CHARACTERS

Elphaba Thropp:

-Protagonist

-Born with green skin, black hair, sharp teeth, and very afraid of water

-Older sister of Nessarose

-Grew up in the Quadling Country

-Befriends Galinda at Shiz University

-Cares very much about The Animals, Animal Rights Activist

-She then becomes the Wicked Witch of the West in the future

Galinda Upland:

-Part of the high society in Gillikin

-Elphaba's roomate. She dislikes her at first but they then become good friends

-Her name was originally Galinda, then she referred to herself as Glinda

-Behaves snobby and mean,

-Becomes the Good Witch of the North in the future

Nessarose Thropp:

-Younger sister of Elphaba

-Supposedly favourite child of Frexspar Thropp

-Born with no arms, so she is unable to balance without help

-Unionist like her father

-Also attends Shiz University

-Could possibly be the daughter of Turtle Hear and not Frexspar

Madame Morrible:

-Headmistress of Shiz University's Crage Hall, which Glinda and Elphaba attend

-Suspected that she is responsible for Doctor Dillamond's death

Doctor Dillamond:

-Talking goat and Professor at Crage Hall in Shiz University

-With Elphaba's help he researches the differences between animals and Animals

-He is murdered by a slit throat, and it is suspected that Madame Morrible made her servant Grommetik kill him in order to keep his findings secret

Melena and Frexspar Thropp:

-Elphaba's, Nessarose and Shell's parents

-Melena dies shortly after Shell's birth

-Melena had an affair with Turtle Heart, and Nessarose could be the daughter of Melena and Turtle Heart

-Melena had mostly pagan traditions while Frexspar was

-She drank alcohol very often, and ate pinlobble leaves which act as a tranquilizer 

-Frex is a unionist priest, and has passed on his religious beliefs to Nessarose

-Elphaba believes that Frex favours Nessarose over his other children

 " 'Your fathers favourite?'

 'Oh thats easy', said Elphaba, jumping up and finding her books on her shelf, and getting ready to run out and stop the coversation in its tracks. 'That's Nessarose. You'll see why when you meet her. She'd be anyone's favourite.'" (136)

Nanny and Ama Clutch:

-Nanny is part of the Thropp family, although it is never said if she is related by blood or she is employed by them

-She is the caretaker of Nessarose, and the chaperone of Nessarose, Elphaba and Glinda (when Ama Clutch dies) at Shiz University

-She speaks her mind and it seems as though she is not afraid to do so

-Ama Clutch is Galinda's chaperone

-She loses her sanity when she witnesses the death of Doctor Dillamond

 " 'She reached a shaky hand out to the nail and picked it up and held it in her palm, tenderly and she talked to it' " (129)

Fiyero Tiggular:

-He is the prince of the Arjiki tribe in the Vinkus

-Meets Elphaba at Shiz University, and later has an affair with her



CRITICAL ARTICLE #3
This article is a book review written by Michiko Kakutani, and he is stating that Gregory Maguire's book is "deadly dull". The theme that Michiko believes Gregory Maguire is trying to express is that "people who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us". In Wicked, Elphaba was not wicked she was just misunderstood by her family and friends, Glinda was obsesses with money and status, and the Wizard of Oz is the evil one because he instituted murder against minority groups. In this book review, Michiko Kakutani, states that Gregory Maguire did a very good job for coming up with adventures for Elphaba and her friends but with his insistence on politicizing Oz turns a world of fun, spontaneous fantasy into a sad, and uneventful realm. In addition, he says that his awkward and bulky language further weighs his story down along with the fact that Elphaba and her friends spend too much time debating on the nature of good and evil and the difference between sorcery and science. Michiko Kakutani also says that certain passages in the novel makes the reader long to go back to the original Land of Oz that Baum created for audiences nearly a century ago.

Kakutani, Michiko. "Books of the Times-Let's Get This Straight:Glinda Was the Bad One?" New York Times, 24 Oct. 1995. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE7DF1738F937A15753C1A963958260&n=Top%2fFeatures%2fBooks%20Reviews>.

CRITICAL ARTICLE #2
There was a boy who grew up with books. They were his escape. He first started writing children's books for 15 years, then decided it was time to write an adult fiction novel. The writer is Gregory Maguire and his first novel was based on the Wizard of Oz and the title was Wicked. It was based on the wicked witch of the west and who she really was when she was younger, and what gave her the title of the wicked witch of the west. The novel sold over two million copies and then went on to be a musical, and Gregory Maguire kept on writing great novels one after another.

