Finding Dorothy

“Just because you can see a rainbow doesn’t mean you know how to get to the other side.”

Maud is referring to the literal rainbow in the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” However, this is also a symbolic moment. Maud feels that her goal of consulting on the movie is as achievable as finding the end of the rainbow. She wants to chase her dream but starts to believe it is unattainable.

“A diploma for a woman seemed even more impossible than a crow getting a fair shake in the world.”

The above quote uses an analogy, where something is compared with something else to illuminate a point. For women in 1871, getting an education is even less likely than a bird “getting a fair shake.” This emphasizes how women are second-class citizens. Maud’s pet crow symbolizes the hopes of the women fighting for their rights in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Just as Mr. Crouse kills the crow, Maud’s hopes for future women, and their ability to rise above their current position, dies.

“Don’t let anybody steal your marbles.”

Maud’s father refers to when he encouraged Maud to be more skilled than the boys. Now, he encourages her again as she begins a new journey at Cornell. By echoing the advice he previously gave, he emphasizes how she should continue setting herself apart from and above those who would keep her down.

“From where she sat, people often preferred made-up stories to real answers.”

One of the central themes of the novel is The Power of Stories and Storytelling. Maud knows that, despite the ladies of her group wanting real answers, most of them will prefer made-up stories. Fictional tales are more entertaining and have better endings than the real stories they will live.

“Isn’t that what theater is? You conjure up something out of nothing—you build a whole world from the ground up out of nothing but the images that dance around in your mind.”

Baum enjoyed creating distinct images, and Maud wants to support that legacy by ensuring his dreams come to life in the movie. Oz, the world he created, is more to Maud than just a story—it’s a piece of her late husband.

“Maud could plainly see the truth of the matter. Judy Garland didn’t need to lose weight—she needed to stop growing up, and that was something that all the cottage cheese and lettuce leaves in the world could not change.”

This signifies a turning point in the narrative. Up until now, Maud focused on protecting Dorothy, the character her husband created based on their niece. Now, she begins wanting to protect Judy Garland, the actress playing Dorothy whose mother forces her to grow up too fast.

“Perhaps a person could learn more from being out in the world and seeing new things every day than from being shut up in a library?”

This quote explores a key theme in the text, The Value of Education Versus Experience. Maud finds her interests in conflict with those of her mother. Maud appreciates the value of the education she receives, but she also knows she could be reading books anywhere while seeing the world and gathering life experiences. Matilda believes education is key; Maud considers that experience may teach more than formal education ever could.

“What must the weight of so much expectation—of men, and their ambitions and desires—feel like on the shoulders of a lonely teenage girl?”

Maud’s concern for Judy expresses a broader concern for the position of women, specifically young women, in Hollywood. The executives have hopes for The Wizard of Oz and expect Judy to fulfill their dreams by portraying Dorothy perfectly. They don’t care about Judy; they care about what Judy can give them.

“They might pretend to embrace the principles of equality, but not when asked to put them into practice.”

Letts shows the challenges facing the women’s suffrage movement—the movement that made Maud independent. Finding someone who willingly accepts an opinionated woman would be a challenge at the time, though many men would act like they approved.

“Sometimes, when the tin woodman leaves home, when he goes on the road, leaving his family to sell his chopped wood, he feels so hollow he bangs on his chest, just to hear the echo inside.”

Frank describes and personifies a tin can, giving it human qualities and turning it into a tin woodman. The Tin Woodman is a metaphor for Frank himself. The Tin Woodman feels empty and loses his passion for everything. Similarly, Frank loses his passion for everything after his dream—his theater company—burns to the ground.

“Frank wouldn’t have been focusing on stealing a script when something more important—the welfare of a child—was at stake.”

Maud realizes that what she perceived to be the important issue—ensuring the script held to her husband’s book—does not matter nearly as much as the reality of a lonely girl who needs help in the film world. In this moment, Maud experiences growth.

“Oh, Kansas isn’t the state of Kansas, […] Kansas is just the place you’re stuck in, wherever that might be.”

Though L. Frank Baum uses the real setting of Kansas in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he does not intend Kansas to be literal. Instead, it represents the state of being “stuck.” Maud focuses on this symbolism and suggests script revisions that reflect it—Dorothy does not want to return to a person; she wants to return to home, to a place where she belongs—not a place where she’s stuck.

