Kansas
U.S. state on the Great Plains. It is Dorothy’s grey prairie home in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the place the whole book tries to get back to.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | L. Frank Baum | setting | Dorothy’s grey prairie home, lifted away by the cyclone and returned to at the end. |
Sub-places
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — L. Frank Baum (1900)
Source: Original · Readwise highlight
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles.
- Role: setting
- In the book: Dorothy lives with Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in a one-room house on the grey, treeless Kansas prairie until a cyclone lifts the house, with Dorothy and Toto inside, and carries it to Oz. Kansas is the home she asks everyone in Oz to help her reach. At the end the Silver Shoes set her down on the prairie before the new farmhouse Uncle Henry has built, and Aunt Em runs out to meet her.
- Why it matters: Kansas frames the whole book as a quest for home; its greyness is the foil to Oz’s colour.
- Real vs. fictional: The farm is unnamed; only the state is given.