fall): 330–39) but literary critics do not agree that it’s primarily about that; the more elaborate and therefore controlling the allegoresis, the less credible it becomes.

But, conceding your position for the moment, here’s a recent study by a specialist in economic education that says in fact the thesis is bogus: (The Journal of Economic Education Volume 33, Number 3 / Summer 2002 Pages: 254 - 264 The Fable of the Allegory: The Wizard of Oz in Economics Bradley A. Hansen) Abstract: L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has become popular as a teaching tool in economics. It has been argued that it was written as an allegory of Populist demands for a bimetallic monetary system in the late 19th century. The author argues that Baum was not sympathetic to Populist views and did not write the story as a monetary allegory.

Even one of your key sources doesn’t believe it: (The Journal of Economic Education Volume 38, Number 3 / Summer 2007 Pages: 318 - 324 The Fable of the Allegory: The Wizard of Oz in Economics: Ranjit S. Dighe) Abstract: “Although recent research strongly suggests that L. Frank Baum did not write The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a monetary or political allegory, the Populist-parable interpretation of his book remains a tremendous teaching tool in economics classes.” “ In his book, Dighe writes: “Baum left behind no concrete evidence that he wrote the book as a political allegory, and, as far as we can tell, virtually nobody read it as one until more than sixty years later, when Henry Littlefield's "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism" was published in 1964. ...”

It seems to me conclusive that claims of authorial intention for the allegory have been soundly defeated, rejected even by those who writings were advanced in its favor. DavidOaks (talk) 16:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

There certainly has been enormous debate on each point, and the consensus is that Littlefield misunderstood Baum as being pro-Populist. He was anti-Populist and the novel is a dystopia, not a utopia--it is a place of slavery, oppreession and near-death for the people and the heroes, and Dorothy wants to get out. DavidOaks seems to favor one side of the debates and wants to downplay the many RS that he disagfrees with. As for authorial intent, the article does not say Baum and Denslow set out to create a monetary allegory, it says that they set out to crate a "modern" fairy tale and the result closely fit the political events of the 1890s era in which they were immersed. Rjensen (talk) 17:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You seem to know more than I do about what "side" I favor. I think the consensus narrative, which is easily sustainable with WP:RS's, most amply supplied, runs something like this: a gifted teacher came up with a novel way to teach a complex phase of political an economic history. The game turned out to have broad appeal and attracted many other players. Some, especially in fields outside of literarry criticism and history, seem to have seriously attributed allegorical intent to Baum, though the principals have explicitly acknowledged that there is no such evidence. Now, in the absence of any affirmation of the interpretation's being validated by authorial intent, postmodernism aside (according to which there's no such need, all interpretaations which make sense to a given person being equally valid for that person), this interpretation achieves precisely the same status as the drug-references supposedly embedded in Puff the Magic Dragon, or all the nonsense flung around beery dorm-rooms about the real meaning of "Stairway to Heaven" and "Bye Bye Miss American Pie." What you've got here is an article on a pop culture phenom, a scholarly urban legend right in there with fifteen (twenty? fifty?) Eskimo words for "snow." DavidOaks (talk) 20:16, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

yes your ridicule is pretty thick, and mislaced. Baum was a humorist and the standard for interpreting the author's intentions in a children's book had been set by Mark Twain, who began The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) with a "Notice": "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." Rjensen (talk) 04:35, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't get your point here. I'm not intending ridicule concerning anything, and I would not know how to apply Twain's sally in an encyclopedia article. I have asked a number of very specific questions about what material you want to include and what exact sources can be found for it (explicit references by WP:RS's connecting particular images not by Denslow explcitly with Wizard of Oz, for instance). DavidOaks (talk) 15:08, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

The "refutations" focus on Litchfield's 1965 article, which did indeed get a key element all wrong. he assumed Baum was pro-Populist--oh no: Baum was a McKinley republican who wrote in favor of gold in 1896. The parable is a utopia gone wrong--the wonderful world of oz is hell, ruled by evil witches, & a cunning politician. The good people (Munchkins, Tin Woodman, Scarecrow--and Dorothy once she gets captured) are slaves, and the good witches are not much help . (The good witch of the North gives very bad advice--she sends Dorothy to the Wizard because she mistakenly thinks the Wizard is really powerful and does not realize he is a fraud.) Once you get beyond Litchfield's mistake, the "refutations" vanish. Rjensen (talk) 15:08, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

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Blatantly ignoring what Baum himself said about his work

Shouldn't there be a note here that Baum himself said, in the foreward of the first Oz book, that he didn't intend for the book to be anything more than entertainment for children? Wouldn't that thwart every one of these pseudo-intellectual hypotheses? 108.201.132.180 (talk) 14:49, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. All that really matters in the end is that the author never intended for it to be anything more than a fantasy children's book. It's not like Kids understand things like the "gold standard" and other monetary policies, or much about politics in general.2600:1700:EDC0:3E80:60DD:FE:8C3A:DE34 (talk) 18:31, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Alternative interpretation related to Williams Jennings Bryan's campaign

I wanted to share with the authors of this page an alternative political interpretation I recently came across. Although similar to what is already discussed on the page about the role of populism and silver, this author describes the book as a parable for the presidential campaigns of William Jennings Bryan. Specifically, the characters represent classes of people (Wicked Witches as bankers, Scarecrow as farmers, Lion as politicians, etc.) and OZ is an abbreviation for "ounce", among others. The author cites all of his research when he proposes this interpretation so this may be a source and an interpretation worth exploring further. My source is <Graeber, David. (2011). Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Brooklyn: New York: Melville House Publishing. 52-53. /> Hope you find this is useful! IteInflammateOmnia (talk) 04:32, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Two or three?

Hello, thanks for this interesting article. I stumbled over the following:

"In 1993, W. Geoffrey Seeley recast the story as an exercise in treachery, suggesting the supposed "Good Witch Glinda" used an innocent, ignorant patsy (Dorothy) to overthrow both her own sister witch (Witch of the West) and the Wizard of Oz, leaving herself as undisputed master [...]. She even showed her truest "Machiavellian brilliance" by allowing the story to be entitled after the weakest of her three opponents."

So Glinda has three opponents: her sister and the Wizard, and...? Ziko (talk) 14:27, 8 July 2020 (UTC)