Still by choice, stuck by events. But if no you then both are the same.
Love ya, Jed.
i'm going to give the memory contemplation some time today, but i'm feeling the desire for the culmination of this wizard of oz contemplation before i move along. my daughters and i just finished reading the book for the third time, and perhaps the next time, it will read entirely different, but these are the 'useful' parts gleaned from the most recent read, that also (not)surprisingly reveal the page i appear to be resting on, wondering if i'm stuck or just still.
dorothy never left kansas, just like nothing ever happened, but without the imagined event, there would be no story. so in the story, dorothy is blown out of her everyday existence by an extreme and unforeseen disturbance, then she awakes in a dream that is already seemingly unfolding 'beneath' her, literally at her feet. all she can think of is how to get back to where she was before, but landing in oz has irrevocably changed dorothy. she's fallen into the inconceivable, inadvertently killing a witch and liberating the munchkins. dorothy's character is no longer 'as she was before'. all she can do is either withdraw, curl up in her bed and beg for death, or put one foot in front of the other and get on with whatever's next.
the scarecrow, to me, only demonstrates that there isn't really a difference between straw, brains, and cereal packed with pins and needles. the real 'gold' of the scarecrow is that he could be disassembled, strung out, flung about, then reassembled into something that somewhat resembled his previous form. that, and he could mercilessly break the necks of 40 crows.
i read the tinman as more of a cautionary tale about what might happen when one has hacked away all their parts. he was so in love with the munchkin maiden, that losing his whole body, and even his head, one piece at a time, could not deter him, until that final cut, right down the middle that removed his heart. after that, he no longer cared whether he married the munchkin maiden or not. before setting out for the emerald city, he asserted that the loss of his heart had been the most grievous of his life, and if oz would give him a new heart, he would return to the maiden and marry her, but by the end of the book he had forgotten her again. i guess once meaninglessness has been fathomed, it perhaps takes too much to put the pieces and the path back together.
the lion loved dorothy, and was devoted to her, as he was the only meat creature of the bunch, aside from dorothy and toto. he was wired with many of same survival mechanisms and emotions that meat creatures are made of, and playing the part of a meat creature requires at least some amount courage. the only thing oz actually did for the lion was to direct his attention inward, because without direct experience, there could be no recognition.
dorothy, from what i can tell, was on the journey for just one experience: forgiveness. it was the only way for her to return to what she could never be apart from. kansas, like oz, or nebraska, was only another differentiated time-space label.
no place is home, yet i'm always (t)here.