Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Political interpretations of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" include treatments of the modern fairy tale (written by L. Frank Baum and first published in 1900) as an allegory or metaphor for the political, economic, and social events of America in the 1890s. Scholars have examined four quite different versions of Oz: the novel of 1900, the Broadway play of 1901, the Hollywood film of 1939, and the numerous follow-up Oz novels written after 1900 by Baum and others. The political interpretations focus on the first three, and emphasize the close relationship between
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910 film) West, who does not appear in the musical. In Kansas, Dorothy and Imogene the cow are chased by a mule, and the farmhands draw their muskets at the beast. Dorothy runs off to their field and discovers that the family scarecrow is alive. The Scarecrow begins to notice a storm building up and hurries the Mule, the Cow, Toto and Dorothy behind a haystack. A tornado appears overhead and carries the haystack away, thus letting it fall into the Land of Oz. In Oz, The Wizard in the Emerald City declares that he is retiring from being the ruler and