The reason he became interested in writing is because his parents were very strict and he was never very into sports as a child so he used a lot of his spare time reading and doing arts and crafts. When he was 8 or 9 he started to write and illustrate his own stories and he said that the beginning of his writing career was because of the novel, The Children of the Green Knowe. The reason why he like the Wizard of Oz so much was because his parents did not let him watch much TV as a child but that was the one movie he was able to watch and he and his siblings loved it. His inspiration for the novel was because of a newspaper headline that had Hitler's name in it, and it got him thinking about good and evil and if an individual could be born "bad". He almost wrote a novel about Hitler but then he realized that noone had ever written about the second most evil character almost everyone knows and that is the Wicked Witch of the West.



Scarecrow from Wizard
of Oz



He does at least five revisions because he feels like he is smoothing out his work each time and that makes him feel more confident in his work. Also, Gregory Maguire says that one of his favourite moments in the play Wicked is when Glinda finally gets over her fear of what her friends think and dances with Elphaba at the ball. This is his favourite because the audience can see the "beginning of a friendship--one of the best things in life". His favourite character from the Wizard of Oz is the scarecrow because without him Dorothy most likely would never have made it to Emerald City, and therefore she would have never gotten home. His advice for young writers is to keep a journal, write letters and talk to friends about what you enjoy from libraries or bookstores, and most importantly keep reading.

Fraser, Stephen. "Wicked with words: Gregory Maguire reimagines fairy tale." Writing! Feb.-Mar. 2006: 8+. General OneFile. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA141492675&v=2.1&u=ko_k12hs_d21&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w

CRITICAL ARTICLE #1

In the first article the writer, Beth Backkum, interviews Gregory Maguire and she finds out what his writing process is, how he gets his ideas for novels and why he writes books. In 1990 during the Persian Gulf War Gregory Maguire became interested in "good" and "bad" people and he started to wonder if individuals were born that way. Because of this Gregory Maguire began to become more interested in one of literatures most evil characters, and that character is the Wicked Witch of the West. In the Wizard of Oz the audience knows the wicked witch is evil as soon as they see her. We know that she is evil because of her green skin, her appearance, the music playing in the background, and how she is so different than Glinda the good witch. In Gregory Maguire's book, Wicked, he goes more in depth and gives readers a chance to know about Elphaba's past. In this novel, readers can sympathize with Elphaba and we learn that she was not born evil.

In the article, Gregory Maguire says that writing helps him see things more clearly. The process of writing a story has not changed much for him since grade four, and he creates the basic characters and situations they will have to overcome. He begins by writing in hand instead of on a computer or word processor because he will write slower and really think about what he wants to happen in the story he will be telling. When he is stuck and does not know what to do he turns to things that have given him comfort in the past and one example is the fairytales he knew as a child. With these fairytales he was able to explore and really look at all of the character's roles and give the background characters a chance to share their story and he lets them be known for something different rather than, the evil witch, or the evil stepsister or stepmother. He gives the background characters a story so people will remember them. For him, writing is a daily process in which he digs deeper to get the interesting, out of the ordinary stories he is known for.

Bakkum, Beth. "Gregory Maguire." Writer 3(2007):66. eLibrary. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/elibweb/curriculumca/do/document?set=search&dictionaryClick=&secondaryNav=advance&groupid=1&requestid=lib_canada&resultid=4&edition=&ts=168A6173EDD97DBFBBA897F0B5A3D762_1298607039655&start=1&publicationId=&urn=urn%3Abigchalk%3AUS%3BBCLib%3Bdocument%3B135547074

SURVEY OF AUTHORS & SECONDARY SOURCES

1) Title: Wicked

    Author: Gregory Maguire



Some members of the Wicked Cast



2) When choosing the novel I was going to read, the title Wicked immediately caught my eye. I knew that there was a play that was based on the novel and I had never seen the play before, therefore I decided to read the book to get to know what the story is about in more detail. I did not know anything about the author but I knew people who have read Wicked and his other books, so I did some research on Gregory Maguire and asked my peers who have read his works. I learned that he is a great writer and he has won many awards for his various books. So far, I have enjoyed this book and Gregory Maguire's writing and the way he switches between the different characters to show the characters different perspectives on events that have happened in the novel.



Gregory Maguire

 3) Gregory Maguire was born in Albany, New York on June 9, 1954. He received his B.A. from the State University of New York at Albany and his Ph.D. in English and American Literature at Tufts University. In 1987, he co-founded Children's Literature New England and he is still a co-director. He was a professor and co-director at the Simmons College Center for the Study of Childrens Literature in 1979-1985. He has written several books for children and adults, and he has written short stories and non-fiction books. He is currently married to an artist named Andy Newman and they have adopted three children.





