preview

Influence Of Color In The Wizard Of Oz

Decent Essays

The Influence of Color
Could you ever imagine if The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by L. Frank Baum didn’t have a yellow brick road or an Emerald City? The colors chosen are significant and give the story a deeper meaning. Three colors that stand out in the beginning, middle and the end of the novel are gray, yellow and green. In the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum’s use of color is symbolic by associating distinct colors with specific settings and characters.
The color gray is referenced in the beginning of the story. Gray is used repetitively to describe the setting in Kansas, their home and it is even used to portray the characters of Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Kansas was not exciting, there were no other homes and not even a tree in sight. “When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side” (Baum 13). Baum describes the farmhouse as “dull and gray as everything else”. Aunt Em’s eyes, cheeks and lips were even depicted as gray. Uncle Henry’s beard and boots were gray and he sat on the door-step looking at the sky that was “grayer than usual” (Baum 14). Gray was also used to show the character’s feelings. Aunt Em was worried and Uncle Henry was tired from working. Life was already “gray”, gloomy and depressing and then the cyclone hit.
The cyclone lifted the home with Dorothy and her dog Toto inside. After the house landed the reader and Dorothy knew that things were going to be quite different. The

Get Access