Since its first debut in 1900, The Wizard of Oz has become a well known classic in American literature. While most people today opt in for just watching the movie, the book holds so much more culture and information. Comparing the novel to the movie, I think that the movie does a great job of interpreting the way use author describes Kansas to the way he describes the Land of Oz. To depict this, the movie shows Kansas in black and white and when Dorothy enters Oz, the movie switches to color, which was a total coincidence at the time because that’s when color television first came out and they thought it would just make a great edition to the movie. In The Wizard of Oz, the interpretation of the imagery described my the author plays a big part in how we understand the story being told. Again, comparing it to the original movie, by using both black and white, and color imaging, there is an emphasis on the wonders and magical-ness of Oz. Also, it is interesting to know that throughout the many republications of The Wizard of Oz, there have been countless illustrations drawn for the novel. I think that’s really interesting considering that other novels such as Alice in Wonderland and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer still use their original illustrations. The original illustrations for the Wizard of Oz were drawn by W.W. Denslow, now you seldom see the original illustrations. The original illustrations were also printed in green and red because at that time It was very expensive to print in full color. Each different illustration or image that we see impacts our own perspective and interpretation of the novel itself, so it would be interesting to do more research as to why there are so many different versions of the illustrations.
Monthly Archives: November 2014
My Thoughts on “Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?”
In Ursula K. Le Guin’s chapter, “Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” in her book, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, I felt that I could see some of what she was saying contrary to what the author of the previous post before my post believes. Le Guin said that the people who reject fantasy books are usually those who are over 30, working, and male. I kind of see this with the older men in the country or just the more serious people. I have a friend who only reads books that benefits him. He’s serious in character and is always trying to improve himself and become successful in his career. He’s what some may call a workaholic. He does try to be sociable sometimes but I find that I have a hard time talking to him because he’s usually only talking about work and school. Another person I once met also seemed kind of rigid and only focused on work. He was my interviewer and when he asked if I read any books, I told him I was currently reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. It’s a fantasy series and at the time I was so interested in it that I was glad when he asked me what it was about but as I continued to talk about it, I felt he lost interest in our conversation and he quickly changed the topic. I feel that people who don’t like fantasy are hard to connect with.
However, although I kind of see what Le Guin was getting at when she talked about males over 30 and working, I also see that our people are slowly changing. I think her statement of males over 30 was probably just to encompass those who were working, trying to provide for a family, and with little free time to relax as they probably had to worry about bills and life. It was an attempt to make a label for the group of people she was talking about but it wasn’t a label that should be set in stone. Today, I have many friends who are male that also love to read fantasy or write/produce videos based solely on their imagination or inspiration gained from other fantastic things. So as the males in my generation grows and later on becomes the males over 30 that Le Guin was talking about, I think more of her labelled people will start to separate themselves from her label.
Also, as a side thing, I think it’s kind of questionable that she claimed males would watch things that they assured themselves were realistic such as cowboys, in order to not be caught watching or reading fantasy books with dragons and such. Because maybe they just really do have a different taste in fantasy. My dad likes to watch stuff with wars. Maybe they like it because it’s easier for them to understand or they don’t like the more farfetched fantasy with magic. Everyone has different tastes in fantasy.
My Qualms with “Why Are American’s Afraid of Dragons?”
I sit here looking to add substance to my blog about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by reading Ursula LeGuin’s “Why are American’s Afraid of Dragons”, but find myself basically snubbed by her assumptions within the essay and am now more inclined to talk about that than anything else. I took this class because by plan is to someday write for children’s television shows someday, so taking a children’s literature course was kind of obvious. However, I never developed my love for writing from books (in fact I really don’t like to read at all), instead it came from television. To this day I’d rather see the new episode of Once Upon a Time on ABC, rather than watch the Jets lost another game during the football season. I’ve read graphic novels and comics since I was a kid and was never into many sports, westerns or detective stories (unless it involved Batman). What I’m getting at here is that I basically live in my imagination, and for someone who is now working toward developing it further in hopes of making a living using it, I find myself somewhat perplexed and vexed by Ursula’s thinking.
She grounds our forsaking of imagination in our assimilated roles within our genders and uses bases like the needs and gains of our financial responsibilities and attainments as a way of supporting this. However, this was done in 1974, so I would hope that our development and use of technology in the genres of film and television have enabled the general American populace to embrace and strengthen both our own, and opinions about, imagination. Now thinking about it, I just read the entirety of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz online from a miniature tablet, which would not have even been imagined to exist 10 years ago, let alone 38 years ago! Our development of things such as C.G.I and digital libraries have allowed us to push and fulfill our imaginations passed the stars and into the beyond, with no current end in sight. This essay might have made some sense then, but it makes a lot less sense now.