"People who claim they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.”

- Boq (Wicked)

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There is something so intriguing, familiar and almost scandalous about reading a well-known children’s tale that has been re-told and adapted for adult readers, for that is where simple legends become complex examinations of society. That’s exactly how I feel about Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), a parallel novel to L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and the story of the “life and times” of one of the most popular evil figures of literature. Each time I read the novel, I find myself greatly enjoying the story from the Witch’s perspective, but I have also noted with great interest and surprise the level of social and political commentary that Maguire has added to the land of Oz.

It is by reading Maguire’s story with a Marxist mindset that allows me to delve deeper into the story’s subplots involving the authoritative, controlling and manipulative Wizard (so different from the beloved ole softie from the movie!) and the laws passed restricting animals from holding jobs and political standing. Or, rather I should say Animals, for in Oz, there is a difference between the drooling farm animals and the intelligent, personable, anthropomorphic Animals. One such Animal is Doctor Dillamond, a Goat who teaches at Shiz University and a ardent supporter of Animal rights against the Wizard’s “Banns on Animal Mobility… [restricting] in their access to travel conveyances, lodgings, and public services. The Mobility it referred to was also professional. Any Animal… was prohibited from working in the professions or the public sector. They were, effectively, to be herded back to the farmland or wilds…” (Maguire 114). These Animals, while obviously expressing human characteristics, are what Marx would deem the “subordinate graduations” (Marx 657) of Oz’s society. Elphaba (later known as the Wicked Witch of the West) and her friends take a small part in the fight for Animals, and this in turn generates some of the ill will the Witch has towards the Wizard at the end of the story.

The Banns push the Animals - some of who were teachers, philosophers or workers – even further down the social ladder, to the part of mere cattle, laboring for nothing more than a little hay or feed, the proletarian class of OZ. It is strange to read a fictional novel and then think about the cows, sheep and other livestock that provide a great deal of our food stuffs, products and livelihoods in real life, and wonder what would happen if they could talk! Would they demand equal rights, or suffer as they continue to be suppressed as the labor class of our society? For surely cattle in our society is considered to be the silent, un-acknowledged and vastly inhibited labor power of our society, toiling only for others' benefits – namely, ours.

Unfortunately in Wicked, Animals never climb back up the social ladder. Doctor Dillamond is murdered, ostensibly because of his vocal support of Animals and sometime later in the novel, the main (human) characters note that there are no longer any Animals in Oz after the Banns. As noted before, it is the Wizard and his supporters – the bourgeoisie in Oz – who help mold Elphaba into the Witch and push down Animal proletariats.

(532)

Maguire, Geogory. Wicked. New York: Harper, 1995. Print.

Marx, Karl. “The Communist Manifesto.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 657-660. Print.