Wicked Womans Study Term Paper

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March 2011 Woman's Study Book Report Wicked The following is an analysis of the book "Wicked - The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West", by Gregory Maguire and its connectivity of the novel with the concepts and teachings of the Woman's Study Course. Perhaps most stirring passage in the entire book is the following: "Perhaps, thought Nanny, little green Elphaba chose her own sex, and her own color, and to hell with her parents". We all know that in reality, selectively choosing of our gender, sexuality and race is not available. However, we know all too well, that a person's traits can entirely establish the person's strata in life - a life of poverty, a life of riches, a life of class and society, sexuality, or a life of oppression. This strata - is often times not a choice that is given to people to make in the real world. And the labels created by others are used detrimentally against people to minimize or oppress them. And these conditions in life can be affected by many different events and interactivity with not only family, but friends and outsiders. It can also be impacted negatively by other outside agents and environments. People often times have no control of their sexuality and more so gender, nonetheless their race or class. This scenario is clearly a common thread in the main character's life, Elphaba - The Wicked Witch of the West - who we all know to be the villainess in the "Wizard of Oz". However, the conditions that lead her to this point in the book "Wicked" provide a unique aspect to how people can be labeled by others to achieve their own selfish goals. Even from birth, Elphaba was born a bastard child, an illegitimate baby, nonetheless the color green (certainly one can emphasize with being born a color of not one choosing - but in the novel this is highly illustrational of the difficult issues she was to face all

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