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Dorothy Gale
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Dorothy Gale is a fictional character, the protagonist of many of the Oz novels by American author L. Frank Baum and best friend of Oz's ruler, Princess Ozma. Dorothy first appears in Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels. She also is the main character in the classic 1939 movie adaptation of the book. Most recognize Dorothy's iconic appearance, wearing a blue and white checked gingham dress and her hair in pigtails.
Dorothy's adventures continue.
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Encyclopedia
Dorothy Gale is a fictional character, the protagonist of many of the Oz novels by American author L. Frank Baum and best friend of Oz's ruler, Princess Ozma. Dorothy first appears in Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels. She also is the main character in the classic 1939 movie adaptation of the book. Most recognize Dorothy's iconic appearance, wearing a blue and white checked gingham dress and her hair in pigtails.
Dorothy's adventures continue. In later books Oz steadily becomes more familiar to her than her homeland of Kansas. Indeed, Dorothy eventually goes to live in an apartment in the Emerald City Palace, but only once Aunt Em and Uncle Henry have settled in a farmhouse on the outskirts of the Emerald City, unable to pay the mortgage on their house in Kansas.
Sources
An influence on the creation of Dorothy appears to be the Alice books of Lewis Carroll. Although he found their plots incoherent, Baum identified their source of popularity as Alice herself, a child with whom the child readers could identify; this influenced his choice of a protagonist.
The name of the character comes from Baum's own niece, Dorothy Louise Gage, who died when she was an infant. Baum's wife was deeply attached to the little girl and deeply grieved by her death, so he inserted her into his story as a memoriam. Elements of her character are derived from Matilda Joslyn Gage, Dorothy's grandmother.
Dorothy Gage is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois.
Book series
In the Oz books, Dorothy is an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle in the bleak landscape of a Kansas farm. She has a little black dog named Toto. Dorothy and Toto are swept away by a cyclone to the Land of Oz and, much like Alice of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, they enter a lively alternative world filled with talking creatures. In many of the Oz books, Dorothy is the main hero of the stories. She is often seen with her best friend and the ruler of Oz, Princess Ozma. Dorothy's surname, Gale, is first mentioned in Ozma of Oz. It appeared previously in the 1902 play, where it was merely the setup for a joke, the punchline being "that accounts for your breezy manner." Her blue and white gingham dress is well-appreciated by the Munchkins, because only witches and sorceresses wear white, and blue is the favorite color of the Munchkins, which indicates to them that she is a good witch.
Dorothy is a forthright and take-charge character, exhibiting no fear when she slaps the Cowardly Lion, and organizing the Winkies' rescue mission of her friends who have been dismembered by the Winged Monkeys, and more than willing to brazenly talk back to Princess Langwidere's threat to take her head for her collection--"Well, I b'lieve you won't." (Baum began to indicate that Dorothy speaks in a strong prairie accent with Ozma of Oz, and continued to do so throughout the series). This aspect of her character was somewhat lessened with the companionship of Ozma, in whom Baum placed the greater level of wisdom and dignity. Yet even this is complicated by her associations with her second cousin, Zeb of Hugson's Ranch, a rugged, manly boy who does not take well to Oz and cannot think of anything much more interesting than defeating the Munchkins' wrestling champion, which he proves unable to do.
In The Emerald City of Oz, Uncle Henry describes Dorothy as "a dreamer, as her dead mother had been." In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's desire to return home is primarily motivated by compassion and economics. As she tells Glinda, "My greatest wish now is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they were last, I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it." In Ozma of Oz, Dorothy's desire to return home is not as desperate as in the first book, and again it is her uncle's need for her rather than hers for him that makes her return. Oz is no longer quite the dangerous land that it was in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Princess Ozma and Dorothy quickly become best friends, and before Dorothy leaves, Ozma crowns her a princess.
Dorothy has several other pets, including her yellow hen, Billina, and her white/pink/purple kitten, Eureka. Popular in crossword puzzles is Dorothy's cow, Imogene, from the 1902 stage version, and implicitly, though unnamed, in the 1910 film. Eric Shanower's novel, The Giant Garden of Oz features a cow named Imogene, but she is of Ozite origin, but otherwise Imogene appears strictly in adaptations.
