48 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth LettsFinding Dorothy
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Cornell University Diploma
Matilda Gage believes a Cornell University diploma will be Maud’s saving grace—that it will let her change the world. She tells Maud that, “[with] a diploma in law, you will be able to right this wrong and many others” (31). However, Maud does not have faith in the power of the diploma. First, she doesn’t believe she can achieve it—“a diploma for a woman seemed even more impossible than a crow getting a fair shake in the world” (31). Once she attends Cornell, she realizes that a degree isn’t what she wants. She wants happiness, which she sees with Frank.
The diploma shifts from being a symbol of the unattainable dream to being a symbol of the ability to change the dream. Matilda puts her whole belief into the idea that a diploma “gives a woman her freedom” (111). By contrast, Maud learns with Frank that she does not need a diploma to be an educated individual, nor does a diploma make her more or less likely to succeed in the world. By giving up the university diploma, she changes her definition of her life’s dream and pursues happiness rather than external validation.
The Movie Script
Maud works to get her hands on a copy of the script for The Wizard of Oz because she wants to make sure that the movie stays true to Frank’s vision and the novel’s intentions. When she finally gets it, it slips away after a conversation with Judy. She initially sees the script getting away as a lost opportunity.
The movie script symbolizes Maud’s inability to trust creatives; she struggles to trust others when she can have control. Her history makes her cynical about hope, as hope previously harmed her. However, Maud begins to experience a shift. She reflects how “Frank wouldn’t have been focusing on stealing a script when something more important—the welfare of a child—was at stake” (168).
When Maud finally gives up on getting the script, it parallels a moment earlier in her life that’s presented later in the novel. When Frank originally wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, she also had to choose between her cynicism and trusting the creative process. Maud cannot fully let go of her cynical nature. She will always be a skeptic, but she learns to trust the creatives as they interpret and create a cinematic version of Frank’s dream.
The Wizard’s Jacket
The producers find a jacket that they believe belonged to L. Frank Baum in a thrift shop, and look to Maud to authenticate the coat with “expressions of eager hopefulness admixed with suspicion” (60). They want to believe that L. Frank Baum’s actual jacket is a sign that he approves of their movie. Maud knows that actors believed in a world “full of mystical connections and wild coincidences—beautiful twists of fate that unfolded to give one’s life a shape” (59). She does not want to crush their hopes, but she does not want them to hold and put all their hopes in a coat. The coat then disappears until much later in the novel—appearing again when Judy and Maud both feel low and need a reminder that things can and will improve.
The Wizard’s jacket was later revealed to be a genuine possession of L. Frank Baum and symbolizes hope in the novel. It surfaces when Judy and Maud both need hope that their endeavors will improve. Judy hopes to keep her connection to her lost father; Maud hopes to protect her husband’s dreams. In Maud’s quest, she forgets the element of trust that comes with storytelling. Frank, through Judy, reminds her that storytelling isn’t about faithfulness; it’s about trust and having a “dream of a better world” (336).
