Oz Unveiled: Hidden Messages in the Emerald City

"The Wizard of Oz" Ruby Red Slippers worn by Judy Garland in 1939 are displayed at a viewing at the Plaza Athenee in New York City, on Dec. 5, 2011. (Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images)

What is the Wizard of Oz really about? Buckle up, because interpretations come flying like monkeys on a bender.

We’ve got feminist allegories, Christian parables, Jungian escapades, and theories so obscure they make a pub philosopher sound like a sage.

But let’s grab one that might tickle the fancy of 2024: the idea that it’s a cunning critique of the gold-standard monetary policy of yesteryears, a gem of a notion put forth by the ever-astute educator Henry Littlefield.

The Coinage Act of 1873

In 1873, the Coinage Act caused a political tempest of the gold standard which demonetised silver, whipping the economy into a frenzy and plunging the 1890s into dire straits.

Littlefield suggests the Yellow Brick Road is a gilded metaphor for the gold standard’s path.

Dorothy, our everywoman, is swept up in the economic maelstrom, trudging along the golden trail in her silver slippers—silver currency, that is—to seek an audience with the great and powerful Oz, a stand-in for President William McKinley.

What of Her Companions?

Her ragtag companions, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion, each play their symbolic parts.

The Tin Man, a hollow shell, echoes the plight of industrial workers. The Scarecrow, all straw and no substance, embodies the Western farmers.

Lobby card from the original 1939 release of "The Wizard of Oz" featuring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr. (Public Domain)

And the Cowardly Lion? Perhaps he’s William Jennings Bryan, a roar without teeth, seen by many as all bluster and no backbone.

Toto, that faithful dog, represents the Prohibitionist Party, yapping at the heels of the narrative.

And the Wicked Witch?

The Wicked Witch of the East represents the bankers, while her soggy sister, the Wicked Witch of the West—vanquished by water, no less—stands in for drought.

When Dorothy is whisked off to the Emerald Palace, she’s led through seven passages and up three flights of stairs, a sneaky nod to the Coinage Act of 1873, the spark that lit the fuse of American class conflict.

Laurel Harris as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West in Mirvish's production of the musical "Wicked." (Joan Marcus 2014)

Oz itself stands for ounce, with the Emerald City standing in for the verdant greenback.

Fellow author Ruth Kassinger, in her tome “Gold: From Greek Myth to Computer Chips,” suggests the Wizard is a symbol of the bankers who cling to the gold standard and reject silver.

Dorothy’s silver slippers are her ticket back to Kansas, but she doesn’t realise it—mirroring how the Westerners never grasped that they already had a people’s currency in silver.

Could the Yellow Brick Road Be the Path to Enlightenment?

But if you ask some Christians, they’ll tell you the Yellow Brick Road is the path to enlightenment, dotted with symbols of sin and temptation.

The Emerald City is their heaven, and the Wicked Witch’s watery demise hints at baptism.

Flip that coin, and the atheists come in with their take. The story’s the same yet turned on its head: God—the Wizard—is just a mortal pulling strings behind a curtain. All that spiritual jazz? Smoke and mirrors.

This theory finds more traction in the book than the movie, where Oz is a grand charade, a city only emerald because the Wizard insists everyone wear green glasses.

Christian fundamentalists have even tried to ban the book, scandalised by its suggestion that humanity’s gifts come from within, not from God above.

The mayhem of interpretations is as colourful as a twister sweeping through Kansas.

A Suffragette Allegory?

In the land of Oz, power wears a skirt. Dorothy and the witches hold all the real clout, while the menfolk are a sorry lot—wizards with no magic, lions with no guts, tin men with no hearts, and scarecrows with no smarts.

This isn’t just a fluke.

L. Frank Baum’s mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage, was a heavyweight suffragist, rubbing shoulders with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Her radical feminism seeped into Baum’s veins and, by extension, his Oz tales. Baum himself was no bystander; he was the secretary of his local women’s suffrage club and edited a paper that championed women’s rights.

Or perhaps you could see that the characters in The Wizard of Oz map neatly onto C.G. Jung’s psychoanalytic theories.

Dorothy, our innocent dreamer, is on a journey toward self-actualisation, with her companions representing the stages of the Animus—the male aspect within the female psyche.

The fourth stage, a spiritual guide, is, naturally, the Wizard himself. Glinda, the Good Witch, slots perfectly into the archetype of the mother, Toto is the Trickster, and the Wicked Witch and her flying monkeys embody Jung’s Shadow, the dark, repressed parts of the psyche.

The Glinda Conspiracy

Then there’s the Glinda conspiracy, a deliciously sinister twist.

Some whisper that Glinda the Good Witch is the real villain of Oz. She revels a bit too gleefully in the Wicked Witch of the East’s demise, calling for celebrations and taunting the dead witch’s sister.

Glinda knows the ruby slippers can send Dorothy home but keeps mum, sending the poor girl off to do her dirty work. All so Glinda can rule Oz unchallenged.

However you slice it, the takeaway is clear. There’s no place like home.

Or perhaps the real kicker is that even the greatest and most powerful man might just be a fraud.