Introduction
Generally, using colors is an excellent tool for conveying a story’s emotions, mood, and symbolism. L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a 1900 children’s novel, is a well-known example of applying this approach. It is a famous story about Dorothy in the magical world, the Land of Oz. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer created a fantasy film, The Wizard of Oz, based on the book’s narrative in 1939.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz‘s color symbolism creates a narrative that cuts beyond linguistic and cultural boundaries, and the story is easily accessible and relatable to a broad audience by using color symbolism. In each scene, L. Frank Baum actively used various colors: warm and cool, bright and faded, saturated and diluted. Identically, the novel’s film version, through Technicolor’s 3-strip color process, captured the fullness and breadth of colors used by Baum.
Color is essential in both Baum’s The Wizard of Oz and the 1939 film version, but in different ways. Baum uses specific colors in his book to express certain feelings and emotions about places and the people who live there. The 1939 film uses color to reflect a location, but not as much as Baum.
The Use of Colors in the Book and the Film
The symbolism of color is especially evident in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which every color can be read as a word or interpreted as a signal, sign, or symbol. Aspects of color are related to emotions, feelings, cultural values, and a community’s point of view (Rachman 1516). Baum used three primary colors: blue, yellow, and red, and he used the other colors by mixing them.
Gray
The first color is L. Frank Baum highlighted is gray, associated with Dorothy’s home in Kansas, and means dull, monotonous life devoid of bright colors. Since dark colors are connected with negative emotions, an ashy color conveys melancholy, poverty, and scarcity; also, because it borders on black and white, it might be interpreted as depressing or lonely (Elliot et al. 1183).
The bright, colorful world of the magic land opposes it. This dichotomy is understood because Kansas is a gray, boring reality, while the Land of Oz is a bright world of imagination and fantasy. Baum’s Kansas is a world of higher, undifferentiated, absolute reality, and there are no shades and shapes but only a flat, gray, monotonous landscape. Even black and white do not exist in this world because black and white is already an opposition, a duality, and there is only one undifferentiated gray color.
In the film, black and white and shades of gray are presented as the beginning and end of the story of Dorothy’s adventures in the magical land. The director used color film for the Land of Oz to highlight the incomparable contrast between mundane, daily life and bright, unforgettable moments (The Wizard of Oz). However, Baum carefully and thoughtfully worked with specific colors to “describe” regions or personalities.
In contrast, the film used a wide range of shades, showing mainly the world’s colorfulness without emphasizing the psychology of color perception. For example, this is especially evident in the scene when Dorothy enters Munchkin Country. The film is about a blooming valley with green fields and white houses, and its inhabitants are dressed in different colors, whereas in the book, their outfits should be primarily blue (The Wizard of Oz). The Land of Oz is like samsara, the world of material reality, a bright, kaleidoscopic illusion, a Hindu Maya. It is multicolored because the One splits into its aspects-qualities, just as the white color, refracted, becomes a rainbow.
Blue
Blue in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is often associated with fertility, serenity, nobility, beauty, goodwill, happiness, and goodness. It is the colors of Munchkin Country, where Dorothy Gale’s house lands after being carried to Oz by a cyclone. The girl is amazed by its beauty and abundance of all goods and by the friendliness of the locals, who celebrate her arrival. In Munchkin Country, white is additionally the predominant color, which is not only a symbol of purity but also magic.
For example, Boq says: “Blue is the color of Munchkins, and white is the witch color; so we know you are a friendly witch” (Baum 49). Blue is often considered the color of tranquillity and a representation of perfection and striving for the ideal (Elliot et al. 960). It is not for nothing that the most cherished, precious desire is called a “blue dream,” and aristocrats and intellectuals are often perceived as people of “blue blood.”
Yellow
The yellow brick road is one of the crucial images in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which symbolizes the gold standard in the U.S. in the 20th century and the American dream, a life in which anyone can succeed if they work hard. The sun, regarded as an element of enlightenment and hope, is likewise that hue. Dorothy faces many difficulties and hardships along the way. However, she is not discouraged because she walks down the yellow road and gets a glimpse of herself and the world around her.
Following a clear path to achieve the goal is necessary, and residents insist: “Follow the yellow brick road. Follow the yellow brick road” (The Wizard of Oz). This moment represents Dorothy’s spiritual development, and the street represents enlightenment. In this case, yellow symbolizes the spiritual essence of human existence in the book, like a light, an insight.
A road of yellow bricks leads the characters to the Emerald City, whose green color, obtained by mixing blue and yellow, symbolizes nature, rebirth, and growth. Moreover, green is frequently associated with wealth because dollars are green. The Emerald City represents the Wizard’s power in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as well as deception and delusion. Oz says: “My people have worn green glasses on their eyes so long that most of them think it is an Emerald City” (Baum 159).
