The Cyclone

The Cyclone is the catastrophic natural event that abruptly ends Dorothy's gray life on the Kansas prairie and deposits her, together with her house and her dog Toto, in the marvelous Land of Oz. It is the story's primal cause: without it there would be no journey, no companions, no confrontation with witches, and no discovery that home is irreplaceable. The cyclone functions as both a literal transportation device and a narrative threshold, wrenching a plain Kansas girl out of her ordinary world and into a realm where magic, talking creatures, and moral absolutes are the daily currency.

Causes and Background

The cyclone arises from a convergence of atmospheric forces on a day that is already grayer than usual. Uncle Henry, sitting on the doorstep, watches the sky anxiously; from the far north comes a low wail of wind, and the long grass bows in waves before the coming storm. Simultaneously a sharp whistling sounds from the south, and ripples appear in the grass from that direction as well. Uncle Henry recognizes the danger at once and calls out to Aunt Em, "There's a cyclone coming," before running to look after the stock. The house itself is a typical Kansas farmhouse—four walls, a floor, a roof, one room, a rusty cookstove, a cupboard, a table, three or four chairs, and two beds—with no cellar except a small hole dug in the ground called a cyclone cellar, reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor. The family's plan for such an emergency is to descend into that hole, but the cyclone's speed and Dorothy's delay in retrieving Toto prevent her from reaching it.

What Happens

Aunt Em, badly frightened, throws open the trap door and climbs down the ladder into the dark hole. Dorothy, who has stopped to catch Toto after the little dog jumps out of her arms and hides under the bed, is halfway across the room when a great shriek of wind shakes the house so hard that she loses her footing and sits down suddenly on the floor. Then a strange thing happens: the house whirls around two or three times and rises slowly through the air. Dorothy feels as if she is going up in a balloon. The north and south winds meet exactly where the house stands, making it the center of the cyclone; the great pressure on every side raises it higher and higher until it rides at the very top of the whirlwind, carried miles and miles away as easily as one could carry a feather. Inside, it is very dark, the wind howls horribly, but after the first few whirls Dorothy finds she is riding quite easily, rocked gently like a baby in a cradle. Toto does not like it; he runs about barking loudly. At one point he gets too near the open trap door and falls in, but the strong pressure of the air keeps him from falling further, and Dorothy creeps to the hole, catches him by the ear, and drags him back, afterward closing the trap door. Hour after hour passes; Dorothy gets over her fright, feels lonely, nearly becomes deaf from the shrieking wind, but eventually crawls to her bed, lies down, and falls fast asleep with Toto beside her.

Consequences and Aftermath

The cyclone sets the house down very gently—for a cyclone—in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty, the Land of Oz. The jar of the landing wakes Dorothy, and when she opens the door she sees lovely patches of greensward, stately trees bearing rich fruit, banks of gorgeous flowers, birds with brilliant plumage, and a small rushing brook. The first consequence is the death of the Wicked Witch of the East: the house has fallen directly on her, and only her two feet, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes, stick out from under a corner of the great beam. The Munchkins, whom she had held in bondage for many years, are set free, and they hail Dorothy as a sorceress. The Witch of the North arrives, explains the political geography of Oz—four witches, two good and two wicked—and directs Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City to ask the Great Wizard Oz for help in returning to Kansas. The cyclone thus accomplishes in a single violent stroke what no Oz native could do: it destroys a tyrant, liberates an entire people, and launches a quest that will transform not only Dorothy but also the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion. Years later, Oz himself reveals that he lived in deadly fear of the Wicked Witches, and that the news of the house falling on the Witch of the East was the first relief he had known in a long time. The cyclone, a blind force of nature, becomes the instrument of political change in a land where magic is real and power is personal.