Sometimes ignorance is bliss, but most often it prevents us from discovering who we truly are. As we grow in knowledge of ourselves and the world around us, we gain wisdom which allows us to become better human beings.
The Wax Wakes
In Mr. Floman’s department store, a mannequin stands in the front window, wearing a beautiful dress, and holds a sign which says: “RARE BARGIN! This Stylish Costume (Imported from Paris) Former Price, $20, REDUCED TO ONLY $19.98.”One day, the mischievous fairy Tanko-Mankie the Yellow Ryl flies down and brings this wax figure to life. As the dummy gains consciousness, she sees a crowd of women on the street looking at her. They crowd around the glass to look at the display.
As the dummy ponders her existence, the store closes and she is left alone with her thoughts. She wonders “who she is, where she is, and how she happens to be alive.” She is like an infant newly born.
The Wax Walks
In the morning, when the janitor opens the store doors, the wax woman strides out into the world for the first time. Outside, she tries to imitate the people around her, for she believes that “her evident duty is to mix with the world and do whatever other folks [do].”She sees people enter restaurants, so she does the same as “ignorance gives her a confidence in herself that she is not justly entitled to.” Inside the restaurant, she mistakenly copies those around her and orders “coffee n' rolls.” The hot coffee blisters her waxen lips and leaks through her wooden ribs. Startled by this, the dummy hurries out of the restaurant without paying.
Continuing down the street, the dummy meets a newspaper boy. He offers her a newspaper, but she does not know what it is for and cannot read. He asks her if she has gone to school, and she responds by asking what school is. “Say!” The newspaper boy cries, “ye’r just a dummy, that’s wot ye are!”
The more people the dummy interacts with, the more she realizes that she is different. Despite all of her attempts to fit in, her ignorance eventually leads her to danger.
Through this story, Baum demonstrates not only the importance of knowledge and instruction, but also the need for the wise to have patience with those who are ignorant.
Baum echoes Thomas More’s words in “Utopia”: “For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”
Some people think that a physical body is the most important part of a human being. Not so. One is only fully human with a body, mind, and spirit; then a person must be raised with care and taught well. Only then can one live, learn, and thrive in society, as one poor store mannequin discovered too late.
