Deadly Desert

From Oz Wiki

The Deadly Desert is the magical desert that completely surrounds the Land of Oz. On maps, the Eastern quadrant of the desert is called the Deadly Desert, while the other three quadrants of desert are called the Shifting Sands, the Impassable Desert, and the Great Sandy Waste. Anyone who sets foot into the sand of any of these deserts disintegrates.

Notable Crossings

• Dorothy Gale was carried over the desert into Oz in her house by a cyclone, and back by her Silver Shoes.
• The Wizard of Oz arrived in and left Oz in a hot air balloon.
• Ozma, the ruler of Oz, crossed the desert with her whole court by use of a magical infinitely unrolling carpet.
• Dorothy Gale, Shaggy Man, and Button-Bright crossed the desert into Oz by use of a sand ship built by Johnny Dooit.
• The Nome King dug a tunnel underneath the desert.

Background

The desert was originally merely a desert, being as dangerous as any natural desert but no more. Indeed, in The Marvelous Land of Oz, Mombi tries to escape through it and Glinda chases her over the sands, but in Ozma of Oz, it has become a magical desert with life-destroying sands, a feature that remained constant through the rest of the series.^[1]

The desert is used as a literary device to explain why Oz is essentially cut off from the rest of the world. However, it has been crossed several times by people from within Oz and the outside world.

L. Frank Baum's dying words reportedly were, "Now we can cross the shifting sands."

References