Erikson's Psychosocial Development

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Pages: 11

A time-honored classic, “The Wizard of Oz” film excited and still excites the imagination and emotion of young audiences everywhere. The adventures of Dorothy, Toto, Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion entertain children’s wildest dreams, but older audiences have begun to look deeper into the meaning of the film. Dorothy, the main character, clearly goes on an adventure, and her adventure through Oz causes a development in her personality. How she develops, though, is a matter of debate. Using Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, one can see how Dorothy progresses through the later stages of development while in Oz. To understand the significance of Dorothy’s development, one must first understand Erik Erikson’s …show more content…
Overall, the reactions Dorothy has in Kansas reveal that she has not successfully completed many, if any, of Erikson’s stages. While Dorothy does not present herself in all of Erikson’s stages in the Kansas sequence, she does, however, give a good indication of her state in the first five stages. The first stage of Erikson’s theory is the first stage the viewer sees Dorothy react to. Dorothy comes running home and tries to tell Aunt Em and Uncle Henry of Miss Gulch’s attempts to hurt Toto, but the two adults brush her off (00:02:25, 00:03:02). Right off the bat, the viewer can see that Dorothy does not appear to have the trust of Stage 1, as neither Aunt Em nor Uncle Henry are supportive of her. The movie reveals Dorothy’s lack of trust in full after Miss Gulch takes Toto away (00:08:36, 00:10:21). Dorothy sits in her room and cries because of Toto’s disappearance, and when he suddenly jumps through her window, her surprise at his reappearance shows that she never believed he had any chance of returning to her. Thus, her lack of completion of Stage 1 in Kansas creates a hopeless aspect to her personality before