Tin Woodman
The Tin Woodman is a character in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a former human woodchopper whose body was gradually replaced with tin by a tinsmith after the Wicked Witch of the East enchanted his axe to cut off his limbs. He joins Dorothy on her journey to the Emerald City to ask Oz for a heart, believing that without one he cannot love or feel happiness. His story explores themes of emotional loss, the nature of kindness, and the idea that what one seeks may already be present in one's actions.
Identity and Background
The Tin Woodman was originally a flesh-and-blood woodchopper, the son of a woodman who chopped down trees in the forest and sold the wood for a living. After his father died, he took care of his old mother as long as she lived, then decided to marry a beautiful Munchkin girl to avoid loneliness. The girl lived with an old woman who did not want her to marry anyone, so 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 his axe, and when he was chopping away at his best one day, the axe slipped and cut off his left leg. He went to a tinsmith and had him make a new leg out of tin. The leg worked very well once he was used to it, but his action angered the Wicked Witch, who had promised the old woman he should not marry the pretty Munchkin girl. When he began chopping again, his axe slipped and cut off his right leg, and again he had it replaced with tin. The enchanted axe then cut off his arms, one after the other, and he had them replaced with tin ones. The Wicked Witch then made the axe slip and cut off his head, but the tinsmith happened to come along and made him a new head out of tin. Finally, the axe cut right through his body, splitting him into two halves, and the tinsmith made him a body of tin, fastening his tin arms and legs and head to it by means of joints so that he could move around as well as ever. But he had now no heart, so he lost all his love for the Munchkin girl and did not care whether he married her or not. His body shone so brightly in the sun that he felt very proud of it, and it did not matter now if his axe slipped, for it could not cut him. There was only one danger—that his joints would rust—so he kept an oil-can in his cottage and took care to oil himself whenever he needed it. However, he forgot to do this one day, and being caught in a rainstorm, his joints rusted, and he was left to stand in the woods until Dorothy and the Scarecrow came to help him.
Arc Through the Plot
When Dorothy and the Scarecrow find the Tin Woodman, he is standing motionless in the forest, his joints rusted solid, holding an uplifted axe in his hands. He has been groaning for more than a year, and no one has ever heard him before or come to help him. Dorothy gets an oil-can from his cottage and oils his neck, arms, and legs, while the Scarecrow gently moves the joints until they work freely. Once freed, the Tin Woodman lowers his axe and thanks them again and again for his release, saying they have certainly saved his life. He asks if Oz could give him a heart, and when Dorothy says it would be as easy as giving the Scarecrow brains, he decides to join their party and go to the Emerald City. He shoulders his axe and asks Dorothy to put the oil-can in her basket, for if he should get caught in the rain and rust again, he would need it badly. Soon after they begin their journey, they come to a place where the trees and branches grow so thick over the road that the travelers cannot pass, but the Tin Woodman sets to work with his axe and chops so well that he clears a passage for the entire party. When the Cowardly Lion joins them, the Tin Woodman steps on a beetle and kills it, which makes him very unhappy, for he is always careful not to hurt any living creature. He weeps several tears of sorrow and regret, which run down his face and over the hinges of his jaw, rusting them so that he cannot open his mouth. The Scarecrow seizes the oil-can and oils his jaws, and after that the Tin Woodman walks very carefully, with his eyes on the road, stepping over tiny ants so as not to harm them. He knows he has no heart, and therefore takes great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything. When the travelers encounter the great ditch, the Tin Woodman says he has not the faintest idea what to do, but the Scarecrow suggests chopping down a tree to cross it, and the Woodman sets to work at once, his axe so sharp that the tree is soon chopped nearly through. When the Kalidahs attack, the Scarecrow asks the Woodman to chop away the end of the tree that rests on their side of the ditch, and just as the two Kalidahs are nearly across, the tree falls with a crash into the gulf, carrying the ugly, snarling brutes with it. Later, the Tin Woodman builds a raft to cross the river, chopping down small trees and fastening them together with wooden pins. When the raft is swept downstream and the Scarecrow is left clinging to a pole in the middle of the river, the Tin Woodman begins to cry, but fortunately remembers that he might rust and dries his tears on Dorothy's apron. After the Stork rescues the Scarecrow, they walk through the deadly poppy field, where the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, not being made of flesh, are not troubled by the scent of the flowers. They carry the sleeping Dorothy between them through the flowers, and when they find the Lion fast asleep among the poppies, the Tin Woodman says sadly that they can do nothing for him, for he is much too heavy to lift. Later, the Tin Woodman kills a great yellow Wildcat that is chasing the Queen of the Field Mice, and the Queen promises that all the mice will serve him and obey his slightest wish. The Scarecrow suggests that the mice save the Lion, and the Tin Woodman makes a truck out of the limbs of trees, fastening it together with wooden pegs and making four wheels out of short pieces of a big tree trunk. The mice pull the truck to where the Lion lies asleep, and with the Woodman and the Scarecrow pushing from behind, they roll the Lion out of the poppy bed to the green fields.
