Wicked Literary Elements

Revisionist Fantasy

Munchkinland, Gillikin, Emerald City and the Vinkus regions in the land of Oz during an indeterminate period of time which cover the life of Elphaba Thropp from her birth to her death.

Limited omniscient third-person narration that tells the story predominantly from the perspective of Elphaba Thropp aka the Wicked Witch of the West.

Ironic and bleakly fatalistic.

Protagonist: Elphaba Thropp. Antagonists: Madame Morrible, the Wizard of Oz and, to an extent, Glinda.

Elphaba’s opposition to the Wizard’s oppressive and fascistic discriminatory policies against the sentient Animals of Oz is the force which awakens her political consciousness and leads to the primary conflict of the novel resulting from her ideological radicalization.

As in the most famous film version of the story, the novel climaxes with the death of the Wicked Witch resulting from Dorothy throwing a bucket of water at her.

Much of the ensuing story is foreshadowed in the last scene featuring Elphaba as a little girl. Sixteen years will have passed between the end of this scene and the beginning of the next in which much of what is foreshadowed will have already come to pass: “She sees him coming…from the air...A balloon from the sky, the color of a bubble of blood: a huge crimson globe, a ruby globe: he falls from the sky. The Regent is fallen. The House of Ozma is fallen.”

One of the greatest constructions of understatement in late 20th century literature is found in the book describing the reaction of the people of Oz to the mysterious arrival of a young girl in a house that fell from the sky: “The alien girl—she called herself Dorothy—was by virtue of her survival elevated to living sainthood. The dog was merely annoying.”

Everything about Oz under the oppressive regime of the Wizard can be interpreted in some as an allusion to the agenda, policies and ideology of Nazi fascism during the Third Reich.

Do not look for ruby red slippers in this version of the familiar story. As in the original book by Baum, these are shoes of another color: “As the first hard drops of rain fell, the Witch caught sight, not of the girl’s face, but of the shoes. Her sister’s shoes. They sparkled even in the darkening afternoon. They sparkled like yellow diamonds, and embers of blood, and thorny stars.”

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“And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the sidestepping of compromise.

“The mystery—who is that person in the mirror—that’s shocking and unfathomable enough for me” is a metonymic image of the difficult aspects of arriving at a satisfactory sense of self-identity.

A major subplot of the entire book revolves around this literary device. The different between animals and Animals takes the concept of personification to one of its most logical extremes.