70 pages • 2 hours read
Danielle PaigeDorothy Must Die
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 26-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 26 Summary
The servant’s palace room isn’t much bigger than Amy’s prison cell. A small bell rings, meaning someone summons her. The bell leads Amy to the Scarecrow’s room, which looks more like a laboratory than a bedroom. The Scarecrow wants Amy to plunge a syringe of an unknown substance into his brain. Feeling sick, Amy hesitates, and the Scarecrow barks at her to hurry up or “I’ll be the one sticking needles into you next” (268). Amy injects his brain, and he shoos her away, telling her to take his trash. Amy follows the bell to the kitchen, where she tosses the trash in the fire before turning to leave and finding herself face-to-face with Ozma.
Ozma seems to be talking nonsense. As Amy goes to leave, Ozma grabs her arm and asks what the owl says. Reluctantly, Amy responds, “Who,” and Ozma adds, “Are you?” to finish the question. Amy argues she’s a servant, and Ozma calls her a liar before whispering that she’ll never tell. Amy flees the kitchen, hoping her cover isn’t blown.
Chapter 27 Summary
Amy has breakfast with the other maids, who eat their food with scary synchronicity. Jellia Jam, the head maid, babbles about how pleased Dorothy was the night before, and the conversation revolves around how good and beautiful Dorothy is. After breakfast, Amy is assigned to clean the Tin Woodman’s bedroom with another girl, whom she asks about a gardener with green eyes. The girl has never seen anyone like that. Lunch consists of stale bottom halves of muffins. Amy is exhausted by the end of the day, and the lumpy bed in her room feels like “the most comfortable spot in all of Oz” (280).
The next day, Amy starts to understand Dorothy’s schedule. She is never alone, and servants aren’t allowed to be on the upper floors of the palace when Dorothy’s resting. In the afternoon, Amy is sweeping when the Tin Woodman passes her, dragging a soldier who’s being punished for glancing at Dorothy. The Tin Woodman brings the soldier to the Lion, who eats one of the soldier’s eyes. Watching the exchange freaks Amy out and makes her realize how alone she is, thinking sarcastically that “this whole assassination thing would be a piece of cake” (286).
Chapter 28 Summary
On the third day, the Wizard comes to the palace, which makes Amy nervous because none of the witches even mentioned him. Dorothy eavesdrops outside the sitting room where Glinda and Dorothy prepare for the Wizard’s arrival. Neither of them likes the Wizard much, and they only tolerate him because he’s less dangerous as an ally. Dorothy orders a magic painting to show her the Wizard, and a picture on the wall rearranges itself as if “an invisible brush was creating a different scene” (289).
The painting shows the Wizard having lunch with the Tin Woodman in television-like quality. The Wizard counsels the Tin Woodman about his crush on Dorothy, and Dorothy gets annoyed and turns off the painting. Amy slips away, wondering what to do with this new information. She’s sure the magic painting could speed things up and ultimately decides it’s worth the risk of being discovered. She creeps back to the sitting room and orders the painting to show her something but is interrupted by the Wizard.
Chapter 29 Summary
The Wizard isn’t upset that Amy’s in the sitting room, and he doesn’t sing Dorothy’s praises like everyone else in the palace. He hints that the Scarecrow is working on his greatest invention yet and says that people who sacrifice the most have the most to lose, adding that Amy will come to learn what those words mean. Amy leaves the sitting room feeling like her mission in the palace is like “trying to put a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle together without the picture on the box” (298). When she returns to her room, Pete is there waiting for her.
Chapter 30 Summary
Pete tells Amy he knows it’s her and takes Star from his pocket. The mouse gives a happy squeak when it sees Amy, which makes Amy realize Pete is telling the truth. She remembers the maid who’d never seen a gardener with green eyes and asks who he really is. Pete says he works in the greenhouse, and Amy can tell he isn’t telling the whole truth. Pete tells her the Wizard left Emerald City and disappeared for a while, eventually spending some time with the witches (Mombi and Glamora), who taught him to be a real wizard. Amy asks if he’s trustworthy, and Pete says he doesn’t know “if the Wizard himself knows whose side he’s on” (306). Pete starts to shimmer and leaves the room.
Chapters 26-30 Analysis
These chapters show that not all is as it seems within Dorothy’s palace. From the outside, Dorothy’s rule appears to be absolute, with everyone in the palace doing exactly as she says and Oz being forced to bow to her every whim. The Wizard’s unexpected arrival shows that Dorothy doesn’t have everything as controlled as it seems. The Wizard catches her off guard and represents a threat because he is outside of her control, no matter how she may have tried to control him in the past. She also seems to fear his power, which may suggest that the Wizard is a credible threat.
These chapters expand on the Wizard’s role in the story and the theories around his character and motivations. Dorothy and Glinda dislike him, but they keep him around because he would be a powerful enemy. Given how Glinda and Dorothy do nothing that isn’t in their best interests, it is also likely that the Wizard could somehow aid them in their goals for Oz. Pete’s explanation of the Wizard is either support for the Wizard being a wild card or a misdirection. It may be that the Wizard is as unexpected and against Dorothy as it seems, or it may be that since Pete is Ozma, Pete tells Amy no one’s sure about the Wizard to keep the mystery surrounding the Wizard from fading. From Pete’s perspective, telling Amy the truth makes it more likely that Dorothy could learn the truth, so lying about the Wizard’s alignment ensures that Amy can’t give up any information under duress. The Wizard’s interaction with Amy shows that he isn’t fully on Dorothy’s side. Rather than reporting Amy for being in the sitting room and using the magic painting, the Wizard offers Dorothy veiled hints about her future and leaves her to go on her way. Like Pete, he knows more than he is saying, and he likely keeps his secrets because they would be disastrous should Dorothy learn them.
The culture among the palace maids is another staple of the dystopian genre—the people serving the government saying nothing bad about the rulers. Jellia and the other maids have nothing but shining praise for Dorothy, and except for Jellia, who’s later revealed to be working with the witches, it is never made clear if the maids truly like Dorothy or are going along with what’s expected to keep themselves from incurring Dorothy’s wrath. The stale muffins are more evidence that the maids live to serve Dorothy. Amy theorizes that only the bottoms remain because Dorothy likes the tops. The maids get Dorothy’s table scraps, which sends a subtle message that they are, and always will be, beneath Dorothy. The soldier in Chapter 27 is another show of Dorothy’s power. The soldier is arrested for looking at Dorothy, which is likely forbidden as a reminder that common people are not worthy of her. The punishment seems too far outweigh the crime, but it is designed to be a warning and set the soldier as an example of what happens to people who defy Dorothy.
These chapters are also foreshadowing. The Wizard’s line about those who sacrifice is the motto of the wingless monkeys, foreshadowing that Amy will meet up with Ollie again and end the book working with the monkeys. Ozma’s presence in the kitchen foreshadows Dorothy later joining Ozma to escape the Emerald City. It also raises questions about the Ozma in the palace. Ozma may be pretending to be vacant to spy on and fool Dorothy, or she may be a decoy, while the real Ozma uses Pete as a disguise. No answer is given by the end of the book, which suggests the question will be resolved later in the series.
