Darkness
Darkness is the defining metaphor of the modern age, by which is meant, literarily speaking, since the end of the 19th century. Look for it next time you are reading some fiction written since then. In just a couple of days you will no longer have to look for it because it will seem like you can’t escape it. Since this is a pretty dark novel, this is not the only example available:
“And Madame Morrible? And Yackle? Was there any connection? Were they the same person, were they harsh divinities, avatars of a power of darkness, were they poisonous flitches struck from the evil body of the Kumbric Witch?”
Being Wicked
The book constantly is pondering over the question of what it means to be wicked. Perhaps surprisingly, this is not a subject that the characters themselves directly contemplate too often. But on at least one occasion, a certain limited scope of the nature of being wicked is explicitly addressed on a metaphorical level:
“I know this: The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness.”
In Love with the Green Girl
Elphaba’s green skin has a way of putting off most males in the story. But she is not unloved. Things take a tragic turn, of course, because, well, that is what happens when you are a green witch considered wicked, but for a time, it’s not all bad and she even moves her lover to flights of metaphorical fancy:
“You are the moon in the season of shadowlight; you are the fruit of the candlewood tree; you are the pfenix in circles of flight—”
The Future Glinda
Before becoming the Glinda the Good Witch we are all familiar with, she is known as Galinda. A kind of frothy, bubble-headed sorority sister. But appearances can be quite deceiving in this Oz and Galinda is not necessarily always what she seems:
“But when she slides back into herself, I mean the girl who spends two hours a day curling that beautiful hair, it's as if the thinking Galinda goes into some internal closet and shuts the door.”
Dorothy
With the exception of brief prefatory preview, Dorothy does not enter this version of the story of Oz until very late in the proceedings. Much is different about the story, but not relative to the girl from Kansas:
“A strange thing then happened.
The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.”
