Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
Dorothy had wrenched herself free and dashed up the corkscrew stairs of the tower ahead of the Witch. There was only one exit, and that was to the parapet. The Witch followed in good speed, needing to finish the deed before the Lion and Liir arrived. She would get the shoes, she would take the Grimmerie, she would abandon Liir and Nor, and disappear into the wilderness. She would burn the book and the shoes, and then she would bury herself.
Dorothy was a dark shape, huddled over, retching on the stones.
“You haven’t answered my question,” said the Witch, poking the torch up high, releasing spectres and ghosts among the shadows of the castellations. “You’ve come hunting me down, and I want to know. Why will you murder me?”
The Witch slammed the door behind her and locked it. All the better.
The girl could only gasp.
“You think they’re not telling stories about you all over Oz? You think I don’t know the Wizard sent you here to bring back proof that I was dead?”
“Oh, that,” said Dorothy, “that is true, but that’s not why I came!”
“You can’t possibly be a competent liar, not with that face!” The Witch held the broom up at an angle. “Tell me the truth, and when you’ve finished, then I’ll kill you, for in times like these, my little one, you must kill before you are killed.”
“I couldn’t kill you,” said the girl, weeping. “I was horror-struck to have killed your sister. How could I kill you too?”
“Very charming,” said the Witch, “very nice, very touching. Then why did you come here?”
“Yes, the Wizard said to murder you,” Dorothy said, “but I never intended to, and that’s not why I came!”
The Witch held the burning broom even higher, closer, to look in the girl’s face.
“When they said . . . when they said that it was your sister, and that we had to come here . . . it was like a prison sentence, and I never wanted to . . . but I thought, well, I would come, and my friends would come with me to help . . . and I would come . . . and I would say . . .”
“Say what,” cried the Witch, on the edge.
“I would say,” said the girl, straightening up, gritting her teeth, “I would say to you: Would you ever forgive me for that accident, for the death of your sister; would you ever ever forgive me, for I could never forgive myself!”
The Witch shrieked, in panic, in disbelief. That even now the world should twist so, offending her once again: Elphaba, who had endured Sarima’s refusal to forgive, now begged by a gibbering child for the same mercy always denied her? How could you give such a thing out of your own hollowness?
She was caught, twisting, trying, full of will, but toward what? A fragment of the brush of the broom fluttered off, and lit on her skirt, and there was a run of flames in her lap, eating up the dryest tinder in the Vinkus. “Oh, will this nightmare never end,” screamed Dorothy, and she grabbed at a bucket for collecting rainwater that, in the sudden flare-up of light, had come into view. She said, “I will save you!” and she hurled the water at the Witch.
An instant of sharp pain before the numbness. The world was floods above and fire below. If there was such a thing as a soul, the soul had gambled on a sort of baptism, and had it won?
The body apologizes to the soul for its errors, and the soul asks forgiveness for squatting in the body without invitation.
A ring of expectant faces before the light dims; they move in the shadows like ghouls. There is Mama, playing with her hair; there is Nessarose, stern and bleached as weathered timber. There is Papa, lost in his reflections, looking for himself in the faces of the suspicious heathen. There is Shell, not quite yet himself despite his apparent wholeness.
They become others; they become Nanny in her prime, tart and officious; and Ama Clutch and Ama Vimp and the other Amas, lumped together now in a maternal blur. They become Boq, sweet and lithe and earnest, as yet unbowed; and Crope and Tibbett in their funny, campy anxiety to be liked; and Avaric in his superiority. And Glinda in her gowns, waiting to be good enough to deserve what she gets.
And the ones whose stories are over: Manek and Madame Morrible and Doctor Dillamond and most of all Fiyero, whose blue diamonds are the blues of water and of sulfurous fire both. And the ones whose stories are curiously unfinished—was it to be like this?—the Princess Nastoya of the Scrow, whose help could not arrive in time; and Liir, the mysterious foundling boy, pushing out of his pea pod. Sarima, who in her loving welcome and sisterliness would not forgive, and Sarima’s sisters and children and future and past . . .
And the ones who fell to the Wizard, including Killyjoy and the other resident creatures; and behind them the Wizard himself, a failure until he exiled himself from his own land; and behind him Yackle, whoever she was, if anyone, and the anonymous Adepts, if they existed, and the dwarf, who had no name to share.
And the creatures of makeshift lives, the hobbled together, the disenfranchised, and the abused: the Lion, the Scarecrow, the maimed Tin Woodman. Up from the shadows for an instant, up into the light; then back.
The Goddess of Gifts the last, reaching in among flames and water, cradling her, crooning something, but the words remain unclear.
18
Oz stretched out from Kiamo Ko a good several hundred miles to the west and north, and even farther to the east and south. On the night the Wicked Witch of the West died, anyone with the eyes to see so well could have looked out from the parapet. Westward, the moon was rising over the Thousand Year Grasslands. Though the peaceful Yunamata refused to join them, the Arjiki clans and the Scrow were meeting to consider a pact of alliance, given the Wizard’s armies massing up in Kumbricia’s Pass. The Arjiki chieftain and the Princess Nastoya agreed to send a delegation to the Witch of the West, and ask for guidance and support. As they toasted her and wished her well, not an hour after her death, the messenger crows Elphaba had dispatched for help were swooped upon by nocturnal rocs and devoured.
