Wicked
by Gregory McGuire
(The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)
Consider a history told by the losers of great conflicts, either those whose side lost, or who were killed in their struggles. This would be a very different story than that told by the victors. Gregory McGuire presents us with such a tale in this, his second volume of biographies of the 'bad girls' of fantasy.
It is tempting to see this tale as existing separately from either Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" or the 1939 picture "The Wizard of Oz", so filled with modern social issues as it is. This would be a mistake. It's predecessors are filled with social commentary that was pertinent and very evident to their original audiences.
In Baum's book the magical shoes are silver, a clear reference to the populist proposal to add the more prevalent metal silver to the gold standard American currency was then based upon (silver slippers take the farm girl down a road of yellow bricks -not unlike those in Fort Knox- to The Emerald City wherein all things are possible). Baum's Kansas is gray and drab and crushing, the house a one room cabin. He wrote his novel soon after what was then billed as the 'great depression' of the late 1800's, a depression he had witnessed from the hard hit prairie states. Baum had been a supporter of the populist William Jennings Bryant, and marched in torchlight parades with others of his followers. (1)
In the movie version of the tale, silver is no longer an issue and the shoes become red (I cannot help but wonder if this is some allusion to Katrin's Red Shoes in that old fairy tale). Kansas is still bleak, small wonder since the country was yet again grappling it's way out of depression. Oz is even more marvelous and rather than bungling coward of the book, the Wizard is well meaning and pleasant, like FDR, if somewhat limited in his ability to work miracles.(2)
Both of the above versions of the story focus on the ability of the individual to make her way through life's problems and with a positive attitude and perseverance, to overcome all obstacles and achieve their goals. (I am leaving out the companions in the interest of brevity, as this is a book review, not a thesis! But I could talk about the hero's journey and a whole bunch of stuff!) Alas for Elphaba, the Witch of the West! McGuire's heroine works every bit as hard as Dorothy, struggling against a childhood of grinding poverty, birth defects, a missionary father who points out his green skinned child to his parishioners as his 'punishment', an alcoholic slattern of a mother who dies when she is quite young, and seeing the natives her father ministered to exterminated and moved to 'camps' so that their land can be developed. She manages to make it into the university (her mother's family is wealthy, a mixed blessing at best) where she is horrified to see self aware talking Animals slowly deprived of one right after another until they are all relocated to farms, where they 'belong'. The farmlands are, of course, enduring drought and privation.
Who is the source for all this evil? Why, the Wizard!: a failed suicide from America who mistakenly wound up in a balloon which landed in an Oz he is busily Americanizing. "Waste" lands are being cleared, political power centralized via assassination and pogroms, and Elphaba's school is used more to indoctrinate than educate. The Yellow Brick Road is a superhighway system built so that the army can reach pockets of resistance the easier. (This is, by the way, the original purpose of our highway system, as the Internet was created for military communication.)
Elphaba is horrified. Like many good revolutionaries, she comes from a Missionary education and like most of them she lost her faith in the institution of the church while retaining her zeal to fight injustice and evil. This is the larger part of the author's message, the nature of evil. Is it our intent or our acts which define our relative 'goodness'.(3) If we do good out of a desire to do evil or vice versa, what are we? Elphaba embraces the title "Wicked Witch" for the society she lives in is evil. To be called 'good' by an evil world would be, in fact, make one evil. Therefore, as her society envisions her as evil, she is assured of her righteousness.
Dorothy's arrival is the great catalyst for change. In giving Dorothy Elphaba's sister's powerful shoes and sending her to the Wizard with them, Glinda keeps her own hands clean in case her plan falls through and the Wizard does not get the shoes, thereby cementing his power in Munchkin land. The shoes having been worn daily by Elphaba's sister, their ruler, until Dorothy crushes her. They are of great importance to the Munchkins. Should he acquire them, the Wizard's power will be near absolute.
Elphaba must stop this from happening. In her desperation, she loses all boundaries and perspective. She becomes determined to get the shoes at any cost, even Dorothy's life. This is the point where she crosses the line into evil. For this transgression, she is accidentally but no less thoroughly executed. Dorothy does, by dint of her innate goodness manage to achieve Elphaba's goals where she could not. She removes the tyrant from power.
Gregory McGuire says that he wrote this book after the beginning of the Gulf War and the kidnapping and murder of a toddler by two young teens, saying "I became interested in the nature of evil, and whether one really could be born bad." and realized that the Wicked Witch of the West was "second most evil character in our collective American subconscious" Hitler being the first. Thus the inspiration for writing "Wicked".(4)
I highly recommend this work. I say this despite its length, its slow pace, and its occasional bouts of preachy-ness. I say this as a woman who embarrasses her children by talking and singing right along through the entire movie "The Wizard of Oz", and as someone fascinated by good and evil, and the impact of politics on the lives of people. Read it. Think about it. It'll be good for your cerebral cortex, I promise.
1) The Wizard of Oz, Parable on Populism http://www.amphigory.com/oz.htm
2) MGM's THE WIZARD OF OZ: Political Satire of FDR and His "New Deal" http://www.otal.umd.edu/~vg/msf95/ms18/emerald.html
3) Curled up With a Good Book http://www.curledup.com/wicked.htm
4) Gregory McGuire Questions and Answers http://www.gregorymaguire.com/gm_Q&A.html
Deborah Plantagenet
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