The Very Heart of “The Wizard of Oz”

Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, explains what the classic movie is all about

Margaret Hamilton’s life was irrevocably changed when MGM released The Wizard of Oz on August 15, 1939. Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in the film, mentioned in the journal Children’s Literature (vol. 10, 1982) how ever afterwards she was accosted in the street by fans and how she was often late for dentist appointments as a result.

Finally, after one more missed appointment, she decided at last to sit down and find “the answer to that question which had plagued and fascinated me for years: What is it that makes that picture so special?” The answer, Hamilton wrote in 1982, has to do with the idea of “home”:

“What that picture tells me coincides with the wonderful lesson Dorothy says she has learned at last, about feeling she has lost her home. Her answer to the Good Fairy is ‘If I have lost something and I look all over for it and can’t find it, it means I really never lost it in the first place.’ That is subtle, but finally I understood. If you can’t find it, it is still there somewhere — you still have it. I pondered over that for years. I used to think, ‘But I never really had it!’ Then I listened and thought and remembered, and then, one time, I knew. I…