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Archetypes : The Wizard Of Oz

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The Wizard of Oz, is a classic fantasy that takes us to a world of fairies, dreams and childhood memories. The symbols, characters and use of situational archetypes offer the reader an understanding of Archetypal theory. Archetypes are used to impact the understandings of myths, legends and fairytales as it allows the audience to make connections and link other stories together. Furthermore, it helps in deeper analyzation, interpretation and connections in literature and show 's the characters behavior or personality. Not only does identifying archetypes help the reader to understand the morals of the story better, it also speaks to the basic human experiences and communicates meaning and emotion in all forms of literature. The portrayal …show more content…

The Lion mentions "Melted! Well that is good news, indeed, "said the man "who melted her?" "It was Dorothy" said the Lion gravely."(100). On her quest back home Dorothy learns about life 's trials and successfully completes her task, while maturing and finding her new self-confidence and understanding as she passes test after test. We can connect to this hero archetype because in our lives we have come across an individual who has helped or saved us from a difficult situation or problem. The devil figure in the novel was portrayed by the Wicked Witch of the West, she is shown as the most evil and conniving character in the novel. She threatens to kill Toto and Destroy Dorothy and her friends in order to obtain the silver shoes. This archetype connects to our life because everyone has an individual in their life who causes some trouble or problems in our life. Scott Francis points out that "Archetypes force us to delve deeper into them, characters to see them as not just character I or Librarian but as a type of person who responds in very specific ways to the conflict within your story". All the archetypes affect the storyline in minor or major ways, such as the devil figure, without that figure in the plot, Dorothy would have never been able to develop as a character. Themes are the key points of the story as they provide the audience with a moral lesson or fundamental idea that the character in the story learns as a result of the plot. There are many

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