In the sixth Oz book by Baum, The Emerald City of Oz (1910), when Uncle Henry and Aunt Em are unable to pay the mortgage on the new farmhouse built at the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy brings them to live in Oz; the bulk of their appearance in the book dealing with her and her aunt and uncle is their tour of Oz, showing them the marvelous, utopian land in which they have escaped the troubles of Kansas.
Dorothy is a standard character, having at least a cameo role in thirteen of the fourteen Oz books written by L. Frank Baum and is at least a frequent figure in the nineteen that followed by author Ruth Plumly Thompson, getting at least a cameo in all her books except Captain Salt in Oz (in which neither Oz nor any of its inhabitants appear, though they are mentioned). Major subsequent appearances by Dorothy in the "Famous Forty" are in The Lost Princess of Oz, Glinda of Oz, The Royal Book of Oz, Grampa in Oz, The Lost King of Oz, The Wishing Horse of Oz, Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz, and The Magical Mimics in Oz. Most of the other books focus on different child protagonists, some Ozite, some from other Nonestican realms, and some from the United States, and as such, her appearances in the main series become more and more limited as it progresses. In Jack Snow's The Magical Mimics in Oz (1946), Ozma places her on the throne of Oz while she is away visiting Queen Lurline's fairy band, demonstrating that she is Ozma's second-in-command.
The magic of Oz keeps Dorothy young. In The Lost King of Oz (1925), a Wish Way carries Dorothy to a film set in Hollywood, California. She begins to age very rapidly to her late 20s, making up for at least some of the years that have already passed. The Wish Way carries her back to Oz and restores her to her younger self, but she learns then that it would be unwise for her ever to return to the outside world. Baum never states Dorothy's age, but he does state in The Lost Princess of Oz that she is a year younger than Betsy Bobbin and a year older than Trot, whose age was specified as 10 in Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Giant Horse of Oz, a book full of controversial changes. This would make Dorothy eleven years old when she stopped aging. Her actual age would, of course, be much older.
As such, a cottage industry of Oz books by mostly amateur authors and small publishing houses have been made in which Princess Dorothy of Oz lives on even to our present day.
Thompson's Oz books have shown a certain intolerance in Dorothy. In The Cowardly Lion of Oz, circus clown Notta Bit More arrives in the Emerald City dressed as a traditional witch, and she immediately starts dumping bucket after bucket of water on him without provocation. In The Wishing Horse of Oz, she participates in some unsavory comments about the dark coloration Gloma and her subjects take on as a disguise, making them somewhat resemble black people. This behavior is not characteristic of Dorothy in Baum's Oz books. In The Patchwork Girl of Oz, she pushes and slaps through crowds of the black Tottenhots to rescue the Scarecrow, whom they are tossing around, but this is more an example of the character's gumption than any sort of prejudice, as she is otherwise kind and polite to the Tottenhots, and accepting that their ways are different from those who dwell in the Emerald City.
The authorized sequels of Sherwood Smith, The Emerald Wand of Oz and Trouble Under Oz, center on children Dori and Em, who live with their Aunt Susan. All three are indirect descendants of Dorothy, though their specific relationship to her has not been revealed.
1908, 1910, and 1914 film adaptations
In 1908 L. Frank Baum adapted his early Oz novels as The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, with Romola Remus as Dorothy. This was followed by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a motion picture short that Otis Turner, one of the directors of Fairylogue, made without Baum as part of a contract fulfillment. In this film, Dorothy was played by Bebe Daniels. It was followed by two sequels (the same year), Dorothy and the Scarecrow in Oz and The Land of Oz, both of which included Dorothy, but whether Daniels participated is unknown. Baum subsequently loosely adapted The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into a 1914 motion picture directed by J. Farrell MacDonald titled His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz with Violet MacMillan as Dorothy.
Dorothy does not appear in The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914), although some film books claim that Mildred Harris, who had yet to sign her contract with The Oz Film Manufacturing Company, played the role.
