The Tin Woodman Of Oz by Layman Frank Baum

Today I came across a chapter in Baum’s book called ‘Mrs Yoop, the Giantess’.

 In this chapter a group of adventurers are looking for somewhere to sleep when they see ‘an enormous castle, built of purple stone’ which they discus as ‘really too big for any use’. Upon entering the castle they are met by Mrs Yoop the Giantess. Mrs Yoop is  described as ‘clad in silver robes embroidered with gay floral designs, and wore over this splendid raiment a short apron of elaborate lace work’. Throughout the chapter she never stops eating, even when talking about her husband who has been captured and put in a cage. The husband she describes seems to have abused her ‘Often he kicked me on the shins’. 

 She seems to be a mixture of good and evil. ‘Good natured (but).. more terrible than they had imagined’. She is terribly lonely and has a magic power that allows her to transform things into anything she wants. She tells the adventurers that she will transform them so they never leave her. What struck me about Mrs Yoop was her obsession with food. Every other sentence was about her biscuits or her hunger. My interpretation of her was a lonely woman who eats to try and fill the void that her loneliness has created.