Revise The Old Fairy Tales; The Wicked Witch Of The West Is Now A Feminist Icon

In the wake of the success of Wicked, on stage and screen, author Gregory Maguire, whose books were the inspiration for the adaptations, has released a book, Elphie: A Wicked Childhood (the fifth book in the Wicked series and a prequel), which is the backstory of Elphaba Tropp, the green-skinned ‘freak’, who goes on to become the Wicked Witch of the West in the much-loved classic The Wizard of Oz (by L. Frank Baum).

The daughter of neglectful parents— her father a missionary in Quadling Country and a depressed, attention-seeking mother—Elphaba, or Elphie, is not easy to love because of her green skin and fierce temperament that makes her look “as if she is supervising the world”. When her mother dies, the responsibility of looking after her armless sister and a brother falls on her. But far from being soft and maternal, she is a crocodile-slaying fighter. Elphaba is a bright, inquisitive, caring and lonely child who gets no emotional stability in her dysfunctional family. Only her sympathetic nanny is understanding and affectionate.

Elphaba can, however, communicate with animals, “migrants on the run”, Macguire calls the dwarf bears she encounters, and later mentions a seer who “went off to the imperialists to tell their military to stop sending troops to build that highway of yellow steps. To stop draining the wetlands for the crystallised blood of the land beneath us.” The author makes sure to drop hints of today’s issues in the book, primarily meant for children, but which will probably be enjoyed more by adults. And, as it often happens, women who look and act different from the accepted norm of the time are called witches, so Elphaba’s future as a witch is preordained.

In traditional fairy tales, the witch was an evil, scary creature, but subsequent readings have exonerated her. In real life, women branded as witches were brutally murdered, often burnt at the stake. In the post-feminist world, the ‘otherness’ of a woman, her independence, and her unique way of looking at the world are not traits to be feared or demonised—except by the most bigoted or ignorant. When on stage and in the movie, Elphaba defies gravity and uses her power of magic to fly on her broomstick and sings, “And if I’m flying solo, at least I’m flying free… And nobody in all of Oz / no wizard that there is or was / is ever gonna bring me down”, the perception of the audience has already shifted to view her as a character to be admired, not to be feared.

Janell Hobson writes in Ms. Magazine about Wicked, “There are many parallels to our own universe: the rise of fascism in Oz; the vilification of a powerful woman (whose laugh some incidentally described as “a cackle”) concerned about the well-being of the most marginalised among us; a media enabling propaganda to villainise the said powerful woman and prop up an empty shell of a man specialising in elaborate cons; and the failure of solidarity between women… While the character of the Wicked Witch of the West continues in the long tradition of vilifying powerful women, Maguire’s novel sought to rewrite her story, giving this demonised figure a name—Elphaba (based on the initials of L. Frank Baum)—and a moral compass.”

Elphie ends with her enrolling at Shiz University. It is already known that she has Glinda (later the Good Witch of the North) as her roommate, the pretty blonde but mean-spirited young woman, who intends to humiliate Elphaba by giving her a black, pointed hat, which she defiantly wears as a mark of her disdain for those who mock her and makes it a part of her regular attire.

Hobson notes, “Frank Baum had an interesting relationship to women’s power, which is why the hero of The Wizard of Oz is depicted through a young girl like Dorothy, while she encounters equally powerful women with witch-like powers. His mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage, was a famed suffragist and radical feminist who had a direct influence on his own views on women’s suffrage... As such, these witches ‘occupy spaces of Otherness’, to cite Alissa Burger’s The Wizard of Oz as American Myth (2012). However, it is in that otherness and her willingness to ‘fly solo, fly free’ that enables Elphaba’s real transcendence beyond a morally bankrupt system.”

Maguire’s dedication in Elphie, referring to the actresses who played her on Broadway and in the Hollywood film, reads, “For Idina Menzel and for Cynthia Erivo and for all the Elphabas, past and to come.” Hopefully more…many more.

Deepa Gahlot is a Mumbai-based columnist, critic and author