The Wizard of Oz ending explained

What happens

Dorothy clicks her heels and wakes in her Kansas bed, surrounded by family and farmhands who look like her friends from Oz. She insists it was real, then says there's no place like home.

The last image

Dorothy, back in sepia Kansas, hugs Toto and her family close, her journey over.

Two readings

1 · A real journeyOz existed, and Dorothy simply returned from it, as she insists.

2 · A child's dreamShe was knocked out, and the faces around her bed became Oz's figures.

What it says

Dorothy's whole adventure sprang from wanting to escape, and it ends with her choosing to stay. The film says home means the people who love you, and that you carried what you needed with you all along.