The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Essay | Critical Essay #4

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Critical Essay #4

Dorothy's mythic adventure begins with a magic flight inside a tornado. The psychic need for the life-renewing voyage inside the cyclone can only be understood in reference to the gray, symbolically deficient world of Dorothy's Kansas. Like Jonah in the belly of the whale, Dorothy's transit to Oz is to a world of rebirth symbolized, not only by the whale image, but also by the ambience of the voyage itself. She is carried gently and peacefully —not bludgeoned into unconsciousness as in the movie, but rocked to sleep by the gentle swaying of the house. The journey continues in this way for many hours. At one point, Toto falls through the trap door that used to serve as the entrance to the storm cellar, but Dorothy manages to rescue him by grasping his ears and pulling him back through the door into the safety of her bed. For a moment...
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