The 1925 movie
Dorothy Dwan portrayed Dorothy in the 1925 film Wizard of Oz. In this film, Aunt Em (Mary Carr) informs her on her eighteenth birthday that she was left on their doorstep and is really a princess of Oz destined to marry Prince Kynd (Bryant Washburn), who has currently lost the throne to Prime Minister Kruel (Josef Swickard), in a storyline similar to that of His Majesty the Scarecrow of Oz, only with Dorothy as love interest. In the end, the story proves to be the dream of a little girl who has fallen asleep listening to the story of Kynd and Kruel, said to be the story of "The Wizard of Oz."
1939 film adaptation
In the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy was played by Judy Garland. Garland received an Academy Juvenile Award for her performance. Garland was sixteen years old when she performed the role, with a brace on her chest to make her look more youthful. Her age is never specified in the film, but around the studio, Dorothy Gale was officially twelve years old.
This Dorothy lacks much of the forthrightness and gumption of Baum's Dorothy, sometimes becoming a damsel in distress figure.
Also, Oz in the film is merely her dream, not a place to literally escape to when things get rough and bring along her relatives.
1945 stage show adaptations
In 1945, the stage show was adapted from the 1939 film with songs in it, based on the 1939 MGM film, and starred Dorothy Gale in her gingham dress with braided pigtails or blonde hair with bowtie as a baby doll make-up, and starred the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion, Wizard, Glinda, Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, Wicked Witch, Gloria and Munchkins. The script by Frank Gabrielson, who later wrote an adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz for Shirley Temple, deviated greatly from both the film script and the novel, and even included a skeletal butler for the Wicked Witch. A new adapatation by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company, adhering closely to the film script, has replaced the Gabrielson book.
1945 stage show adaptation
Dorothy Gale was in her gingham dress with braided pigtails, performed by actors, in the stage show adaptation based on the 1939 MGM film, and she sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" before the witch's laugh like Maleficent does. And when they go to the corners, Dorothy Gale has her baby doll make-up in the 1998-2001 shows played by Angie Harmon:
- 1945: Judy Garland (February 16-18, 1945)
- 1946: Donna Reed (June 28-30, 1946)
- 1947: Nancy Kelly (March 21-22, 1947)
- 1948: Terry Moore (June 22-23, 1948)
- 1949: Terry Moore (July 26-27, 1949)
- 1950: Judy Garland (November 3-5, 1950)
- 1951: Judy Garland (June 1-3, 1951)
- 1952: Donna Reed (February 8-17, 1952)
- 1953: Donna Reed (March 3-4, 1953)
- 1954: Donna Reed (March 19-21, 1954)
- 1955: Donna Reed (June 17-19, 1955)
- 1956: Donna Reed (November 2-4, 1956)
- 1957: Donna Reed (March 5-6, 1957)
- 1958: Donna Reed (March 4-5, 1958)
- 1959: Liza Minelli (December 18-20, 1959)
- 1960: Liza Minelli (December 8-11, 1960)
- 1961: Liza Minelli (March 31-April 2, 1961)
- 1962: Liza Minelli (February 22-25, 1962)
- 1963: Liza Minelli (February 7-10, 1963)
- 1964: Eva Gabor (March 19-23, 1964)
- 1965: Sonia Manzano (September 28-October 1, 1965)
- 1966: Sonia Manzano (December 23-25, 1966)
- 1967: Sonia Manzano (September 8-10, 1967)
- 1968: Sonia Manzano (April 11-14, 1968)
- 1969: Eva Gabor (November 21-23, 1969)
- 1970: Eva Gabor (January 30-February 15, 1970)
- 1971: Sonia Manzano (October 19-24, 1971)
- 1972: Pamelyn Ferdin (February 2-13, 1972)
- 1973: Pamelyn Ferdin (February 9-25, 1973)
- 1974: Pamelyn Ferdin (January 23-February 3, 1974)
- 1975: Pamelyn Ferdin (February 6-16, 1975)
- 1976: Rita Moreno (June 11-13, 1976)
- 1977: Rita Moreno (January 28-30, 1977)
- 1978: Rita Moreno (February 10-26, 1978)
- 1979: Linda Lavin (October 30-31, 1979)
- 1980: Pamelyn Ferdin (July 23-August 31, 1980)
- 1981: Pamelyn Ferdin (July 22-August 30, 1981)
