Dorothy- the First College Student

In Salman Rushdie's The Wizard of Oz, I found his interpretation of Dorothy's motives, subconscious or not, to be both very accurate- as well as very inaccurate. He begins by noting Auntie Em's scolding of Dorothy in which she tells her to "find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble!" At this point, we listen as Judy Garland sings 'Over the Rainbow,' embedded with a longing to escape to a different place far, far away. He makes note of her behavior as the simple "human dream of leaving." To me, this makes perfect sense- why wouldn't Dorothy want to be free from a land of adult superiority, to try and seek out new adventures, and to experience the world of color? He sums up his theory by comparing Dorothy's yearning to leave with any of the world's migrants. He says, "It is a celebration of Escape, a grand paean to the Uprooted Self, a hymn- the hymn- to Elsewhere." I really felt that this analogy was quite accurate. Dorothy wants nothing more than to try other things, other places- and this is nothing unnatural.

Where Rushdie failed to allow me to completely buy into his idea was his lack of delving a bit further. He viewed Dorothy's dream of leaving as something that significantly clashed with one of the overall messages of the film (that of realizing that home is really what it's all about.) However, I took it as a very temporary feeling for Dorothy, one in which experience away from home was necessary in order to allow for a love of home to develop. To me, Dorothy is not unlike the college student eager to move away to a new place and try new things. Oftentimes, students are initially "done" with all things pertaining to home. But after a few weeks time, this attitude is often softened as young people realize that they actually do miss homecooking, their own room, or even a chat with mom. So, Dorothy is simply unlike any other young person who perhaps goes to college and then transers back home (something not all that uncommon).