“She pulled her hand from the scalding water only to realize that the paste stone had faded to a dingy gray and the gold finish had stripped off, revealing the tin underneath.”

Maud receives an “emerald ring” for Christmas in 1888, but the ring is nothing more than an illusion, one that Frank makes so well. The ring serves as a symbol for the Baums’ life—though they work to display an elegant, well-managed lifestyle, the truth is that they struggle to get by. Frank’s illusion is akin to the wizard of Oz himself: Like the ring, the wizard seems striking on the surface, but the real man underneath is very different.

“Maud was warming up to Ida Koverman, starting to understand why she had been given the job of sitting, like a three-headed Cerberus, to guard the studio’s innermost sanctum.”

Letts uses allusion to draw attention to Koverman’s role in the studio. In Greek mythology, the dog Cerberus guards the Underworld to stop the living from entering or the dead from leaving—nobody moves in the Underworld without Cerberus knowing. Likewise, Ida sits at her desk and knows the movements of everyone in the office. This makes her a source of knowledge about the office and the studio lot. She is also a guardian, both for the executives she works for and the people she welcomes into her life and her workspace.

“Fighting their way through the mass of clouds, bands of orange, yellow, blue, indigo, and violet shimmered in a short arc.”

The rainbow in the sky offers hope. This allows the power of stories to shine through all the brighter.

“What is Technicolor but a pair of green-tinted spectacles? Technicolor is more vibrant than the real world—it’s a fever dream of color that someone could only invent in his mind’s eye.”

The producers use Technicolor to create something that Maud overlooks while seeking fidelity to Frank’s book. Maud does not understand that stories can be true to themselves while being told in different ways in other mediums.

“It was a puzzle to her. Why did the two things that mattered most to him have to conflict?”

Maud faces internal conflict: She wants Frank to be happy, but she also wants him to be traditionally successful. She struggles to see how these two can overlap.

“In a place like Chicago, it’s easy to feel like a tiny piece of a huge machine, as if a man is no more than a single rivet in a giant structure […] that spins on a motor that the rivet has no control over.”

Frank likes to stand out and make a spectacle of everything. He cannot easily do this in a large city like Chicago, where he is one person among a large crowd. Getting lost in a large city adds to Maud’s conflict about wanting Frank to be happy while also wanting him to be conventionally successful. The above quote uses two similes, where something is compared to something else using “like” or “as.” In this case, being an individual in a large city is akin to being “a tiny piece of a huge machine,” or “a single rivet in a giant structure.”

“He will want to spend the money along the journey: newspapers, inventions—I don’t know what it will be. Don’t listen to him. A woman must never be without a home. You will know when the time is right.”

Matilda grows to appreciate Frank’s approach to the world and lightens her emphasis on the need for education versus experience. However, she still recognizes that experience can’t solve everything. She wants Matilda to use the education she received to make smart choices her herself and her family.

“It’s a story about hope. It’s a story about knowing there is always someplace out there that is better.”

The Power of Stories and Storytelling comes to fruition here. Stories do more than convey events—they convey hopes and dreams. The narrative uses repetition for emphasis: “It’s a story about […]”

“As Maud listened, eyes closed, she felt as if she were swept up out of her seat, out of the sound stage, up into the heavens where the stars danced, to the place where the rainbow would carry you.”

Music serves as another mode of storytelling. Where Frank used words, Judy uses song with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” With the emotion she conveys, she takes Maud on a journey and convinces her that stories don’t have to be in strict narrative form to be powerful.

“Magic is when a lot of people all believe in the same thing at the same time, and somehow we escape ourselves a little bit and we meet up somewhere, and just for a moment, we taste the sublime.”

Maud changes how she understands the world. Previously, she did not believe in magic because magic is part of fantasy—the illusion of hope. However, when she sees how the cast and crew of the movie come together to save “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” Maud understands magic and hope differently. It’s about unity, faith, and hope.

“All of a sudden, a giant rainbow had appeared in the sky. It seemed to end in the garden behind Ozcot.”

Maud, who firmly believes that signs and magic do not exist, still hopes for a sign from Frank that she is making the right choices. When she saves “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and protects Judy’s interests rather than Frank’s vision, she receives the sign she so desperately wants, signaling that she made the right choices.