Contemplation caused by discontent. This is what I believe precedes the first step in any journey. Sometimes the discontent is obvious. Sometimes discontent leads to contemplation. And sometimes after a period of contemplation the individual is ready to take the first step on a journey into the unknown.
Sometimes, however, the discontent lies buried deep inside us. We feel it, but we can’t give it a name. Many of us force the feeling deeper inside us because we are afraid to let it rise to the surface.
In Oz, the book, Dorothy’s discontent is the buried kind, unlike the Discontent evidenced in Oz the movie. In the movie Dorothy is unhappy with her condition in life. The farm hands have dismissed her. Aunt Em is too busy counting chicks to pay attention to Dorothy. Strike up the band and begin “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Dorothy’s lament ends with the question “why, oh why, can’t I.”
There are no lamentations in Oz the book. Despite her surroundings, Dorothy still smiles and laughs. She has no reason to go on a journey. Or does she? She does, but she doesn’t realize how important a journey is to her.
Only the first five and the last two of the pages in Oz the book takes place in Kansas. Baum does not paint a picture of discontent the same way it’s painted in Oz the movie. The word “gray” is used 10 times in the first three pages.
“When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.
“When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child’s laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy’s merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at.
“Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.
“It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; 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.
“Today, however, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes.”
If Dorothy did not go on a journey she eventually would have turned gray. She didn’t need callous farm hands to dream about going over the rainbow. Her soul was calling out to her. That she didn’t deliberately embark on a journey is not unusual. More often than not we need to be pushed, or in Dorothy’s case, she needed to be whisked away by a twister.
There were no yellow brick roads in Kansas. All the roads were gray.
We don’t choose to travel a gray gravel road. We sometimes settle for it because we are too afraid to take that journey.
Along The Yellow Brick Road 