In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter seven Re-Membering in the Land of Oz “The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick,” said the Witch, “so you cannot miss it” (Baum 1900, 7). The Sugar Land Town Square, built in the new millennium, evokes an eerie resemblance to the yellow brick road in Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz. It has a path of bricks about four feet wide that meanders from the fountain in the middle to the front steps of city hall. The trail along Baum’s yellow brick road is full of adventure and tragedy. His wizard sends the protagonist on an almost impossible quest. She returns triumphantly, finding her way back to the Emerald City by way of the special brick road. Yet, once she enters the city and sees the wizard for who he really is, “the little man [says] meekly, ‘I have been making believe.’ ‘Making believe!’ cried Dorothy. ‘Are you not a Great Wizard?’ ‘Hush, my dear,’ he said. ‘Don’t speak so loud, or you will be overheard —and I should be ruined. I’m supposed to be a Great Wizard.’ ‘And aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘Not a bit of it, my dear; I’m just a common man.’”1 Fiction and Reality In The Wizard of Oz, “Baum created a children’s story with a symbolic allegory implicit within its story line and . . . characterizations. . . . In the form of a subtle parable, Baum delineated a Midwesterner’s vibrant and ironic portrait of this country as it entered the twentieth century.”2 The story of The Wizard of Oz is an icon of American culture. Millions of children and adults have seen the movie based on Baum’s book. Since the advent of television, it has been broadcast frequently, entertaining many people in the United States since the 1960s. The plot is fantastic and simple. Dur- 166 chapter seven ing a tornado, an orphaned girl in Kansas is blown away (in her house) to a faraway land, “a country of marvelous beauty.”3 In an effort to return home to Kansas, the girl seeks out the “Wizard of Oz,” the powerful leader of the “Emerald City.” On her way there she meets three characters: a tin man with no heart, a scarecrow with no brain, and a lion with no courage. They all decide the wizard can help them obtain what they lack. Together the four of them follow the yellow brick road that leads them to the wizard. Upon consultation with the wizard, they find he plans to test them before granting their requests. According to his directive, they have to kill the “Wicked Witch of the West.” To find her, they must travel through wild country, where there are no roads or farms. After being imprisoned and escaping from the witch, they douse her with water and she melts away. They return to the Emerald City, expecting the wizard to grant their requests but find that he is a fraud. He has kept his secret for a long time, duping even the evil witches. In an effort to appease Dorothy’s companions, he gives the tin man a red clock shaped like a heart, the scarecrow a diploma, and the lion a medal for courage. They are satisfied with the gifts. They are no longer lacking the main components of their existence. His remedies cannot help Dorothy, however. Finally she realizes that she can send herself back home by clicking the heels of the magic shoes she took from the witch upon whom Dorothy’s house landed and summarily killed. Baum’s idea that each individual “carries within him the solution to his own problems”4 is a central axiom of the American (and Texan) ideal. The story of the wizard and his false identity also fits neatly with the history of early Texas and Stephen F. Austin’s settlers, many of whom took on new identities as they marked out their future plantations. Sugar Land—April 2005 The discussion that follows had its origin in what can only be called revision . First there was the recall of my own youth in Louisville, Kentucky, a turning back to earlier days that is part and parcel of a memoir I am presently writing (Baker 2001, 14). In April 2005, nine years after beginning the project on San Isidro Cemetery, I asked my colleague Juan García to join me for the day while I visited and [3.147.104...

Share