A short analysis of the Wizard of Oz
Dorothy, the wizard, talking trees, and flying monkeys
The Wizard of Oz is a classic. If you haven’t seen this film, by all means grab some popcorn, turn on your smart T.V. and be prepared to be taken back to a time and place where innocence, virtue, and the hero’s journey are served in a fairy-tale starring a teenaged girl and her pet dog. After watching this a zillion times, I noticed a set of psychological patterns in the story that echoed a stylized presentation of the real world. Forget little people and talking trees, this film is full of ideological and emotional dispositions that symbolize much more than the main character’s story. Join me now on a brief expose’ of this film; an unpacking of Oz and how it applies to the real world.
I write often about psychology. I’ve studied it and believe it’s an important subject to learn about how you think and feel, while you learn about how others think and feel. What the wizard of Oz deliverers, is the psychology of the hero’s journey packed into song and dance. Basically its a simple presentation of how a person can overcome their fears and obstacles despite having a hoard of adversaries at every turn. I’ll jump right into my analysis and what I think this story really means now a days, see if you can feel what I’m saying on this one.
Dorothy is the main character. She’s nothing special other than cute and hardworking. In this story she represents you and me, the audience, and every fair minded person who has a family, home, and an adorable pet. Her dominant character type is one of virtue; honesty, love, and bravery. Things are perfect until a tornado (A storm) comes and tears her home apart.
Dorothy’s fall from grace, which destroyed her home and landed her in Oz was the inciting incident that created the story. We’ve all been there. A divorce, an illness, a loss of a loved one, getting fired or getting slammed by an economic or social situation that uproots you to the core. The storms in our lives, physical or emotional, like in Dorothy’s case, can seem to hurl us into a totally new world. We don’t know what to do, where to go, or even who to talk to. These storms can destroy our family and cause us to lose friends.
From my perspective, the witch in the storm represents a sociopath, or narcissist. If we boil most of our problems down to a word or two when it comes to dealing with people, a narcissist will be one of them. In the storm that sweeps Dorthey’s house away, you see a wicked witch flying on her broomstick. Does the witch cause the storm? The story never says. However, most times in life that’s how it is. We don’t fully realize the dark magic that narcissists conjure behind the scenes that impact our lives. We may find ourselves getting passed over for a promotion or belittled at work, only to find out after months or years that you had an enemy spreading false stories about you that impacted your reputation.
In the film Dorothy accidentally killed a witch, her parent’s house landed on itch (B or W it’s your call). The little people warn Dorothy that the witch’s sister is even worse than her and would be very angry. Dorothy is confused and doesn’t know what to do. It wasn’t her fault, but the narcissistic witch won’t see it that way.
In life we go through storms that cause collateral damage to people, relationships, and material things. When fighting with a mate, sibling, or parent for example, the storm can cause damage, let’s think of the pain of a child custody dispute or refusing to come to family gatherings, especially a funeral. How about an unexpected expense that causes you to lose your home and damages your relationship with your spouse. Don’t overlook an illness that can alienate you from your friends whom you’ve had close ties with. Whatever the case, the death of the wicked witch was collateral damage of the storm in Dorothy’s life, just like our friends would be if we were struck with depression or another hardship. Better yet, just like that conniving bitch at work that tried to get you fired but it blew up in her face. The catch for Dorothy was that a situation beyond her control, her personal storm, harmed a narcissists circle of power (The witch’s sister).
Dorothy became a prime target of a narcissists attacks even though it wasn’t Dorothy’s fault that the house fell on the witch’s sister. Narcissists are always looking for reasons to attack someone. It’s how they get their dark sense of purpose and pleasure. If they feel that you don’t have enough clout or support from friends and family, then you will become the main target of the narcissist. Most of the time a narcissist will not attack you physically or directly. They are too cowardly and would be easily exposed as an instigator.
To keep their cover, in your community or family, they usually have something negative or cynical to say about you behind your back, especially to prove a point about something to someone. At work, at church, or at school, a narcissist could present themselves as some sort of gatekeeper that tells others how to think about you and how to treat you. This is done through craftiness and subtleties at first. They present themselves as familiar with you to others even if they haven’t had any close contact with you. The narcissist has to rely on stealth and operates by recruiting others to employ them as Flying monkeys in their effort to hurt the target.
