Almost from the moment that a cyclone sends her to the strange Land of Oz, Dorothy is determined to find a way back home to Kansas and her Aunt Em. This highlights one of the novel’s main points: that everyone has somewhere they truly belong. It’s notable that Dorothy immediately wants to go home and even sheds tears at the thought of staying in Oz forever. Despite how magical and dazzling Oz seems to be, Dorothy still feels that she belongs back on the flat, gray prairies of Kansas. She expresses this sentiment again in her conversation with the Scarecrow. While he wonders why she’d want to leave a country as splendid as Oz, she explains that people always long for their home, no matter how beautiful other places might be. Put another way, feeling like she belongs and is at home is more important to Dorothy than marveling at Oz’s many wonders.
The way the Land of Oz is designed also illustrates the novel’s insistence that every being has a specific place they belong, as each region of Oz is associated with a distinct direction and color. In symbolic language, Dorothy belongs on the gray Kansas prairies in the same way that the Munchkins dressed all in blue belong in the blue land of the East. Everyone has a neatly defined place somewhere that’s perfect for them, even the tiny porcelain people who have a country just the right size for them. Dorothy’s companions have also found their place in the world by the end of their adventure, and they seem delighted to start living in their new homes. Every displaced character, including the Wizard himself, has found a way home by the end of the novel. With this, The Wizard of Oz seems to suggest that it’s not always immediately apparent where a person belongs—sometimes, as with the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion, it’s necessary for a person to search for and discover the place that feels the most like home to them. And for others, like Dorothy and the Wizard, traveling is a way to remind oneself that, as Dorothy famously says, “There’s no place like home.”
Related Themes from Other Texts
Home and Belonging ThemeTracker
Home and Belonging Quotes in The Wizard of Oz
It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as grey as her other surroundings. Toto was not grey; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.
‘No matter how dreary and grey our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.’
‘Because if you did not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the Emerald City would blind you. Even those who live in the City must wear spectacles night and day. They are all locked on, for Oz so ordered it when the City was first built, and I have the only key that will unlock them.’
‘Send me back to Kansas, where my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are,’ she answered earnestly. ‘I don’t like your country, although it is so beautiful. And I am sure Aunt Em will be dreadfully worried over my being away so long.’
But the people remembered him lovingly, and said to one another:
‘Oz was always our friend. When he was here he built for us this beautiful Emerald City, and now he is gone he has left the wise Scarecrow to rule over us.’
Still, for many days they grieved over the loss of the Wonderful Wizard, and would not be comforted.
‘Certainly. If it wasn’t for Dorothy I should never have had brains. She lifted me from the pole in the cornfield and brought me to the Emerald City. So my good luck is all due to her, and I shall never leave her until she starts back to Kansas for good and all.’
‘You see, here in our country we live contentedly, and can talk and move around as we please. But whenever any of us are taken away our joints at once stiffen, and we can only stand straight and look pretty. Of course that is all that is expected of us when we are on mantelshelves and cabinets and drawing-room tables, but our lives are much pleasanter here in our own country.’
‘It seems gloomy,’ said the Scarecrow.
‘Not a bit of it,’ answered the Lion; ‘I should like to live here all my life. See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet and how rich and green the moss is that clings to these old trees. Surely no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home.’
She threw her arms around the Lion’s neck and kissed him, patting his big head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the Scarecrow instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades.
‘My darling child!’ she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and covering her face with kisses. ‘Where in the world did you come from?’
‘From the Land of Oz,’ said Dorothy gravely. ‘And here is Toto, too. And oh, Aunt Em! I’m so glad to be at home again!’
