Dorothy Gale

Dorothy Gale is a character created by the American author L. Frank Baum as the protagonist in many of his Oz novels. She first appears in Baum's classic 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels. She is also the main character in various adaptations, notably the 1939 film adaptation of the novel, The Wizard of Oz.

In later novels, the Land of Oz steadily becomes more familiar to her than her homeland of Kansas. Dorothy eventually goes to live in an apartment in the Emerald City's palace but only after her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry have settled in a farmhouse on its outskirts. Dorothy's best friend Princess Ozma, ruler of Oz, officially makes her a princess of Oz later in the novels.

In the Oz books, Dorothy is raised by her aunt and uncle in the bleak landscape of a Kansas farm. Whether Aunt Em or Uncle Henry is Dorothy's blood relative remains unclear. Uncle Henry makes reference to Dorothy's mother in The Emerald City of Oz, possibly an indication that Henry is Dorothy's blood relative. (It is also possible that "Aunt" and "Uncle" are affectionate terms of a foster family and that Dorothy is not related to either of them, although Zeb in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz claims to be Dorothy's second cousin, related through Aunt Em. Little mention is made of what happened to Dorothy's birth parents, other than a passing reference to her mother being dead.)

Along with her small black dog, Toto, Dorothy is swept away by a tornado to the Land of Oz and, much like Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, they enter an alternative world filled with talking creatures. In many of the Oz books, Dorothy is the heroine of the story. She is often seen with her best friend and the ruler of Oz, Princess Ozma. Her trademark blue and white gingham dress is admired by the Munchkins because blue is their favorite color and white is worn only by good witches and sorceresses, which indicates to them that Dorothy is a good witch.

Dorothy has several other pets, including her white/pink/purple kitten Eureka, and Billina, a feisty talking hen. Her cow, Imogene, appears in the 1902 stage version; while unnamed, this cow is implied in the 1910 film. Eric Shanower's novel, The Giant Garden of Oz, also features a cow named Imogene.

Dorothy's last name is never mentioned in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or The Marvelous Land of Oz, the first two Oz books. It is disclosed in the third book, Ozma of Oz (1907). The last name of Gale was originally mentioned in Baum's script for the 1902 Broadway stage version of The Wizard of Oz, in which it was originally a setup for a punning joke. (Dorothy: "I am Dorothy, and I am one of the Kansas Gales." Scarecrow: "That accounts for your breezy manner.")

In the sixth Oz book by Baum, The Emerald City of Oz (1910), when Uncle Henry and Aunt Em are unable to pay the mortgage on the new farmhouse built at the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy brings them to live in Oz; the plot features a tour of Oz as a marvelous, utopian land in which they have escaped the troubles of Kansas. She becomes princess of Oz.

Dorothy is an Oz celebrity, having at least a cameo role in thirteen of the fourteen Oz books written by L. Frank Baum; while she did not appear at all in The Marvelous Land of Oz, she is mentioned several times in that story. In the subsequent nineteen Oz books by Ruth Plumly Thompson, Dorothy gets at least a cameo in all except Captain Salt in Oz and The Silver Princess in Oz (in which neither Oz nor any of its inhabitants appear, though they are mentioned). Most of the other books focus on different child protagonists, some Ozites, some from other Nonestican realms, and some from the United States, and as such, her appearances in the main series become more and more limited. In Jack Snow's The Magical Mimics in Oz (1946), Ozma places Dorothy on the throne of Oz while she is away visiting Queen Lurline's fairy band.