Gregory Maguire Wicked

         Elphaba is the main character of the novel "Wicked". If you haven't seen Broadway or read the book she's more known as the Wicked Witch of the West from the famous movie/book "The Wizard of OZ". In the movie/book all that was told about her was that she was the villain and water causes her to melt. So L. Frank Baum never really gave her a back story where the audience could really understand what was going on in Elphaba's mind when she attacks Dorathy.

           So before reading "Wicked" I never liked the Wicked Witch, I thought she was like all the other villains in movies, just there for confict and didn't have a beginning or a reason, she's just there. Than again there were some questions that I wished to know the answer of at the end of the movie. Why's her skin green? Did she have a family like her? Was she always this person? Well, while I was reading "Wicked" I found out a lot of answers to these questions which made me feel like watching the movie again to make sure that all the answers made sense.

             For the question about her skin it turns out she was born green while neither of her parents were green, but apparently Elphaba was born on a very peculiar day. Which the author may be suggesting that maybe some unknown force or some sort of Munchkinlander folklore caused this to happen to her. On the topic of her physical odds it turns out that from the day she was born she hated water in general and to cope with that she used coconut oil so her skin didn't dehydrate.

            Her mother and her father were part of a missionary to the country side. Both knew that their daughter was odd but they kept her and had the mother's old nanny help with the upbringing. Elphaba also had a little half sister that was related to her through her mother ( you will have to read the book for this), and she had no arms but her skin tone was normal and she was considered pretty. When reading about her childhood I noticed that she didn't fair well with other children and her parents didn't even try to get her to interact with others which I found interesting. Seeing that Elphaba 's older self was living alone in a giant castle with monkey guards.

           At one point in the book Elphaba is sent to a boarding school where she meets Glinda, which was actually being pretty snobby at this age in my opinion. Once settling down Elphaba makes some aquetances but not anyone that she would really talk to. Showing that she already didn't like to socialize very much. 

          Reading "Wicked" did not exactly do what I thought it was trying to do. Which was get me to symphasize with the main character but it didn't, it allowed me to be more informed of her allowing me to understand a bit more of Elphaba's actions in the movie. Instead it made me admire L. Frank Baum for his ability to make villain that you had to imagine what thierry beginning was like.