Relationships and Conflict
The Tin Woodman's primary relationship is with Dorothy, whom he joins out of gratitude for saving his life and with whom he shares a deep bond of loyalty and affection. He also forms a close friendship with the Scarecrow, with whom he often debates the relative merits of brains versus a heart. The Tin Woodman argues that brains do not make one happy, and that happiness is the best thing in the world, while the Scarecrow insists that a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one. The Tin Woodman's conflict with the Wicked Witch of the West is central to his story, as she is the one who enchanted his axe and caused him to lose his heart. When the Winged Monkeys capture him, they carry him through the air and drop him onto a country thickly covered with sharp rocks, where he lies so battered and dented that he can neither move nor groan. The Winkies, who are slaves of the Wicked Witch, later lift him tenderly in their arms and carry him back to the Yellow Castle, where tinsmiths work for three days and four nights hammering, twisting, bending, soldering, and polishing his legs, body, and head until he is straightened out into his old form. The Tin Woodman is so pleased that he weeps tears of joy, and Dorothy has to wipe every tear carefully from his face with her apron so his joints will not rust. The Winkies grow so fond of him that they beg him to stay and rule over them and the Yellow Land of the West, and when he leaves, they give him a silver oil-can inlaid with gold and set with precious jewels.
Change and Ending
The Tin Woodman's greatest change comes when Oz gives him a heart. Oz brings a pair of tinsmith's shears and cuts a small, square hole in the left side of the Tin Woodman's breast, then takes out a pretty heart made entirely of silk and stuffed with sawdust and puts it in his breast, soldering the square of tin neatly together where it had been cut. The Tin Woodman is greatly pleased and says he is very grateful and will never forget Oz's kindness. When he walks about afterward, he feels his heart rattling around in his breast, and he tells Dorothy he has discovered it to be a kinder and more tender heart than the one he had owned when he was made of flesh. At the end of the story, when Dorothy is about to return to Kansas, Glinda the Good Witch asks the Tin Woodman what will become of him. He says the Winkies were very kind to him and wanted him to rule over them after the Wicked Witch died, and if he could get back to the Country of the West, he would like nothing better than to rule over them forever. Glinda commands the Winged Monkeys to carry him safely to the land of the Winkies, and she tells him that although his brain may not be so large to look at as the Scarecrow's, he is really brighter than the Scarecrow when he is well polished, and she is sure he will rule the Winkies wisely and well. The Tin Woodman thus achieves his wish for a heart and finds a purpose as a ruler, demonstrating that his capacity for kindness and carefulness, which he developed precisely because he lacked a heart, was always a form of goodness.
Thematic Significance
The Tin Woodman embodies the theme that what one believes one lacks may already be present in one's actions. He is convinced that without a heart he cannot love or feel, yet he consistently shows compassion and care: he is careful not to hurt any living creature, he weeps when he kills a beetle, he steps over ants, and he saves the Queen of the Field Mice from the Wildcat. His story suggests that the heart is not merely an organ but a set of behaviors and choices, and that the desire for a heart is itself a sign of having one. His transformation from a rusted, immobile figure to a beloved ruler of the Winkies also reflects the idea that loss and suffering can lead to a deeper, more deliberate form of goodness. The Tin Woodman's journey is a quest not for something he lacks, but for the recognition of what he already possesses.