The moon ran silver up and down the sides of the Great Kells, and silver shadows settled in the valleys of the Lesser Kells. The scorpions of the Sour Sands came out to sting, the skark of the Thursk Desert mated in their nests. At the Kvon Altar practitioners of a sect so obscure that it had no name made their nightly oblations for the souls of the dead, assuming, as most do, that the dead had had souls.
The Quadling Country, a wasteland of mud and frogs, rotted quietly all night, except for an incident in Qhoyre. A Crocodile entered a nursery and chewed up a small baby. The Animal was destroyed, and both corpses were burned, with loud wailing and anger.
In Gillikin, the banks turned over their money to keep it fresh and vibrant, the factories turned over their wares, the merchants turned over their wives, the students in Shiz turned over intellectual propositions, and the tiktok labor force met secretly, in what had used to be the Philosophy Club, to hear the freed and grieving Grommetik talk class revolution. Lady Glinda had a bad night, a night of shakes and regret and pain; she guessed it was the early signs of gout from her rich diet. But she sat up half the night and lit a candle in a window, for reasons she couldn’t articulate. The moon passed overhead in its path from the Vinkus, and she felt its accusatory spotlight, and moved back from the tall windows.
Across the low ridge of hills known as the Madeleines, into the Corn Basket, looking into the windows of Colwen Grounds, the moon continued its journey. Frex was asleep, dreaming of Turtle Heart and yes, of Melena, his beautiful Melena, making him breakfast on the day he went in to preach against the evil clock. Melena was a froth of beauty, huge as a world, spinning him courage, daring, love. Frex hardly stirred when Shell tiptoed in, back from some clandestine rendezvous, and came to sit by the side of his bed. Shell wasn’t sure he noticed, he wasn’t sure his father really woke up. “What I never could understand was the teeth,” mumbled Frex, “why the teeth?”
“Who knows why?” said Shell fondly, not understanding the dreamy murmur.
The moon on the Emerald City? It couldn’t be seen; lights too b
He had sent Dorothy, locked in those shoes as she was, to kill the Witch. He had sent a girl in to do a man’s job. If the Witch was the victor—well, that was the troublesome girl out of the way, then. Perversely, though, in a fatherly way, he half hoped Dorothy would get through her trials all right.
It became a celebrated event, the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. It was hailed as political assassination or a juicy murder. Dorothy’s description of what had happened was deemed self-delusion, at best, or a bald-faced lie. Murder or mercy killing or accident, in an indirect way it helped rid the country of its dictator.
Dorothy, more stunned than ever, made her way back to the Emerald City with the Lion, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Liir. There Dorothy had her second famous audience with the Wizard. Perhaps he again tried to pry the slippers off her for his own purposes, and perhaps Dorothy outwitted him, spurred by the Witch’s warnings. At any rate, she presented him with something from the Witch’s house to prove that she had been there. The broom had been burnt beyond recognition, and the Grimmerie had seemed too cumbersome to carry, so she brought the green glass bottle that said miracle eli- on the paper glued to the front.
It may merely be apocryphal that when the Wizard saw the glass bottle he gasped, and clutched his heart. The story is told in so many ways, depending on who is doing the telling, and what needs to be heard at the time. It is a matter of history, however, that shortly thereafter, the Wizard absconded from the Palace. He left in the way he had first arrived—a hot-air balloon—just a few hours before seditious ministers were to lead a Palace revolt and to hold an execution without trial.
A lot of nonsense has been circulated about how Dorothy left Oz. There are some who say that she never did; they say as they said of Ozma before her that she is in hiding, in disguise, patient as a maiden, waiting to come back and show herself again. Others insist she flew up into the sky like a saint ascending to the Other Land, waving her apron giddily and clutching that damn fool dog.
Liir disappeared into the sea of humanity in the Emerald City, to hunt for his half-sister, Nor. He was not heard of again for some time.
Whatever may have happened to the original shoes, everyone remembered them as beautiful, even stunning. Well-fashioned name-brand imitations were always available and never went out of style for very long. The shoes or their replicas, with their suggestion of residual magic, cropped up at so many public ceremonies that, like the relics of saints, they began to multiply to fill the need.
And of the Witch? In the life of a Witch, there is no after, in the ever after of a Witch, there is no happily; in the story of a Witch, there is no afterword. Of that part that is beyond the life story, beyond the story of the life, there is—alas, or perhaps thank mercy—no telling. She was dead, dead and gone, and all that was left of her was the carapace of her reputation for malice.
“And there the wicked old Witch stayed for a good long time.”
“And did she ever come out?”
“Not yet.”
