The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, (George M. Hill Co., 1900)

Much more than the 1939 MGM film, L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz invites a nihilistic reading in which belief manufactures reality, and no foundation or grounds support a truth beneath the sham that constitutes experience. The story reveals fraud at every turn: a reality built on an empty, vacuous center, and characters forced to embrace paradox to account for their experience.

Dorothy and each of her friends believe that they lack an important personal feature or trait. Because a crow tells the Scarecrow he has no brain, the Scarecrow believes he is unintelligent. Given the tinsmith's construction techniques, the Tin Woodman believes he lacks empathy because he lacks a heart. And, since a lion is supposed to be a fearsome “King of the Beasts,” the Cowardly Lion takes his fear as indicating that he lacks courage. Dorothy wants to go home, and, in the end, she wants power and control over her own life. So, they each seek these things from the great and terrible Oz of Emerald City, who turns out to be just a snake-oil-selling illusionist from Omaha, playing himself off as a powerful wizard.

Repeatedly, we see the affected parties' beliefs about themselves harming their lives, happiness, and the reality they experience. Scarecrow laments,

                “I do not want people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw instead of
                 with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything?”

In a depressed state, the Lion reveals that his cowardliness

                “. . . is my great sorrow and makes my life very unhappy.”

In a more revealing scene, the Tin Woodman cries over the loss of his heart and offers a tacit explanation for why it might seem that he does have a heart. He says,

                “You people with hearts have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no
                 heart, and so I must be very careful.”

Without a heart, the Tin Man must be more diligent than he would have to be if he had the genuine feelings that come with having a heart.

Because of this, they are eager to meet the powerful Oz and have him grant their greatest wishes; unfortunately, Oz turns out to be a disappointment (at least at first). After Toto tips the screen, the mechanism is revealed, and at its center is a sad, quite mundane, ventriloquist. Oz then admits he's a “humbug” with no magical wizardly powers. Eventually, though, Oz fashions up some props for each member of our traveling party. He uses bran mixed with pins and needles for Scarecrow’s brain, a silk bag stuffed with sawdust for Tin Man’s heart, and a liquid concoction for Lion to drink for courage. The friends are thrilled, and in the end, these fake props are what make the Scarecrow intelligent, the Tin Man empathetic, and the Lion brave. The spectacle itself creates the reality.

The Land of Oz is a place where truth, facts, and reality fly loose and depend wholly on the beliefs and ascriptions of the individual and the community in which they are embedded. From the start, the Munchkins and the Witch of the North insist that Dorothy herself must be a sorceress, and from that moment on, they treat her with the respect due a sorceress who has killed the Wicked Witch of the East. In Oz, that attribution means she not only killed the Wicked Witch of the East but also brought a farmer’s scarecrow to life, animated a tin statue, tamed a lion, and killed not one but two powerful witches! Emerald City itself is a reality manufactured by belief. Oz reveals that the city actually isn’t made of emeralds. Rather, the green spectacles affixed to all citizens and visitors upon entry create the city’s greenish beauty. Through those lenses of artifice, reality is created much like brains of bran, sawdust hearts, and drinks of courage create intelligence, empathy, and bravery. The props, beliefs, and attributions are constitutive of the features made real.

But how do Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion square Oz’s fraud with his ability to grant these wishes? After they discover the deception and Oz confesses, they seem to hold contradictory beliefs about his abilities: he is not a powerful wizard who can grant brains, hearts, and courage, and he is a powerful wizard who can grant such things. Regardless, they seem much happier believing the contradictory propositions than any alternative. Taking on the contradiction fits their psychology better than believing they lack an important human feature. One thing to notice is that a contradiction sits much better in a system of beliefs than in a mind-independent reality. As part of a psyche, contradiction takes the form of cognitive dissonance, which is perhaps not ideal but not impossible; however, there is no sense to be made of what might be called ontological contradictions— contradictions inherent in a mind-independent world—they are impossible. So, in a world that is nothing beyond what is believed about it, contradiction and paradox can stand. With that in mind, nihilism itself makes the Land of Oz intelligible and best explains the characters’ actions.