Frank Baum, the author of the original Oz books! If you're not familiar with either the musical or the novel and want to be surprised when you see the movie, this is a good point to turn back, because we're headed down the yellow brick road of spoilers. If you're looking to refresh your memory or compare the two versions, however, read on! The movie adapts the stage musical Wicked , so let's start there. In the musical, Elphaba's backstory is laid out from the circumstances of her birth.
She's the green-skinned daughter of the governor of Munchkinland. While the reason for Elphaba's green skin is unknown, it's hinted to be the result of something her mother did before Elphaba was born. Because of her green skin, Elphaba is shunned by everyone and loathed by her father, who openly favors her younger sister, Nessarose, who is beautiful and shy and uses a wheelchair. Their mother died giving birth to Nessarose. When the main story begins, Elphaba has grown into a prickly, intelligent, and opinionated young woman.
She's sent to Shiz University, but not for her own sake; her father just wants her there to take care of Nessarose, who also is starting classes there.
Elphaba has grown up with magical powers she can't control and that just seem to burst out of her at emotional moments. When it happens at orientation at Shiz, Elphaba tries to apologize. Surprisingly, the headmistress, Madame Morrible, is impressed with Elphaba's abilities and decides to tutor her in magic privately — much to the chagrin of Glinda, a perky blonde from a wealthy family who desperately wants to study magic, too.
Over time, Elphaba's activist side comes out, especially as she learns more about how the Animals in Oz are oppressed and somehow forgetting how to speak. Near the end of the play, Elphaba says a tearful goodbye to Glinda, both saying that the other were the only true friend they ever had, and is melted. Yet at the very end of the play she comes out of a trap door, and runs away from Oz with Fiyero, who has now been turned into a scarecrow.
Elphaba is shy, brave, feisty, hates the rules, smart, sassy, easily angered, yet also kind and loyal. She cares about the rights of herself and others.
And about her friendship with Glinda, she loves to read and to learn things. She is also a child of two worlds, so her magical potential is very high. She also loves animals. Broadway Explore. Wiki Content.
Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? Elphaba Thropp. Elphaba can't see beneath the surface of things, and she constantly struggles to grasp the big picture. Of course, that doesn't stop her from tackling very large and very weighty philosophical issues: the girl spends her free time pondering religion, evil, politics, civil rights, human nature, etc.
But Elphaba never stops feeling like she's missing something, and we'd like to argue that she's actually missing herself. Elphaba spends so much time trying to make herself disappear that she kind of misses the role she herself plays in certain events, as well as the nuances that exist in those events. We aren't trying to make a point as trite as "Elphaba has low self-esteem, so she became evil. So let's check out some of the effects of Elphaba's self-image before turning our attention to Big Themes and one very Wicked Witch.
Elphaba really is a bit of a washout. She fails at her Animal rights campaign. She fails as an underground revolutionary. She fails to get Sarima's verbal forgiveness. She fails to protect Sarima and her family.
She fails to rescue Nor. Yeah, we can see why Elphaba sort of loses it near the end. The woman is pretty much the John Locke of Oz. Like the Lost character, Elphaba is a perpetual screw-up. She seems poised for greatness but never reaches her full potential. Well, she kind of reaches it, but she didn't really have much to do with it.
Part of the reason Elphaba has such a rough time is that fate is conspiring against her. Various powerful forces really are working to control her life. The Wizard hurts those closest to her, Madame Morrible has her watched, and we still aren't entirely sure what Yackle was up to, but it was something sinister.
But Elphaba herself also contributes to many of her failures. She keeps trying to make herself disappear or "become and un" as she puts it 3. The problem with making yourself disappear is that it tends to limit the things you can actually do.
And Elphaba sometimes freaks out at the idea of doing anything, particularly if it's magical. I have no aptitude for sorcery! But she's also painfully aware of this ineptitude, and it creates a constant negative feedback loop, with "fate" in the form of Yackle and that weird dwarf and her insane biological father the Wizard interfering at opportune moments. But what exactly is Elphaba kept from realizing, or unable to realize, about herself?
Well, we have a few theories…. Elphaba is a child of two worlds, and her greenness is a key part of that. This is the major thing Elphaba never grasps about herself. She struggles with her oddness, she tries to embrace and emphasize her own uniqueness in her youth particularly through her pro-Animal quest , and she seems at least somewhat aware of her "special" nature. But by the time she starts getting answers about herself and her origins, she's almost too jaded to register them.
Turtle Heart sums up Elphaba's unique character best: "She is herself pleased at the half things," Turtle Heart said. The little girl to play with the broken pieces better. But Elphaba's green skin also links her not just to the other world, but to the green land of Oz itself.
If you want to read more about the green connections in the novel, check out the "Symbols, Imagery, Allegory" section. There's something slightly "off" about Elphaba; she's like a walking paradox who is never quite what she ought to be — never fully "herself. In some ways, Elphaba is more "of Oz" than anyone else in the book. And as Yackle predicted, she and her sister have huge roles to play in Oz's history.
Elphaba's green skin also ties her to themes of magic with the Miracle Elixir bottle , other worlds and realities again with the Elixir , politics and power via the Emerald City , the mythical and "all-seeing" or all-imagining Time Dragon, and various mythical aspects of Oz itself. But Elphaba seems to miss all these connections as an adult. She is much more attuned to them as a child. Check out this scene: "The dragon who has dreamt the world, and who will burn it in flames when he awakes --" [ She bared her teeth — as if she knew what a dragon was, as if she were pretending — and roared.
Her green skin made her more persuasive, as if she were a dragon child.
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