- 1982: Pamelyn Ferdin (July 21-August 29, 1982)
- 1983: Pamelyn Ferdin (June 10-12, 1983)
- 1984: Pamelyn Ferdin (July 13-15, 1984)
- 1985: Juliana Donald (July 25-28, 1985)
- 1986: Juliana Donald (July 23-August 31, 1986)
- 1987: Imelda Staunton (December 11-13, 1987)
- 1988: Sonia Manzano (November 11-13, 1988)
- 1989: Whoopi Goldberg (August 15-November 5, 1989)
- 1990: Whoopi Goldberg (February 23-25, 1990)
- 1991: Jean Butler (July 16-21, 1991)
- 1992: Jean Butler (September 1-6, 1992)
- 1993: Alison Bartlett (December 29, 1993-January 2, 1994)
- 1994: Alison Bartlett (February 4-6, 1994)
- 1995: Jean Butler (November 17-19, 1995)
- 1996: Jean Butler (March 15-17, 1996)
- 1997: Des'Ree (November 25, 1997)
- 1998: Angie Harmon (May 15-17, 1998)
- 1999: Angie Harmon (June 1-June 6, 1999)
- 2000: Angie Harmon (March 24-26, 2000)
- 2001: Angie Harmon (March 30-April 1, 2001)
- 2002: Lymari Nadal (September 19-22, 2002)
- 2003: Lymari Nadal (August 5, 2003)
- 2004: Lymari Nadal (October 6-17, 2004)
- 2005: Lymari Nadal (May 24-25, 2005)
- 2006: Anne Hathaway (November 10-12, 2006)
- 2007: Anne Hathaway (December 14-16, 2007)
Recent works
One of the closest adaptations of the novel is the Turkish film Aysecik ve Sihirli Cüceler Rüyalar Ülkesinde, in which Dorothy is the recurring character Aysecik portrayed by seventeen year-old child star Zeynep Degirmencioglu.
For the 1975 Broadway musical The Wiz, Dorothy (originated in The Wiz by Stephanie Mills) is reimagined as a young African-American girl, though most of her other characteristics, as well as the general plot of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, remain intact. The story was altered for the 1978 Motown/Universal film adaptation of The Wiz, in which Dorothy (portrayed by Diana Ross) is a shy twenty-four year old schoolteacher who has never traveled far beyond the neighborhood she grew up in. This Dorothy's adventures in Oz force her to mature, as is the case for most versions of the Wizard of Oz story, although in this case, Dorothy is made to overcome a case of arrested development.
Philip José Farmer's 1982 science-fiction novel A Barnstormer in Oz tells the story of hotshot aviator Henry "Hank" Stover — who is not at all surprised one beautiful spring day in 1923 when he flies his Curtiss Jenny biplane through a strange green cloud and finds himself in a land populated by small people where animals talk and magic works. Hank knows right away that he is in Oz because his mother, Dorothy Gale-Stover, had been there back in 1890 and later told him (and L. Frank Baum) of her experiences. Farmer's premise is that Dorothy only visited Oz once and told her story to a journalist called Frank Baum. This journalist would later create a series of books from Dorothy's only adventure in Oz. Like many Oz novels for adults, Farmer's Oz is a darker, more threatening place and in this case it is on the brink of both a civil war and an invasion by the United States Army.
In 1982, a Japanese animated version depicted a blonde Dorothy in red shoes voiced by Aileen Quinn. The film was made by Toho with a script co-written by Yoshimitsu Banno, with music co-written by Joe Hisaishi and lyrics co-written by Sammy Cahn.
In 1985, Walter Murch directed the movie Return to Oz distributed by Walt Disney Pictures starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy. The plot was a combination of Ozma of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz. The film was not a wide success on its original release, although it remains a cult classic among fans of the book and some American families.
In the 1986 Japanese animated-version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz no Mahotsukai), Dorothy is depicted with reddish-brown hair, much like the movie, but does not have pig-tails. Her blue and white farm dress slightly differs from how it was described in the books (in fact, it looks quite Alice in Wonderland-esque), but her anime design makes her appear young. She wears white "magic shoes".
