Hero's Journey In The Wizard Of Oz

Campbell’s Hero’s Journey Schema applied to the 1939 MGM Studios musical The Wizard of Oz

Madison Dyer [VU student no: 4566272]

1. Ordinary Life
In 1939, under the direction of Richard Thorpe, George Cukor, Victor Fleming and King Vidor, Hollywood’s MGM studios brought to life Lyman Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz in a full-length feature musical (Harmetz, AHM 2013). The film begins with the ordinary life of Dorothy- the movie’s heroine. Living on a small, desolate and lonely ranch in Kansas, in the Mid West of USA with her Aunt, Uncle and dog Toto, the young orphan yearns to escape the drudgery of everyday life and imagines flying ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ where ‘skies are blue and that dreams that you dare to dream really do come true’ (Naussbaum, B 2014).

2. Call to Adventure
With

After Dorothy questions that she has ‘never heard of a beautiful witch before’, Glinda’s response of ‘only bad witches are ugly’ justifies her role as a positive mentor and role model to Dorothy (Davies, O 2016). Glinda congratulates Dorothy on her heroic actions of killing the Wicked Witch of the East with her flying house and introduces her to the small inhabitants of the land, the Munchkins. From the words of the wise mentor to the heroine, Dorothy is told to ‘follow the yellow brick road’ and wear the red ruby slippers for the power of safety (Naussbaum, Ben).

5. Passing the Threshold
‘I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too’- a threat no young girl wants to hear in a dark alley (Shea, TNHM 2015).The terrifying Wicked Witch of the West seeks revenge for the death of her sister the Wicked Witch of the East and makes a plot to capture and kill the young girl. Outside her comfort zone and in the world of the unknown, Dorothy cannot return home and is therefore forced to pass the threshold and commit to the Hero’s Journey (Shea, TNHM 2015).

6. Tests, Allies and