the Tin Man

the Tin Man, fictional character from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and related books by American author L. Frank Baum. The character is called the Tin Woodman in the books but is popularly known as the Tin Man. He is made entirely of metal and has no working internal organs, although he can speak. He desires a heart and joins Dorothy Gale, the protagonist of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, on her journey to the City of Emeralds to ask the Great Wizard Oz for one.

In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Tin Man resides in the Land of Oz, the fictional world to which Dorothy is transported from her home in Kansas. His tin body renders him vulnerable to rusting when he is exposed to moisture of any sort. When Dorothy and her companions—Toto the dog and the Scarecrow, who intends to ask the Wizard for a brain—first come upon the Tin Man in a forest clearing, he had rusted while chopping trees and been immobile for more than a year. He is able to groan, however, and Dorothy finds him by following the sound of his voice:

One of the big trees had been partly chopped through, and standing beside it, with an uplifted axe in his hands, was a man made entirely of tin. His head and arms and legs were jointed upon his body, but he stood perfectly motionless, as if he could not stir at all.

At the Tin Man’s direction Dorothy and the Scarecrow rescue him by oiling his joints, and he joins them on their quest to see the Wizard. On the way he relates his story: his limbs and body had been chopped off by his ax, which had been enchanted by the Wicked Witch of the East in order to prevent him from marrying the young woman he loved; each body part had been replaced with a tin version and, in the process, he lost his heart and with it his love for the young woman.

The company is eventually joined by the Cowardly Lion, who seeks courage from the Wizard. The Tin Man’s skills are put to good use—building a raft, decapitating a pack of wolves, chopping down aggressive trees, making a ladder, and more—in the many eventful journeys the companions undertake: to the City of Emeralds, westward to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West, and southward to see Glinda the Good Witch. On the way west they are attacked by the Wicked Witch of the West’s Winged Monkeys, who drop the Tin Man from a height, leaving him battered and unable to function. After Dorothy melts the Witch by drenching her in water, the Tin Man is repaired by Winkies (the people who live in western Oz).

Back in the City of Emeralds, the Wizard is revealed to be a fraud but presents the Tin Man with a heart fashioned out of silk and sawdust, which satisfies him. By this time the Tin Man has proved to be capable of showing compassion and feeling emotion, and while he lacks a physical heart, he sees that he possesses a figurative one. After Dorothy’s departure to Kansas the Tin Man returns to the west to rule over the Winkies while the Scarecrow rules over the City of Emeralds and the Cowardly Lion becomes the king of beasts.

In other books about the Land of Oz

The Tin Man appears in several of Baum’s subsequent books set in the Land of Oz, such as Ozma of Oz (1907), The Road to Oz (1909), and The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913), as well as in continuations by Ruth Plumly Thompson, Jack Snow, and other authors. In most of these his role is incidental. Notable exceptions include the second book by Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), in which he helps the Scarecrow reclaim his position as ruler of the City of Emeralds. He also solves the problem of frequent rusting by having himself nickel-plated, and his original name is revealed as Nick Chopper. He is the primary protagonist in The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918), also by Baum, in which he sets out to find the woman he loved, Nimmie Amee, but meets a second man made of tin, the Tin Soldier, along the way. Both love Nimmie Amee, who is eventually discovered to be happily married to a third man.

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The Tin Man on stage and screen

The Tin Man was played by actor Jack Haley in The Wizard of Oz (1939), the seminal film starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. Nipsey Russell starred in the role in The Wiz (1978), an adaptation that featured an all-Black cast: Diana Ross played Dorothy, Michael Jackson played the Scarecrow, Ted Ross played the Cowardly Lion, and Richard Pryor played the titular Wiz. The Wiz is based on a stage musical that was first performed in 1975. This musical set the events of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in an African American context.

The Tin Man also appears in the stage musical Wicked (first performed in 2003), based on Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995), which presents a revisionist account of the Land of Oz and its featured inhabitants. In the musical and the two-part film version (Wicked [2024] and Wicked: For Good [2025]), the character Boq, a Munchkinlander who attends university with the witches, is turned into the Tin Man by the Wicked Witch of the West, named Elphaba, after his heart is shrunk by a spell cast by the Wicked Witch of the East, who is Elphaba’s sister Nessarose. Boq is played by actor Ethan Slater in the films.

In the TV series Tin Man (2007), the character, played by actor Neal McDonough, is reimagined as a former policeman who has been imprisoned in a metal suit. Nick Chopper, played by Billy Boyd, appears in the miniseries The Witches of Oz (2011). “Tin Man,” a song by the band America, was released in July 1974 and refers to the classic character from the Land of Oz.