Maguire's First

Published Book

4) Gregory Maguire has written many novels for adults and children. Many of his books involve fantasy and sometimes humour, and one single motif which is the loss of a mother, (Maguire lost his mother during childbirth). He also writes about people who are in a crisis or on the edge of it but in the end they overcome whatever problem it was and they become a stronger individual. An example of a childrens novel would be the first one that was published when he was a college juniour and the title was The Lightning Time. That book then turned into a trilogy. He also has written a five novel series called the Wicked Years which have become a very popular series in adults and young adults. Some of his novels are based on fairy tales people have read as children but he writes in someone else's perspective. An example of this is his book called, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister which is a novel based on the original story of Cinderella but it is written in the perpective of one of her ugly stepsisters. Gregory Maguires writing makes people look at the stories they knew so well in a different light, and it makes people think more about the "villians" they knew in old stories. Also, his writing gives some background and answers questions like, why the Wicked Witch of the West melted when water was dumped on her. His genre for the novels are usually fantasy.



King Lear



5) Gregory Maguire's main influence was the old fairytales many children know about princess' and evil stepsisters or stepmothers. He takes the plot of the story and adds more detail and depth, and he also puts the story in a different characters perspective so readers can see what Gregory Maguire thought about those characters who were in the background and never recognized for anything in the original stories. In addition, in his novels there is always a mother who is dead, extremely ill, or she could have left the family for someone else. For example, in Wicked Elphaba's mother died when she was giving birth to her son and this relates to Maguires life because his mother died in childbirth also. Gregory Maguire also said that for one of his books, Son of A Witch, the main character Liir was based on his assumptions on what King Lear from Shakespeare was like in his childhood. In an interview with USATODAY Maguire said that, "I've always wondered what the childhood of Shakespeare's Lear was like" (Minzesheimer).

6) Good vs. Evil
In Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked the main theme is good vs evil. The readers know the original story and they already know that Elphaba will be the Wicked Witch of the West in the future. But, Maguire has given readers a new perspective on Elphaba so even though readers know she's evil we are seeing a new story in her perspective, and personally, I don't imagine her as the Wicked Witch of the West anymore. This is because of the background Gregory Maguire has given the readers on Elphaba and her past.

Religion

Religion is a large part of this novel because in the beginning we find out that Elphaba's father Frex is a priest and he follows unionism. Also, his second daughter and sister to Elphaba, Nessarose, is very religious like her father and follows in his footsteps. In the Land of Oz, the country is divided up and in each 'state' they have a different religion that they believe in and that relates to the real world where there are different religions everywhere. In this book the people all have different views on religion and there are some who are very religious and others who don't care as much as others. In the novel, Nessarose, Elphaba and Galinda argue very often about certain topics on religion because they each have different points of views. Nessarose feels very strongly about her religion while Elphaba does not feel as strongly as her sister and Galinda usually disagrees with her completely.



Map of Oz

Family 


Elphaba and Nessarose



In the novel family is a very important theme because when Elphaba was born the only social interaction she had was with her family. She rarely went to go and play with the other children because her mother was embarrassed of her green skin. When her younger sister Nessarose was born she did not have any arms, so Elphaba had someone she could socialize with who had some sort of physical disorder like herself. In the novel the readers can really see how Elphaba's family develops.

Priscilla Galloway

7) Authors that are similar to Gregory Maguire are Robin McKinley, J.K. Rowling, Jane Yolen, Donna Jo Napoli, and Priscilla Galloway. These authors are similar to Gregory Maguire because they write fantasy novels and they have written novels like Wicked, where they take an original fairytale and put more detail into it and put it in a different characters perspective. These authors retell the classics in a new and interesting way for readers. They have the settings in fantasy places, like Hogwarts, Land of Oz etc.

Critical Articles

• Bakkum, Beth. "Gregory Maguire." Writer 3(2007):66. eLibrary. Web. 17 Oct. 2011 (http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/elibweb/curriculumca/do/document?set=search&dictionaryClick=&secondaryNav=advance&groupid=1&requestid=lib_canada&resultid=4&edition=&ts=168A6173EDD97DBFBBA897F0B5A3D762_1298607039655&start=1&publicationId=&urn=urn%3Abigchalk%3AUS%3BBCLib%3Bdocument%3B135547074)
• Fraser, Stephen. "Wicked with words: Gregory Maguire reimagines fairy tale." Writing! Feb.-Mar. 2006: 8+. General OneFile. Web. 17 Oct. 2011 (http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE%7CA141492675&v=2.1&u=ko_k12hs_d21&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w%29&authCount=1)
• Kakutani, Michiko. "Books of the Times-Let's Get This Straight:Glinda Was the Bad One?" New York Times, 24 Oct. 1995. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE7DF1738F937A15753C1A963958260&n=Top%2fFeatures%2fBooks%20Reviews>.

