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How Is Elphaba's Use Of The Color Green As Evil

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The book opens on the Yellow Brick Road. Dorothy and her friends are being watched by the Wicked Witch, and she thinks back on her life in Oz, how she wasn’t always so wicked as others think she is. “But surely the curse was on the land of Oz, not on her. Though Oz had given her a twisted life, hadn’t it also made her capable?”(page 4). It’s not Elphaba’s fault that she’s wicked, Oz had shaped her this way. From her childhood to her death,the sweet girl is morphed into a feared, powerful witch. Elphaba and the Witch are two completely different people. Throughout Wicked, Elphaba develops through the theme-- not to judge a book by its cover-- through the representation of the color green as evil, her views on religion, and the two people who …show more content…

The Wizard is presented to Dorothy as a large green head, The Emerald City was built and occupied by the tyrannus government, and Elphaba is born with green skin. However, elphaba is not wicked. In her young adulthood, elphaba realizes this and decides she wants to live up to this stereotype, simply because it’s hopeless to be seen any other way. In Oz, or really anywhere, people fear the unknown. Elphaba is the unknown.Green skin on a young woman is seen as odd or unusual, yet elphaba believes people are getting what's coming to them when she does her wicked deeds. She states on page 148 that “Father loves lost causes.” Elphaba is depicted as a social lost cause, a hopeless case. However, her father was not proud of her… he was ashamed and didn't love her as his own daughter, but as a …show more content…

It can be argued that Nanny is similar to Feste in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, she always knows what's happening without ever being involved, and she is much wider than the other members of Elphaba’s family. Another example is Fiyero. He helped Elphaba realize that she had the capability to love and be loved in return. He showed her that she deserved human contact, human union, and he loved her for who she was, not what she looked like. He helped her realize the theme to “not judge a book by its cover” and that shye didn't have to live up to that

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Green is archetypally associated with wealth, envy, and life. One example of green being used in the novel is that it is the color used for furnishing Gatsby’s car. Although the outside of his car is yellow to certify that everyone is aware of his wealth, the area that he inhabits while driving is green to remind him of the wealth he had built himself. When Nick is in the car, he describes it as a, “green leather conservatory” (47). The use of the word conservatory reveals to the reader that Nick feels like it is something of a spectacle seeing how a conservatory holds things that should be looked at.

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In The Wizard of Oz, the theme is related to the comforts of home, lies and deceit, courage, explorations and maybe a little politics of 1890s America. While Wicked’s themes seem to be aimed at beauty, racism, acceptance, good and evil, and friendship. The themes for both musicals differ greatly and send a much different message to the viewer. The Wizard of Oz gives off more of a “lets go explore” and friendship kind of feeling whereas Wicked makes you think about society and how we treat others. The biggest factor in that is Elphaba, and how she is treated differently because her skin color is green.

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Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald continuously references a green light that Gatsby keeps on reaching for. The green light was significant by representing the theme of greed, being a symbol of Gatsby’s desire for Daisy, and serves as a motif for the American Dream. The color green in itself already illustrates the idea of greed and money. Gatsby already has everything anyone could dream for counting a house in West Egg, fame, and fortune, but still he is chasing after this light or in other words, chasing after the love of his life, Daisy. The light is a literary metaphor for Daisy since during the novel, once Gatsby reunites with Daisy the light begins to fade and reframes from reaching out for it.

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The plot runs from before the start of the Wizard of Oz and then proceeds alongside it, finishing with the supposed death of the Wicked Witch. It re-tells Elphaba’s story and shows how her differences rendered her a scapegoat, allowing the government of Oz to turn the population against her when she hadn’t really done anything wrong. Elphaba’s differences and the people’s reaction to her are obvious symbols of racial prejudice. This is again seen through Doctor Dillamond, an Goat and professor of History at the university, who tells that the Animals in Oz are losing their rights and their powers of speech. This essay will explore racial prejudice in the musical WICKED, analysing the songs and scenes where Doctor Dillamond and Elphaba interact with the other characters in the production to show how the theme is conveyed.

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