SOURCE: Chaston, Joel D. “If I Ever Go Looking for My Heart's Desire: ‘Home’ in Baum's ‘Oz’ Books.” Lion and the Unicorn 18, no. 2 (December 1994): 209-19.

In the following essay, Chaston traces Baum's portrayal of the notion of “home” in his Oz books from the best possible place to a place of confinement and destruction.

At the conclusion of the 1939 MGM motion picture version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy Gale makes a statement that sums up one of the film's major themes. “Oh, but anyway, Toto,” she exclaims, “we're home—home! And this is my room—and you're all here—and I'm not going to leave here ever again, because I love you all! And … oh, Aunt Em, there's no place like home!” (Langley et al. 132) Anyone who has seen this film will remember Judy Garland's countless declarations that she wants to go home again and particularly...