Let us remember that the wizard of Oz is "wonderful" for
lots of reasons, and one of them is the way that he has managed to convince his
followers that he is actually a very powerful wizard. Note what the Munchkin man tells
Dorothy and her companions about this wizard in Chapter 10 when they ask to see the
wizard:
He is
powerful and terrible and if you come on an idle or foolish errand to bother the wise
reflections of the Great Wizard, he might be angry and destroy you all in an
instant.
Part of his power is
his ability to transform himself, seemingly endlessly, as people come before him. Of
course, what we realise as we finish the rest of the book is that the wizard is actually
no wizard at all, and his power and supposed shape changing abilities are all built on
elaborate tricks and ruses that deceive the people he commands just as they deceive
Dorothy and his companions. The different transformations are therefore designed to
perpetuate the myth of the wizard's power and might.
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