Talk:Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
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This article was nominated for deletion on 2007-11-17. The result of the discussion was Keep. |
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Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: April 16, 2006 |
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[edit] 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)
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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)
[edit] y so many spaces?
theres HUGE spaces between many paragraphs..
- Maybe your browser isn't interpreting the pictures correctly? Please dont type in shorthand and remember to sign with four tildes (~) Pogo 06:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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 ?
[edit] 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)
