Tin Woodman and Munchkin maiden

The Tin Woodman's love for a Munchkin maiden is the central emotional wound of his existence, a romance destroyed by the Wicked Witch of the East's enchantment. The Tin Woodman was born the son of a woodman and became a woodchopper himself. After his father died, he cared for his old mother until her death, and then resolved to marry rather than live alone. He fell in love with a beautiful Munchkin girl, who promised to marry him as soon as he could earn enough money to build a better house for her. He worked harder than ever, but the girl lived with an old woman who was too lazy to do her own cooking and housework and did not want the girl to marry anyone. The old woman went to the Wicked Witch of the East and promised her two sheep and a cow if she would prevent the marriage. The Wicked Witch enchanted the Tin Woodman's axe, and as he chopped wood one day, the axe slipped and cut off his left leg. He went to a tinsmith and had a new leg made of tin. The Witch's enchantment continued: the axe slipped again and cut off his right leg, then his arms one after the other, and finally his head. Each time, the tinsmith replaced the lost limb with tin. The Tin Woodman thought he had beaten the Witch, but she made the axe slip once more, cutting through his body and splitting him in two. The tinsmith made him a body of tin, fastening his tin arms, legs, and head to it with joints. But the Tin Woodman had lost his heart, and with it all his love for the Munchkin girl. He no longer cared whether he married her or not. He supposed she was still living with the old woman, waiting for him to come after her. The Tin Woodman's body shone brightly in the sun, and he felt proud of it, but he knew the greatest loss he had known was the loss of his heart. While he was in love, he was the happiest man on earth, but no one can love who has not a heart. This loss is what drives him to join Dorothy's quest to the Emerald City, where he hopes the Great Oz will give him a new heart so he can return to the Munchkin maiden and marry her. The Tin Woodman's story reveals that the Wicked Witch of the East was capable of targeted, cruel magic, and that the Tin Woodman's transformation into a being of tin was not an accident but a deliberate act of malice. The romance is a tale of love thwarted by supernatural evil, and the Tin Woodman's desire to regain his heart is a desire to regain the capacity for love itself. The Munchkin maiden herself never appears in the story; she exists only as a memory and a goal, a symbol of the happiness the Tin Woodman lost and hopes to recover. The Tin Woodman's narrative also establishes a contrast with the Scarecrow: the Tin Woodman, having once had both brains and a heart, declares that he would much rather have a heart, for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world. This lost love is the foundational event of the Tin Woodman's character, shaping his gentle, careful nature and his deep appreciation for kindness, as he takes great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything, knowing he has no heart to guide him.