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Title: The Wizard of Oz Archetypes
Fandom: Essay
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: The Wizard of Oz belongs to whoever it is copyrighted to. I wrote the essay.
Notes: Written for 9th grade English. I was half asleep at the time of composition but my teacher thought it was very well thought out.
A timeless classic, The Wizard of Oz has entertained several generations of children for many, many years. It has, in fact, rather firmly embedded itself in out culture, and you would find yourself very hard pressed in trying to find a child who has never heard of The Wizard of Oz. Like most movies – children’s movies especially – The Wizard of Oz is simply packed with archetypes of all shapes and sizes.
Perhaps the most obvious of the archetypes used in The Wizard of Oz is that of color. The movie starts out in black and white with Dorothy in her normal everyday world. After she is whisked away by the twister and lands in Oz, however, the world bursts into vibrant colors, signifying the beginning of her adventures. The first place Dorothy visits is Munchkin land which is drenched in happy, lovely colors and filled with gorgeous foliage. Paired with the picturesque scenery is the Munchkins’ joyous celebration of the death of the wicked Witch of the East and the end to their oppression. As Dorothy’s journey continues, the colors of the scenery continue to display a tendency to mirror the mood of the moment, especially once she enters the Haunted Forest with her companions.
The scenery isn’t the only thing that reflects its characteristics through its colors; often, the characters show their characteristics through their coloring, also. This is most evident in the stark contrast between Glinda, the good Witch of the North, and the wicked Witch of the West. On one hand, we have Glinda who is dressed in pretty pale pinks and silver and travels in a dark pink bubble. On the other hand, the wicked Witch of the West has green skin, wears all black robes, and travels in a red smoke. It is this use of color archetypes that allow a viewer to tell on sight which side each witch is on. In addition to their coloring are the witches’ general appearances. Good tends to be more aesthetically pleasing than evil. Glinda even states, when she first meets Dorothy, that “only bad witches are ugly.”
Besides the blatantly archetypal coloring, many of the characters in The Wizard of Oz fit rather neatly into the various character archetypes. The Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, the members of the motley group that joins Dorothy on her way to Emerald City, are definitely Dorothy’s Loyal Retainers. They are unbelievably loyal to her and are willing to face their respective fears for her sake. They also infiltrate the wicked Witch’s castle rescue Dorothy from the wicked Witch after she is captured. Glinda is either the Good Mother or Earthmother while the wicked Witch of the West is her opposite, the Dark Goddess or Terrible Mother. Similarly, the Wizard of Oz, though seemingly terribly cruel at first, turns out to be the Wise Old Man when he teaches Dorothy and her friends that they are perfectly good and capable as they are.
The Wizard of Oz follows the same general plot as many movies besides it. It is a story of good versus evil, light versus dark. Dorothy is the hero, or heroine in this case, and the events she is put through during her stay at Oz matches up recognizably with the archetypical description of the hero. Dorothy the protagonist is whisked away from her world by some means and dropped off on a new, different world where she sets off on a journey to discover a way to get home. Along the way, she makes several new friends, gains a following of loyal travel companions, and rids the world of some heinous evil. Surely, there are several other movies that follow this general plot.
Though the clutter of various archetypes may cause The Wizard of Oz to seem a little bit corny, what child’s movie isn’t? The obvious presence of archetypes helps the children watching to recognize the different sides that clash throughout the movie.
 Chaotic-Whirlwind · Wed Dec 26, 2007 @ 10:22pm · 1 Comments |
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