The Wizard of Oz: Foreshadowing 3 key examples

Baum compares the feeling of being "whirled" about by the cyclone to the feeling of "going up in a balloon." In Chapter 17, Dorothy almost gets the chance to literally go up in a balloon when the Wizard of Oz tells her that he can try to bring her back to Kansas in the balloon that first brought him to Oz. They will use hot air to lift the balloon; just as air currents blew Dorothy and the Wizard from the American Midwest to the strange land in which they are stranded, the Wizard hopes that the same air currents might blow them back home. This plan sounds reasonable to Dorothy. But at the last minute, she must go after Toto and misses the balloon launch. Just as rescuing Toto kept Dorothy from reaching the storm cellar in time to avoid the cyclone, rescuing him again prevents her from escaping Oz in a balloon.

The failure of the balloon plan is disappointing at first, but it gives Dorothy the chance to realize that she is not as subject to the way the wind blows as she thought. She takes charge of her own fate, searching out Glinda for help getting home. Glinda tells her that she has always had the means to get home, simply by clapping together the heels of the Silver Slippers. Like the other characters who have been looking outside themselves for what they need, Dorothy too learns that she already has everything she needs. The cyclone is the ultimate outside force acting upon her. By comparing the experience of being inside the cyclone to the experience of "going up in a balloon," Baum emphasizes Oz's balloon, too, as an outside force that is ultimately not the solution to Dorothy's problems.

Writers commonly describe brooks as "murmuring," but Baum especially focuses on the brook's "voice" and the connection Dorothy feels to it. The brook is speaking to her and beckoning her into the colorful, "sparkling," lush land of Oz. This personification starts to introduce magic and anthropomorphism to the book. As Baum writes here, Dorothy is coming from "the dry, grey prairies" of Kansas. By contrast, this world is anything but dry and grey. It is the kind of place inhabited by characters in fairy tales.

Sure enough, Dorothy soon finds herself in her own fairy tale. She meets a talking Scarecrow, a living Tin Woodman, and a humanoid Lion, none of whom she would have expected to have voices of their own. She finds herself in possession of magic shoes and a magic hat, and she defeats a Wicked Witch by throwing a bucket of water on her. She even meets a man who claims to be an all-powerful Wizard. Throughout Dorothy's journey, fairy tale magic helps her learn about more everyday forms of magic, such as friendship, self-confidence, and the murmur of a stream after a long drought.

Dorothy does not realize, as the narrator and reader do, that the Golden Cap allowed the Wicked Witch of the West to call the Winged Monkeys to do her bidding. She takes it to wear instead of her sun-bonnet, thinking only that she likes the look of it. Because the narrator has already described the "charm of the Golden Cap," this moment seems far more significant to the reader than to Dorothy. It seems all-but-certain that Dorothy is going to call the Winged Monkeys at some point (likely three times) before the story is over.

That is exactly what happens. Dorothy first calls the Winged Monkeys to carry her and her friends back to the Emerald City. The reason they need help reaching it is because they don't know their way out of the Wicked Witch's country: they can't retrace their steps because she had the Winged Monkeys capture them and carry them to her castle. This first use of the Golden Cap demonstrates that it and the Winged Monkeys are neither inherently good nor inherently evil. They are simply tools that can be put to use for any number of purposes. The Wicked Witch uses them to control others, but Dorothy uses them only to help herself and her friends make it where they need to go.

Dorothy's second request of the Winged Monkeys turns out to be out of the scope of what they can do, but her third request brings her and her friends to Glinda. Just as the Wicked Witch was evil, Glinda is an unquestionable force of good. She takes the cap from Dorothy and also uses its charm to call on the Winged Monkeys for their aid to help all the characters find their way home. But after they have done what she asks, she plans to free them so that they too can enjoy their lives wherever they belong. Glinda's choice to liberate the Winged Monkeys from the charm of the Golden Cap demonstrates that the ultimate good is for everyone to be free to live their own lives.