I posted my teacher’s requirements below and I will also paste his discussion that we will be replying to below.
Topic: Consider the movie, The Wizard of Oz and its place in our culture as a modern myth. What can we take away from it?
Before this discussion view The Wizard of Oz (sorry, the original ink doesn’t work anymore, use whatever streaming source you can find) and “Myths & Monsters Ep. 2”
“Scholarly/Secondary Sources-Before this discussion, prepare by reading “Tempest, Flute & Oz” by Frederick Turner
1. Attendance
Discussions are a critical learning experience. Participation in all discussions is required.
2. Participation
Reply to participate.
Student must post a minimum of three (3) times in each graded discussion: First post to initial prompt(s) and two posts to peers and/or instructor’s post
3. Critical Thinking
Student must respond with the same academic rigor as first post (see example on syllabus)
All three posts must use, quote, and *cite the required and professor provided scholarly readings.
All 3 posts should be a minimum of 150 words, excluding quoted material and citations.
*Citing the reading means using proper MLA in-text citations and a proper Works Cited for each post. Review proper MLA here
Grading: This activity will be graded using the Discussion Grading Rubric. Don’t forget to review the discussion rubric as a reference when you are writing your posts. If you have any questions, please contact me.
See outline for due dates
Donovan Hufnagle
Jun 26, 2022 at 9:24 AM
Class,
Frederick Turner’s essay, the “Tempest, Flute & Oz,” investigates a specific myth. He states, “the heart of this myth is that a foolish and prideful person discovers some deep and powerful source of knowledge and power; he or she explores that knowledge and uses that power; but it goes wrong…” (Tempest 59). He suggests that the there are many versions of this myth like the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall, Prometheus, Faust and so on, as well as, The Wizard of Oz and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Though there are many factors within this myth, I intend to focus my efforts on the dream world. The island in The Tempest like that of the forest in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Oz, Wonderland, and Narnia, for example, symbolize “a place where the fundamental mythic rules were written and where, perhaps, they can be rewritten” (80). These places represent a dream world, originally controlled by the figurative or actual mother (the witch in The Tempest, Oz, Narnia; the Queen in A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Wonderland; and Mother Nature) where the heroine gains a new perspective or knowledge concerning a “dilemma” that occurred in the “real world,” caused by men and their unnatural laws. In other words, men are in charge of reality, the city. In reality, manmade laws are created, and where there are manmade laws, there are bent or broken manmade laws. Because laws, at times, conflict wth natural law, we, humans, may struggle with or even break those laws. That’s why we have prisons at some level. The bottom line is that men control reality and that is where all problems come from. Women control the other worlds: the forest and so on. To simply make my point. it’s “Mother” Nature and not Father nature. Guess what, all the problems that came from the city are resolved or, at least, attempted to be understood in the other world. Why?
In the dream world, time doesn’t exist. How many of you have dreamt and thought the dream lasted forever or seemed like seconds? How long was Dorothy in Oz…days, hours, or was it minutes? Father time only exists in reality. When we have no time limits, healing happens. Talking animals exist in the dream world. The beast-man such as Caliban and Ariel from the Tempest, The tin man, scarecrow, lion, and even Toto, and all the other magical creatures. Guess what, anything can happen in the dream world. Magic, talking animals, and more exist in teh dream world. Where anything can happen, then resolutions aren’t bound by man-made laws. The dream world is part of the hero’s journey.
Though crudely paraphrased and reduced, I think it is interesting to unearth these “coincidences” and connections. How is it that we have all these similar narratives, all these stories from the Matrix to Adam and Eve or vice versa? If this myth, this story is obviously fully integrated throughout history, modernized, and evolved within all of our culture, and myth, from our previous discussion, is looked at as the truth, what does that mean?
Dr. H
Works Cited
Turner, Frederick, “Tempest, Flute & OZ.” Tempest, Flute and Oz: Essays on the Future, Persea Books, 1991.
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