Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an iconic fairy tale for American people comparable to Alice in Wonderland in England, Pinocchio in Italy, and Hansel and Gretel in Germany. It has much in common with the fairy tales of other countries in that it shares the fundamental and constant components and the basic pattern of a paradigmatic fairy tale. It is, however, strongly rooted in American life and American landscapes. With the Oz series, the European ideal of the fairy tale has been Americanized and adapted to American concerns. Though some writers such as May Wentworth and Edward Eaglestone write fairy stories in American setting, they still cannot fully develop American motifs. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is deeply involved in a nation-building project, successfully countering against the mainstream of American idealism such as Puritanism, rationalism, and transcendentalism.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of the rare American fairy tales which has enjoyed popularity over the fifth generation. Additionally, it has been a popular source for adaptations and currently many adapted texts are being consumed as materials for English study and logical writing in Korea. Some texts seriously destroy the archetypal structure of the original text. Many publishers expect the reader to have general moral lessons such as cooperation, love, loyalty, and a good use of brains, courage and heart, which implies that they largely ignore its local features such as presenting the American dream or the alternative vision of America. Additionally, the ideologically radical and problematic parts are largely absent in the adapted versions. They are consumed massively as the commodities within a capitalist system apart from the needs and experiences of the persons who originally created and consumed Oz in a particular cultural background.