Publisher's Synopsis
Perspective and Narrator
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz brings the reader through a third-person point of view through the use of an accompanying narrator. Themes of home, journeying and hidden strength are expounded on through the use of the third-person narrator.
About the Title
The book puts the focus on Dorothy, an orphaned girl who is the main character and frequently seeks the advice of the wonderful wizard thus making the wizard an essential character. In the end, Dorothy discovered the man was just an ordinary person with a wonderful heart but not a wizard as many people in Oz think.
"The wonderful wizard of Oz" is a beautiful story and the author himself defined it as a modern fairytale. We have to keep in mind that even though it has been more than a hundred years since this book was published it still carries the name of a modern fairytale. It was published around the time that the Grimm brothers and Charles Perrault were publishing and even then it was different from all the other fairytales.
While he was writing the book, the author thought that the kids need a story with no ghosts, fairies, or any scary events. He wanted to entertain the children and keep the book full of joy and without sadness. He stated that in the preface of the book.
In every modern fairytale, the author follows his idea and gets a lot of poeticism and joy into the story, and leaves out the cruelty and sadness.
In this book, we will meet the Wicked Witch from the East and one from the West but instead of being scary, they are funny.
The book has a lot of positive characters such as Dorothy and her friends Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Woodman. They represent three very important characteristics such as courage, wisdom, and sensitivity. The witches are divided into the good ones and the bad ones.
Even though the author wanted to entertain the kids this book carries a moral lesson. Everything that we admire can be found in ourselves and we just need to know how to recognize it. The author tries to tell us that we can do miracles every single day even if they are small because the small things make life real. Besides all of that, it is important not to be selfish because together we can find the true meaning of life.