Geoff Ryman's evocation of Dorothy's childhood in Kansas is the central thread of his 1992 novel Was. His Dorothy (her surname spelled Gael) is given into the care of her aunt and uncle, Henry and Emma Gulch in Zeandale, Manhattan in 1875. Years of deprivation and abuse at their hands turn her into a disturbed young adult, retreating into a fantasy of her own past: the land of "Was". She encounters and subsequently inspires L. Frank Baum in a Kansas schoolroom. Alongside this theme are scenes from the infamous life of Judy Garland before, during and after her portrayal of the character in the 1939 movie, and the story of a homosexual man's investigation of the life of the "real" Dorothy as he combats AIDS.
In the video for Blues Traveler's 1994 hit song "Run-Around", Dorothy is featured as an attractive young adult woman, trying to get into a club where the band is performing. She is portrayed by actress .
While not exactly a villain, Dorothy is clearly not the hero in Gregory Maguire's revisionist 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. She is only involved in the drama towards the end of the novel and her innocence and unyielding desire to return back home to Kansas result in much trouble for the main character of the book, Elphaba.
In both Baum's original book and Maguire's revision, Dorothy spends her first night in Oz at the house of a munchkin farmer named Boq. In the latter, it is revealed that the two discussed the etymology of Dorothy's name. Boq finds it interesting that Dorothy's name is the reverse of her land's "King" Theodore which means "gift of the gods" and that Dorothy means "goddess of gifts."
While Dorothy is present in the popular Broadway musical Wicked (based on Maguire's book), she is never actually seen; when the main characters interact with her, they speak into direction of the wings, or into a trapdoor, as if she is sitting offstage and out of the view of the audience. Dorothy does appear on the stage during a pivotal scene, but the audience sees only her silhouette.
Dorothy features somewhat more prominently in Son of a Witch, Maguire's 2005 sequel to Wicked. In that novel, Elphaba's (possible) son Liir is briefly infatuated with Dorothy, and joins her party on their return to the Emerald City. Maguire portrays Dorothy as good-natured, practical, single-minded and slightly boring.
The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True (1995) starred Jewel as Dorothy and Nathan Lane as the Cowardly Lion. This was a benefit performance for the Children's Defense Fund.
A little known re-telling of The Wizard of Oz (1995) made for British channel Five starred Denise van Outen as Dorothy and featured a cameo appearance by Zoe Salmon of Blue Peter fame.
Todd McFarlane re imagined the story in the "Twisted Land of Oz" in which none of the characters are innocent. Dorothy is a straight A student, but naive socially, and is sexually tortured by two little sadomasochistic monsters.
In the 2005 made-for-television movie The Muppets' Wizard of Oz Dorothy was portrayed as a gifted teenage singer (played by Ashanti) who wanted nothing more than to get out of Kansas and sing with the Muppets Star Hunt tour.
In the VeggieTales 2007 episode The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's, Dorothy was replaced by Darby (Junior Asparagus) with a pet pig named "Tutu".
An adult Dorothy, along with Alice Liddell from Lewis Carroll's (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) and J. M. Barrie's Wendy Darling (from Peter Pan), is a featured character in the 2006 erotic adult comic book Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie, set in 1913. Dorothy, Alice, Wendy, Susan Pevensie (from The Chronicles of Narnia), and Pollyanna also feature in the comic The Oz/Wonderland Chronicles, set in 2005. Unlike the other characters, Dorothy is based on her movie counterpart, who stopped believing in Oz, as Susan, Alice, and Wendy stopped believing in their fairylands in both book and film versions.
In the 2007 Sci Fi Channel miniseries Tin Man, a Dorothy Gale-type character (called "D.G.") was played by Zooey Deschanel. She travels to the land of O.Z.(The Outer Zone), where she finds out that she and her sister Azkadellia are descendants of Dorothy Gale through their mother Queen Lavender Eyes. Ahamo, DG's father, tells DG that Dorothy Gale is her "greatest great grandmother." Dorothy Gale is legendary, and known as the first 'Slipper,' as in person, to slip to the Outer Zone. In the third episode of the miniseries, DG meets the original Dorothy Gale in a netherworld located within Gale's crypt which is reminiscent of Gale's farm as depicted in the 1939 film; Grace Wheeler plays this version of Dorothy.
Portrayals
See also
External links
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