Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Oz

Throughout the wizard of Oz reading I kept feeling a surreal sensation. At one time, I had been read this book to me by my mother as a small child. At the other hand I was reading it again during the brink of my adult life. The varying view points have become very different as I have aged and things I once thought scary or whimsical about this book seem to have faded.

The main point to re-reading the book was to seek deeper meaning throughout the text. Looking for ideologies and seeking the main points in the story seemed sort of futile at the time I was reading it because I could not get over the fact that it was created for the entertainment and moral passing to children. Nonetheless, I was able to see that nearly everything in this book has some sort of symbolism behind it and a majority comes from the era it was written in.

Baum contradicts himself numerous times throughout the book but, in a sense, it makes the story that much more human. For some reason, if a book was written before my time and is heralded to be a major seller and an all around great books, I seem to put them on a pedestal. This could be partially molded by societies influences on my opinions but a lot of it has to due with the texts themselves. I tend to look at the books like "The Lord of The Rings" and "Moby Dick" as these types of illuminated manuscripts that have been blessed by those before me. From a much simpler, less consumeristic culture, that had decided these books were entertainment gold without Oprah's Book club or Amazon's Best Seller's list telling me they were.

It's almost as if the stories them selves drove them to fame rather than the consumer bandwagon. Wizard of Oz is a time-less classic in most homes and has deeply rooted itself in our culture. I can't even count the number of times I've heard someone quote the movies or books on one hand.

I foresee this class giving me a greater insight to the art of story telling and it is my goal to infuse that within my industry. Stories are very powerful tools that are not to be mistreated.

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