When Dorothy and her friends eventually arrive at the Emerald City, they learn that the Wizard is not the strong and wise man they had imagined him to be. Instead, he is an average man who has concocted a complex illusion to preserve his dominance and control. Oz refers to America as a capitalist society in which a person works hard achieves success, and fulfills dreams (Haglund 421). In other words, the Emerald City stands in for Washington, D.C., and the Wizard stands in for the President of the United States.
Although this journey of surprises and adventures is set in motion by the mental image of a yellow brick road, which arouses optimism and anticipation, red depicts danger and devastation compared to the Emerald City’s green. The Wicked Witch of the West has green skin like poison ivy and eyes blazing red as fire embers. The Witch’s eyes are described as crimson, emphasizing her evil nature and conveying the idea of her being a formidable opponent. Her green hue represents her nefarious jealousy, which differs from the kindness and empathy of a Good Witch of the Northern.
The writer wanted to present colors as symbols and special techniques that affect readers’ moods and emotions. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz‘s use of color to describe characters contributes to the story’s mood, starting with a calm blue and ending with a cheerful yellow before the climax, painted in red. For instance, blue is more associated with silence, tranquility, relaxation, peace, and sometimes with sleepiness. This moment can especially be noted when, in Boq’s house, Dorothy slept till morning on the comfortable soft bed with sheets of blue cloth, and Toto curled up on the blue rug beside the bed (Baum 47).
For readers, the yellow road is usually associated with “good” emotions and moods like joy, happiness, optimism, dances, and songs, symbolizing that Dorothy is on the “right” path. In The Wizard of Oz, green in large quantities balances, calms, and relieves stress, and some of its shades help to become active but simultaneously discourage and mislead.
Red
Consequently, red is the color of anxiety and stress, and it is not for nothing that the witch and wild animals have red eyes as a symbol of danger and disaster. Since white is seen as a neutral color, additionally implying purity, it evokes images of Munchkin Country, where people coexist in harmony and tranquility (Elliot et al. 265). On the other hand, gray means pessimism, melancholy, sadness, weakness, and memories of the past.
Conclusion
Finally, despite the criticism of the film compared to the original, it remains beautiful in the picture and engaging for young viewers and their parents. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy lives in black-and-white Kansas and dreams of a place “over the rainbow.” Then she falls into a fantastic reality, shot in color using Technicolor technology that had just appeared. Country girl Dorothy opens the door to the Land of the Munchkins and gets from a dull Kansas life to the boundless technicolor of Oz, a truly magical, life-changing moment. Due to the technique existing in the 30s, it was possible to convey the brightness of the characters’ images.
Frank Baum’s plot required even more colorfulness than this technical innovation could give, so the color-changing horse was painted by special effects specialists for filming with a pink, red, and yellow gelatin-based mixture. Moreover, shiny ruby shoes are an integral part of Dorothy’s image in the film, even more than pigtails, a funny Toto, or a blue and white checkered dress. In the book, the girl has silver shoes, but they were left ruby because bright red will stand out better against the technicolor yellow brick path.
Both book and film versions of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz hide unobvious meanings conveyed through knowledge about color theory and basic concepts in coloristics. Color expression is a unique tool because each color affects human psychology and has meanings. Color in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the artistic expression of the authors’ ability to perceive reality in all its richness. L. Frank Baum revealed his inner world to readers and gave them an excellent, unique work of art by operating the traditional symbolism of color.
Thus, chromatic colors, like blue, green, yellow, purple, or red, and achromatic colors, like white and grey, convey a specific message to readers and viewers, evoking certain emotions and moods. Achromatic colors are neutral and do not express vivid feelings, while chromatic colors highlight the full range of emotions, such as anger, sadness, joy, surprise, fright, and more. Additionally, it must be admitted that color in the book is the primary tool that allowed the author to reveal the world, the characters, and their actions to the greatest extent. However, the film mainly used colors to indicate places, but less brightly and effectively than L. Frank Baum did.
Works Cited
Baum, Lyman Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Signet Classics, 2006.
Elliot, Andrew J., Franklin, Anna, and Fairchild, Mark D. Handbook of Color Psychology. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Haglund, David G. “Three Strikes and You’re Out?: Implications of “Hyper-Globalisation”, the New Cold War, and the Coronavirus for the Future of Multilateralism.” The Routledge Handbook of Diplomacy and Statecraft, edited byB.J.C. McKercher, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2022, pp. 420-430. Web.
Rachman, Syaiful, et al. “Semiotic Analysis of Indigenous Fashion in The Island of Buru.” Int. J. Sci. Technol. Res, vol. 8, no. 8, 2019, pp. 1515-1519. ResearchGate. Web.
The Wizard of Oz. Directed by Victor Fleming, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1939.