Book Summary of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is the interesting story of Elphaba, who becomes the mysterious witch in the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum’s classic tale. Made even more famous by the musical Wicked and now by the movie, I’m seeing Wicked everywhere.
However, the book is very different from the musical or movie. So, read the original book that inspired the Broadway musical about the infamous Wicked Witch of the West. Hear her side of the story that’s most likely very far from what you imagined.
I’ve summarized the main points of the book for your learning and understanding before you read the review. But if you want to fully understand the book, especially before you see the film adaptation or the musical adaptation, I recommend you read the entire book.
Part 1 Munchkinlanders
Chapter 1-5
Frex Thropp, a munchkin minister, and his wife, Melena Thropp, are getting ready to have their first baby as Frex has to travel to warn the Munchkins against an inappropriate, traveling puppet show (the Clock of the Time Dragon). While he’s gone, Melena gives birth to a green baby, Elphaba Thropp, they are ashamed of and try to hide. Melena has her childhood Nanny come to help.
Nanny is determined to help the baby even though Elphaba is very difficult, with sharp teeth and a major fear of water. Nanny also questions Melena who admits that when Frex travels a lot, she entertains travelers passing by and often ends the night unconscious from a plant she likes to chew. One gave her a miracle elixir in a green bottle that caused vivid dreams, but that’s all she remembers.
Chapters 6-9
When Elphaba is a little green-skinned girl, a traveling Quadling glassblower named Turtle Heart is invited in by Melena. Melena and Turtle Heart end up having an ongoing affair even when Frex returns from traveling. Nanny comes to help take care of Elphaba again and makes her play with other kids.
After weeks of staying, Turtle Heart says he must go to the Emerald City to ask the Queen Ozma, to stop construction in Quadling City. The making of the new road through his hometown will ruin it and the people’s lives. Melena announces she’s pregnant, and, secretly, she’s not sure who the father is.
Part 2 Gillikin
Galinda
On the way to Shiz University, Galinda’s chaperone gets detoured and causes Galinda to be roomed with another girl without a chaperone, Elphaba. Galinda focuses on making friends and looking her best while Elphaba keeps to herself and reads books. As the semester progresses, Elphaba challenges Galinda as to what she believes, but Galinda doesn’t really know because she’s not good at thinking.
The headmistress, Madame Morrible, who doesn’t seem to like Elphaba, recites original poetry that says Animals (animals with human intelligence and the ability to talk) should be seen and not heard. Doctor Dillamond, a goat who’s also their science teacher, tells them this is the latest propaganda after the Wizard of Oz has banned Animals from travel and starting new professions in the world of Oz. Madame Morrible also encourages Galinda to study sorcery next year.
Boq
Boq, a Munchkinlander who knew Elphaba as a child, gets Elphaba to arrange a meeting between him and Galinda, who he met once before and is infatuated with. Galinda politely tells him there cant be anything between them, much to Elphaba’s amusement, because of their differences in culture, social status, and height. However, Boq vows not to give up and speaks to Galinda whenever their paths cross.
While working at the library over the summer, Boq runs into Elphaba who tells him about her summer job working with Dr. Dillamond to scientifically prove that Animal tissue is the same as human tissue, effectively making Animals first-class citizens again. Towards the end of summer, Elphaba reports that Dr. Dillamond has made a break through and is trying to find the best political way to release it. Before the first day of classes, Dr. Dillamond is found dead.
The Charmed Circle
Galinda starts going by Glinda, how Dr. Dillamond said her name, and spending more time with Elphaba because she finds her old friends vain. Glinda’s chaperone, Ama Clutch, who found Dr. Dillamond’s body, has gone crazy, so Nanny comes to be their chaperone. Nanny brings along Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose, because she’s physically disabled with no arms and limited use of her legs. While at Shiz, her father sends Nessarose an exquisite pair of shoes that shine different colors (the ruby slippers).
Elphaba and Glinda visit a dying Ama Clutch who admits, in a moment of clarity, she saw Madame Morrible’s tiktok robot servant Grommetik kill Dr. Dillamond. After Ama Clutch’s funeral, Madame Morrible proposes to Glinda, Elphaba, and Nessarose, under an oath of silence and secrecy, that because of their potential she would like them all to study sorcery and become Adepts for the Wizard’s government to quiet civil unrest.
Elphaba makes Glinda go with her to the Emerald City where they finally get to see the Wizard of Oz after days of waiting. He appears as a luminous skeleton on a throne surrounded by rain and lightning as Elphaba confronts him about the unfair treatment of Animals and Dr. Dillamond’s findings. The Wizard dismisses this and confirms his contempt for all Animals, so Elphaba sends Glinda back to Shiz while she stays in the Emerald City.
Part 3 City of Emeralds
A few years after graduating Shiz, Fiyero Tigelaar, a Vinkus prince who was friends with Boq, Elphaba, and Glinda, runs into Elphaba in the Emerald City, but she tries to ignore him at first because she’s working for some sort of secret rebellion group. Fiyero fills her in that himself, Glinda, and Boq all got married mostly for political reasons after returning to their respective parts of the country. After a few meetings, they begin having an affair, and Fiyero falls in love with Elphaba.