A flying monkey is the narcissists favorite weapon. A flying monkey is a person or group of people who adopt the ideas, behaviors, emotions, and opinions of the narcissist in order to attack the targeted individual. It’s a group-think phenomenon that is motivated by the desires and ego of a core group of people or a single person. Their methods are simple. Insult, irritate, annoy, slander, propagate false stories, attack, and spread rumors about the targeted individual. This happens often in small communities and in groups where superficiality and group-think are the dominant characteristics of the people. Flying monkeys, for the most part, don’t know you and they don’t really care to. They get an ego trip from the recognition of others as being on “the same team” as the narcissist and other flying monkeys. They derive a sense of pleasure by getting away with improper behavior that civilized people would normally condemn. When unethical acts are performed against an outsider or targeted person in their community, flying monkeys either look the other way or join in. This makes flying monkeys want to continue to harass and attack the targeted individual as a continuous source of narcissistic supply and group solidarity.
There are two different types of flying monkeys. Witting and unwitting. The witting flying monkeys are narcissists as well, but they lack the courage to attack you directly like some narcissists will do. (They do it in a way that you can’t attack back). By simply hearing of an opportunity to attack (fill in the blank) they jump at the opportunity. This is not done all at once though, it takes a moment for the witting flying monkey to get the approval or evidence from the narcissist or community that attacking the targeted individual is okay. The witting flying monkeys will try to instigate or intimidate you into doing something that fits their narrative. They have to constantly harass and seek information in order to bend the truth and construct enough damaging facts about you to convince themselves and others. (deep down inside the narcissist and flying monkey knows they are wrong for what they are doing, so they have to constantly reaffirm and reimagine their struggle against you). Unwitting are those who are duped into being a flying monkey by mere hearsay or because they think they are doing what is right. They are convinced by the narcissist or other flying monkeys that the target is dangerous when they are not. Some narcissists pretend to be “concerned” about the targeted individual, therefore dawning the identity of an innocent bystander who wants to help. The sheer amount of time and energy placed into finding out about and spreading rumors of a private nature about the targeted person, shows that the narcissist is neurotic. The only way to justify their behavior is to present information that makes it seem like the targeted person is crazy, dangerous, or criminal. They have to pretend what they are doing is necessary, even if it is unethical or illegal, like hacking into ones computer or tampering with one’s phone or other personal belongings.
In the wizard of Oz story, there are two narcissistic personalities at work, the wizard of Oz and the wicked witch. Dorothy has to go through various obstacles in order to “get home” which psychologically means to return to her normal healthy self after a storm has disrupted her life. She meets three friends along the way. One with no brain, one with no heart, one without courage. These characters represent the three personality stages that often surround both the narcissist and the targeted individual within a confrontation. Most of the time, the people who can help the most want to stay out of it. While those who have no brain (are not logical thinkers) no heart (no empathy and they lack emotional intelligence) no courage (can’t do what’s right even when it’s important because of fear) are pawns and tools in a complicated game that is being played. As a targeted individual, you sometimes feel gas-lit and cowardly. Sometimes you don’t know what to feel or you think you are going crazy or are overthinking things. A narcissist feeds off of these personality stages and they are often the same type of characteristics (no heart, brain, or courage) you find in flying monkeys, witting or unwitting.
In Dorothy’s case she helps her friends find heart, mind, and courage to better face the obstacles life has created. A narcissist is not like that. They play on the fears and concerns of their flying monkey friends to recruit and use them as a sources of both power and narcissistic supply. One key to uncovering a narcissist is this, if you have the feeling that this person is overly invested in “bringing this person down.” Being recruited as a flying monkey requires you to invest time and energy into something negative. Of course most people who are flying monkeys are the type who like to spread and gossip about negativity, but not all of them. You should ask “does this person who is targeting the other person talk in detail to him or her about the situation?” In a narcissistic situation the answer is almost always no, and you are being recruited to be a flying monkey.