Reader’s Group Guide
1. Gregory Maguire fashioned the name of Elphaba (pronounced EL-fa-ba) from the initials of the author of The Wizard of Oz, Lyman Frank Baum—L-F-B—Elphaba. Wicked derives some of its power from the popularity of its source material. Does meeting up with familiar characters and famous fictional situations require more patience and effort on the part of the reader, or less?
2. Wicked flips the Oz we knew from the classic movie on its head. To what extent does Maguire’s vision of Oz contradict the Oz we’re familiar with? How have Dorothy and the other characters changed or remained the same? Has Wicked changed your conception of the original? If so, how?
3. The novel opens with a scene in which the Witch overhears Dorothy, the Lion, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman gossiping about her. She’s “possessed by demons,” they say. “She was castrated at birth . . . she was an abused child . . . she’s a dangerous tyrant.” How does this scene set the stage for the story, and what themes does it introduce?
4. What is the significance of Elphaba’s green skin? What are the rewards of being so different, and what are the drawbacks? In Oz—and in the real world—what are the meanings associated with the color green, and are any of them pertinent to Elphaba’s character?
5. One of Wicked’s key themes is the nature and roots of evil. What are the theories that Maguire sets out? Is Elphaba evil? Are her actions evil? Is there such a thing as evil, a free-floating power in the universe like time or gravity? Or is evil an attribute of the actions of human beings? (Hint: Turn to pages 231 and 370 for scenes that will draw you into the conversation.)
6. Discuss the importance of the Clock of the Time Dragon. Does the Clock simply reflect events, or does it shape them? Why is it significant that Elphaba was born inside it? that Turtle Heart was killed by it? What revelations does it offer to Elphaba and the reader when she reencounters it at the end of the book?
7. The first section of the book ends powerfully but enigmatically when the young Elphaba is discovered under the dock, cradled in the paws of a magical beast as if sitting on a throne. How do you interpret this scene, and what do you think it foretells, if anything?
8. The place of Animals in society is an important theme in Wicked. Why does Elphaba make it her mission to fight for Animal rights? How else does social class define Oz, and why?
9. “[Galinda] reasoned that because she was beautiful she was significant, though what she signified, and to whom, was not clear to her yet” (page 65). Discuss the transformation of Galinda, shallow Shiz student, to Glinda the Good Witch. How does she change—and by how much? What is her eventual “significance,” both in Oz and in the story?
10. Discuss the ways in which Elphaba’s determination and willfulness lend purpose and order to her life, and the cost of being such a strong character. Elphaba isn’t the only strong female character in Wicked. How do Nessarose, Glinda, and Sarima deal with issues of power and control? Where do each of them draw strength from? Is the world of Maguire’s Oz more or less patriarchal than millennial America?
11. Wicked is an epic story, built along the lines of a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy, in which the seeds of Elphaba’s destiny are all sown early in the novel. How much of Elphaba’s career is predestined, and how much choice does she have? Do you think that she was no more than a puppet of the Wizard or Madame Morrible, as she fears?
12. Early in their unlikely friendship, Galinda catches a glimpse of Elphaba and thinks she “looked like something between an animal and an Animal, like something more than life but not quite Life” (pages 78–79). Discuss the dual, and sometimes contradictory, nature of Elphaba’s character. Why does Elphaba insist that she doesn’t have a soul?
13. Who or what is Yackle? Where does she appear in the story, and what role does she serve in Elphaba’s life? Is she good or evil—both or neither?
14. Was Elphaba’s story essentially a tragedy or a triumph? Did she fail at every major endeavor, and thus fail at life; or because she refused to give up or change to suit the opinions of others, was her life a success? Is there a possibility that Dorothy’s “baptismal splash” redeemed Elphaba on her deathbed, or was this the final indignity in a life of miserable mistakes?
Acknowledgments
Thanks to those who
Moses Cardona, Rafique Keshavjee, Betty Levin, and
William Reiss. Their advice was always helpful.
Any imperfections that remain in the book are mine.
I should also like to thank Judith Regan,
Matt Roshkow, David Groff, and Pamela Goddard for
their enthusiastic reception of Wicked.
Finally, a word of gratitude to the friends with whom I
nattered on about evil over the past couple of years: They are
too numerous to be named in their entirety, but
they include Linda Cavanagh, Debbie Kirsch, Roger and
Martha Mock, Katie O’Brien, and Maureen Vecchione; the
gang in Edgartown, Massachusetts; and my brother,
Joseph Maguire, a few of whose ideas I have borrowed.
Please don’t sue me.
About the Author
Gregory Maguire’s first two books, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, were national bestsellers that earned him rave reviews and a dedicated literary following. Maguire received his doctorate at Tufts University and has served as an artist-in-residence at the Blue Mountain Center, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Hambidge Center. He lives in Concord, Massachusetts.
Praise for
WICKED
The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“Very close to being an instant classic. . . . Maguire has hit a home run his first time at bat.”
—Memphis Commercial Appeal
“Wicked is a punchy allegory that alludes to everything from Nazi Germany to Nixon’s America. It’s delightfully over the top at times, mixing serious metafiction with subtle humor and even (gasp) witch sex.”