Eventually, Elphaba loves him back and tells him that she’s taking sorcery lessons as well as the group she works for is trying kill the Wizard. Fiyero secretly follows her on her mission to assassinate Madame Morrible, but the plan goes wrong. Fiyero gets killed by the Wizard’s police force as soon as he returns to Elphaba’s place to find her, and Elphaba goes straight into hiding at a convent for St. Glinda, now the Good Witch.
Part 4 In the Vinkus
Voyage Out
After seven years in the convent training as a nurse, Elphaba travels into Vinkus with a little boy, Liir, she drags along but doesn’t seem to care for, to confront Fiyero’s widow and children to atone for that mistake. She meets a princess of the native Vinkus tribe who’s an Elephant enchanted into a woman, and the princess instructs Elphaba to travel under the disguise as a witch with her pet crows. During the journey, Elphaba rescues and keeps a baby monkey she calls Chistery.
The Jasper Gates of Kiamo Ko
Elphaba, Liir, and Chistery stay in the castle of Fiyero’s wife, Sarima, and family for the winter, but Samira doesn’t let Elphaba talk about Fiyero at all when Elphaba tries to confess the truth. While wandering the castle, Elphaba finds a book of magic, the Grimmerie, that Samira said was left by a traveling sorcerer. Elphaba tries to use the Grimmerie to turn Chistery into a Monkey who can talk, but the monkey just learns how to repeat back words.
When the winter ends, Nanny shows up with a caravan looking for Elphaba who she caught wind of from the convent. Fiyero and Samira’s second oldest son, Manek, tricks Liir into going down the well, and the adults have to save him a few days later even though they think he’s dead at first. Elphaba knows Manek had something to do with Liir, and Manek dies in a tragic accident after an icicle falls on him, as Elphaba is imagining that happening.
Uprising
Elphaba admits to Nanny that Liir may be Fiyero and her son, but the whole first year in the convent she was in a deadly sleep and doesn’t remember anything. All Elphaba knows is that the Superior at the convent made her take Liir with her when she left. While Nanny is there, some of the Wizard’s soldiers come to survey the land, and Samira lets them stay at the castle against Elphaba’s advice.
Nanny also tells Elphaba that Nessarose took over as the Eminence of Munchkinland and eventually lead a revolt to succeed from the Land of Oz. Elphaba uses a flying broom given to her by a crazy patient at the convent to fly to Nessarose, and Nessarose asks Elphaba to stay as her second in command. Nessarose also can walk on her own because Glinda enchanted Nessarose’s sparkly shoes.
Elphaba learns that Animals are still treated as animals in Munchkinland, too, and that Nessarose uses her sorcery to keep power. The Munchkins secretly call Nessarose the Witch of the East, so Elphaba jokingly calls herself the Witch of the West. Elphaba decides to go back to Vinkus only to find the soldiers have taken Fiyero’s family and Liir, and dispersed the villagers leaving only Nanny in the castle who recounts the whole story.
Part 5 The Murder and Its Afterlife
Seven years later in Vinkus with Nanny and Liir (who came back after the soldiers took him), Elphaba is working on giving monkeys wings with the Grimmerie when Elphaba’s father sends a letter saying Nessarose was killed when a house fell on her. Elphaba travels to Munchkinland for the funeral where she sees Glinda who’s very excited to see her and tells Elphaba about Dorothy, who Glinda sent to Emerald City because of the political turmoil now threatening Munchkinland. Glinda and Elphaba get into an argument about Nessarose’s magic shoes which Elphaba believes are hers and a threat in the hands of the Wizard.
After the funeral, the Wizard comes to talk to Elphaba about wanting the Grimmerie back, saying that him and the book are from other worlds. He shows Elphaba he has Fiyero and Samira’s daughter as a prisoner (the rest of the family was killed), but won’t bargain for her back before he leaves. Elphaba travels to Shiz and kills Madame Morrible.
Elphaba runs into a dwarf who claims to be from the same world as the Grimmerie who tells her that the crazy patient, Yackle, who gave her the broom was from that world, too. The dwarf also tells her that the Wizard is her real father.
Back at her castle, Elphaba uses her looking glass (a gift from Turtle Heart) to see Dorothy, the tin man, the scarecrow, and the cowardly lion coming for her. On their way up to the castle, Elphaba sends her dog, bees, crows and finally her flying monkeys to retrieve Dorothy and the Lion, who Elphaba imagines is a lion cub he saved from her college professor. Ultimately, Dorothy pours water on Elphaba killing her, and Dorothy and her friends escape back to the Emerald City.
Read the Full Book Review
Now that you’ve refreshed on the main point, you can read the review here. There’s also other questions about the book answered there and other book recommendations. This is the first book in Gregory Maguire’s The Wicked Years series, so you can continue with the next book, Son of a Witch.