The wizard of Oz represents a form of structural oppression. This form of rule is most often seen in lands where there are the haves and the have nots. The wizard is the image of a governmental and societal construct that enforces a false reality on the inhabitants in order to keep them subdued, docile, and happy. The wizard hides behind a curtain, not seeing the unjust actions of the witch, but also acting as a blind authority. It’s not until Dorothy pulls the curtain back, to expose the wizard, that he is humbled and has to do his job correctly. If there is corruption in the police force, government, or other institutions that have power, it’s important to find or become a whistle-blower to expose the narcissistic actions of the corrupt wizards behind the curtain. That’s what Dorothy did, and that’s why she was ultimately able to go home. However, when narcissists have power one is sure to meet with some sort of injustice, either in society or in the legal system.
So what can we do about narcissists, flying monkeys, and institutional corruption?
Follow the yellow brick road. This is a symbol for keeping your sense of purpose and integrity by using logical thinking. Yellow is a color that symbolizes intelligence and creativity. Brick represents something unmovable, sturdy, and reliable. If we become emotional and reactive, the narcissists will win. They want you to get upset and become disturbed. The only way to win is to keep your senses and wait for the opportune time to expose them. These moments take time, but with patience and focus on doing what’s right, those who plot against you are often times confronted with their own mistakes and imperfections that work against them in the long run.
Don’t try to convince anyone who doesn’t know you well enough to know the difference. If they wanted to know, they would have asked you. A narcissist only wants their side of the story known, so they tell it to as many people possible. People that don’t really know you simply believe the narcissist without giving you a chance. The narcissist calls this poisoning the well… knowing that if he or she poisons enough people with hate and misinformation that they are bound to be unreliable or unable to distinguish the truth from lies. However, be aware that narcissists will make it seem like you realize what is being said about you, and because you haven’t replied, it must be true. You might be tempted to try to run around and convince everyone of your side of the story. The reality is, you’d be doing it forever. The narcissist wants to play a game that you are constantly on the defensive. They’d like to create a new story or rumor that you’d have to defend and you’d just be spinning your tires trying to convince everyone, and not everyone would be convinced regardless of the facts. Creating emotional or psychological stress is what they want, so don’t give it to them. They also have to use cunning and manipulation to constantly reinforce their perspective to both the flying monkeys or even talking trees, who represent the voices of the average person who is aware of the situation but really haven’t taken a side. The trees might throw insults at you or repeat the rumors, but they are not actively working against you. Don’t try to convince talking trees either. They are just going to add to the gossip and provoke more hearsay, what you want to do is remove yourself from this situation.
Pull the curtain back when the time is right. Being patient is hard when you are under constant attack. But rest assured if you keep your wits about you, you’ll win against anyone or any group that is targeting you unjustly. Everyone makes mistakes, especially those who spend a lot of time trying to create negativity aimed at you. Sure they have a laundry list of all the bad things you supposedly said or did, and that’s their specialty, so don’t try to go tit for tat finding out information about them. Doing so makes you a flying monkey and only adds to unnecessary time spent on someone who doesn’t even care about you in a positive way.
Cut all ties. In this era of covid, going no contact is probably easier than ever. However, with flying monkeys, they will try to find a way to keep in contact with you to do the narcissist’s bidding, or fulfill their own personal narcissistic demand. I know of a case where flying monkeys would wait until their target was eating dinner or lying down at night and the flying monkey would walk around the side of the house and talk loudly enough for the targeted individual to hear, hurling rumors and hearsay about a situation that was totally blown out of proportion. In this case the targeted individual just turned their television on. Remember if you make a formal complaint without facts or evidence, they are going to pretend you are starting trouble, crazy, or lying. That’s the game with the narcissist, he or she is willing to lie, bend the truth, and try their best to paint you as poorly as possible. Record what is going on if possible. Go to a department store and buy a quality recording device. Narcissists can’t help but attack you once they think they can get away with hurting someone unjustly. Just wait until you’ve gathered up enough info, or when you are finally confronted.
Finally, write about, talk about it, send smiling pictures of you and your family across social media. There is nothing that bothers a narcissist more than a targeted person doing well and not thinking about them. If you want to get under the skin of a narcissist, all you have to do is ignore them. They need and crave the attention and narcissistic supply. Don’t be rude or anything, just side step them and carry on. After all they are trying to hurt you and possibly your family, why give them added ammunition by saying even a hello?
