Prodigal Son Distorted by FB Pastor

[Maximilian]

If I may agree with several of the posters on this thread and post some citations that I feel address the heart of the matter:

The Wizard of Oz, a story written by L. Frank Baum, later became a movie. To Danny's young children (the made-up reader of the story) this delightful tale was about a young girl named Dorothy and her cute dog, Toto, who overcome the odds and defeated the powerful and scary bad guys with some help from Dorothy's nice new friends. To the young children the story had this simple meaning.

If we observe the story closely, however, and if we start to poke around into the historical background of the time Baum wrote the book, a different meaning surfaces. One of the hottest political debates going on in America when Baum wrote this story was over the issue of whether American should continue to use the gold standard as the basis for the U.S. dollar or whether she should switch to silver. This historical context suggests that the main line of the book ("follow the yellow brick road") may be a reference to the central political issue of the day. Remember that although the yellow brick road led to the great wizard of Oz, once Dorothy arrived there, she discovered he was a fraud. Dorothy's real hope lay in her shoes. In Baum's book the shoes are silver. Hollywood changed them to ruby so they would how up better in color for the movie. So, perhaps the book falls into the classification of political satire. Note, also that that gold is measured by the ounce, abbreviated by oz.

According to this line of interpretation, the characters in the story then probably represent different segments of American society. The Scarecrow represents the farmers (supposedly no brains). Who would the Tin Man represent? The factory workers (no heart). The cowardly lion perhaps represent the political leadership of the country. We also meet the wicked witch of the east (East Coast establishment?) and of the west (West Coast establishment?) -- and who is the heroine? Middle America 00 Dorothy from Kansas.

So who is right? Are Danny's kids wrong to interpret the story as a simple tale of good triumphing over evil? Did not the author intend it to be read as political satire? Are we wrong if we understand it otherwise? What is the meaning of the story? And who determines that meaning?