The Flying Monkeys – Baum’s Enchanted Servants of the Wicked Witch
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum (1900)
Among the most memorable and fearsome creatures in Baum’s Oz are the Flying Monkeys, magical beings who serve the Wicked Witch of the West. They inhabit the land surrounding the Gillikin Country, and their presence introduces both danger and moral complexity into Dorothy’s journey.
Baum describes the Flying Monkeys as winged, intelligent, and capable of speech, bound by a magical spell that forces their service to the witch who enslaved them. They are neither inherently evil nor wholly autonomous; their obedience is compelled through enchantment, highlighting Baum’s recurring theme that in Oz, morality and action are influenced by circumstance, rule, and magical law rather than innate character.
The Flying Monkeys serve several narrative purposes. They are instruments of threat, able to capture Dorothy and her companions and transport them swiftly across Oz. At the same time, they provide a demonstration of Oz’s magical rules, revealing that even powerful creatures are constrained by spells, geography, and authority. Baum emphasizes that magic in Oz is structured: it produces wonder and danger, but it is not capricious or chaotic.
Despite their fearsome role, the Flying Monkeys’ story ends with liberation. When the Wicked Witch of the West is destroyed, the spell binding them is broken, and they are free to act according to their own will. This resolution reinforces Baum’s moral architecture: oppression in Oz is temporary and bound by magical law, while true freedom is restored through justice and the natural consequences of actions.
The Flying Monkeys remain a vivid example of Baum’s innovation in fairyland creation. They combine aesthetic fear, magical law, and moral instruction in a single entity. Readers encounter them not simply as adversaries, but as a demonstration that power in Oz operates within rules - magical, ethical, and geographical - that govern both mortals and enchanted creatures alike.