Novel Title: Wicked-The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Author: Gergory Maguire
Date of Publication: 1996
Number of Pages: 406

2. The reason I chose this book is because I have always wanted to see the actual play, Wicked. So, I decided that until I get the chance to see the play I could read the book and get to know the story more in depth. Also, I have heard reviews from different people and some are good and some are bad so I would like to make a decision for myself to see how much I enjoy or dislike the book. In addition, I enjoy reading books in which I already know some of the plot so it is easier to read and I know I am actually going to be interested in it. I am looking forward to reading this book and hopefully in the future I will also be able to see the play.

3. So far, I am enjoying this book even though I have not gotten very far into it. But, some of the words are confusing and sometimes I have to re-read some sections in order to fully understand what the author/characters are saying. Also, it is giving a lot of background information but I have not found out why Elphaba was born green but I am hoping that I will find out later in the book. In addition, I am finding it very interesting to learn about the story that happened before the Wizard of Oz, and finding out why Glinda and Elphaba do not like each other. I am also excited to learn how they ended up being the ‘wicked witch of the west’ and the ‘good witch of the north’.

4. I have read four chapters of this book and I am learning more about Elphaba when she was a baby and her parents. I am looking forward to reading and getting more in depth with my novel.

5. So far, I have met Elphaba, her mother Melena and her father Frex. The setting in the prologue of the book is the same time period as the Wizard of Oz. The Wicked Witch is spying on Dorothy and her three companions and she hears them talking about the rumours they have heard about her. The witch is hurt and wants to hurt them, but a storm is coming so she must leave them.

            Then it goes into the first chapter where I meet Frex and a very pregnant Melena. They live in Rush Margins, Munchkinland. In the first chapter she is expecting to have her child that day but, her husband has to leave to give a sermon, for he is a priest. Melena is very upset with him and thinks he should be more excited for their first baby ‘boy’.

 In the second chapter I learn about the “Clock of the Time Dragon”, which is a circus sideshow that predicts peoples futures. Frex learns from other priests that the clock is predicting horrible futures so when it comes to Frex’s town he is determined to stop it. But, when the clock comes into town it shows a little toy Frex being beaten up and eaten by his town’s people, and once the people see this they decide it is time to make the prediction happen. Frex escapes but he then gets worried about the life of Melena and his unborn child. Some women help Melena escape from a drunk mob while she is almost in labour and Melena ends up having her child in the `Clock of the Time Dragon` and she bears a green baby girl with razor sharp teeth, whom bites off the finger of one of the women who helped Melena give birth. Melena and Frex do not know how to love their `deformed` child, and Frex`s nanny comes by and starts to question Melena and Frex in order to find out why their child is green. Nanny suspects that Melena was raped by some man who had a skin colouring disease. She then hopes that Elphaba`s parents will be able to learn to love their child and look past her green skin.

6. A theme that is beginning to evolve so far in the beginning of the book is religion. The theme has been reoccurring ever since Elphaba was born. Frex, her father, is a priest and he went to perform a sermon to the people of his town in order to get them away from the `Clock of the Time Dragon`. Also, since Elphaba was born green her father kept saying how heaven would not approve of her because of her green skin, and he also said that before the baby was born he said the devil was coming, so he predicted that Elphaba was the devil. In addition, when Elphaba was a few months old, Frex performed an exorcism in hopes of turning her green skin back to a normal colour but, he failed to do so. Another theme that is presented is good vs. evil.  

7. One secondary source I have found is a book review by a blog that goes by ìnscrawl`. This review helped me make my decision in reading this book since I could not decide between two books but, this review made me more excited to read the book. The review can be found here: http://inkscrawl.blogspot.com/2005/10/book-review-wicked-by-gregory-maguire.html

8. The quote that stood out to me the most was:

`Perhaps, thought Nanny, little green Elphaba chose her own sex, and her own colour, and to hell with her parents. ` (Maguire, 31).

This line stood out to me because the author is saying that Elphaba would have to stand up for herself and learn that she can be whatever she wants to be, and she does not have to listen to anyone who would make fun of her about her skin colour. Also, this stood out to me because it makes me think about my own life and the society that we all live in now, and how we all need to have clear skin and we all have to be skinny in order to be considered `beautiful`. But, maybe if we said to hell with society, everyone would be more confident and their self esteem would go up and maybe people would be happier with their selves.

I am hoping to finish my book by either the end of October or the end of November would be the latest. My book is divided into five parts so I will try to read each part in two or three weeks. If I get really into the book I will most likely read it a lot faster.