The place of Animals in society is an important theme in Wicked. Why does Elphaba make it her mission to fight for Animal rights? How else does social class define Oz, and why?

Chris from my discussion group responded,

"First, I think it sets up a good reason for the Wicked Witch of the West to have befriended an awesome army of flying monkey people. (Then again who wouldn't want one?!) That being said, that is not really the intent of the question. The answer you are looking for is that she sees part of herself in the animals....something about being discriminated against...it seems to be the obvious answer.

I am more interested in the relationship of the N vs. W witches.

One thing that I don't understand right now as I think about the movie is the way that the Wizard of Oz treats the Cowardly Lion. He does treat him like a human and I see his actions in the book taking a turn even further away from this. Actually my guess is that Oz's treatment of Animals is Elphaba's reason for withdrawing from society all together.

As far as how social class defines Oz, you need only look at Glinda. She is seen when in private having a side that is kind and caring toward Elphaba. Her social class restricts her from showing this compassion in public. Her lack of being able show this empathy around other people and how it relates to Elphaba is going to play a pretty critical role. My guess is these poor decisions followed by a good old epiphany eventually lead to her becoming the good witch of the North."

The place of Animals in society is an important theme in Wicked. Why does Elphaba make it her mission to fight for Animal rights?

Tammy and Chris from Tammy's group:

IMO there is a parallel between Animals in Wicked and Jews during World War II (innocent victims who are treated as animals/ sub-human beings).
Before Jews were exterminated, there were a lot of restrictions as to what they were and were not allowed to do (this is what Dr Dimmamond was protesting).

In "City of Emeralds", p 260, the Bears and the Bear cub stand for the innocent victims, and this was a moving scene --perhaps the first one in the novel; not that the rest was boring, but here there was no distance.
Fiyero, who witnesses the killing of the Cub, does not want to get involved in Elphaba's fight, but he can't but feel for the victims.

There is a nice touch page 260: the Bear killers are called "Gale Forcers".

This is what Wikipedia says about Sturmabteilung in Germany after World War I:

The Sturmabteilung , abbreviated SA, (German for "Storm division" or "Storm section", usually translated as "stormtroop(er)s"), functioned as a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP

I think Elphaba feels a kind of kinship to the Animals. She is different herself and is treated according to her difference and the injustice of this really angers her. Race plays a part in a lot of elements of our own society and I think the author is using it in the book to show us our own treatment of people we see as being "different" or in the case of Nazi Germany as Ophelia pointed out "sub human". Kind of like holding a mirror up to society.

"She [Elphaba] sees part of herself in the animals....something about being discriminated against...it seems to be the obvious answer."

More specifically, I think Elphaba identifies

what do you think of the author's use of Galinda & Glinda when talking about the same person? I apparently haven't read as far as you have yet, but I think that the reason the author is doing this is to parallel the change from Galinda, The Self-Important, to Glinda, The Good Witch. As she becomes less self-involved, we see the author using Glinda more than Galinda. Is this what you think is happening?

Yes, the narrator kindly points at the importane of the change as soon as it occurs (!) page 167.

This is given some emphasis I think because it is the first page of a new sub-chapter, "The Charmed Circle".

"Glinda -- for out of some belated apology for her initial rudeness to the martyred Goat, she now called herself as he had once called her (...)

page 171:" Bocq would see Glinda at the first coeducation lecture ever held at Shiz.
Though she had changed."

On page 179, after Dr. Dillamond's murder, Boq pleads to Elphaba to let him help her "figure out" Dr. Dillamond's work and fight for Animal rights:

"Look, Elphie, you've more or less convinced me what the wizard is up to. The confining of Animals back onto farms

During the second biology class with Dr. Nikidik on page 187, he posed the following question to the class:
"...Do you think that if we could cauterize that part of the brain that develops language, we could eliminate the notion of pain and thus its existence?"

This question reminded me of the old classic, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does it make a noise?
One argument is that a falling tree makes a noise because a noise is simply a vibration of air. Just because no one heard, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
On the other hand, one could also argue that a sound is simply our perception of the vibration of the air. Thus, if no one heard it, then it didn't really make a sound...

So, do you think pain could cease to exist if we lost the capacity to identify and describe it? Or, does it exist regardless of whether or not we are capable of recognizing it?
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:49 pm Post subject: Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster Report Post
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During the second biology class with Dr. Nikidik on page 187, he posed the following question to the class:
"...Do you think that if we could cauterize that part of the brain that develops language, we could eliminate the notion of pain and thus its existence?


I can't imagine much suspense as to the answer... The good Doctor is ridiculed, pages 186 and 187, and this is another example of the author's ability to bring in many issues we can recognize, and bring them in in an original way.

Poor little lion cub!

Dr Nikidik's question is nonsensical, but the sad thing is that the people who reasoned like him often had power and authority to act according to the conclusions they drew.
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:17 pm Post subject: Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster Report Post
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do you think pain could cease to exist if we lost the capacity to identify and describe it? Or, does it exist regardless of whether or not we are capable of recognizing it?


The question would be valid for other fields than pain.
When you study foreign languages, you learn that different human groups in different languages describe external reality in different ways. The words influence your perception of reality, and your perception influences the words the group creates.
There's the old story of the many words for snow in some human groups, and the many many words the French invited to describe wine. People tell me once you've taken those oenology courses and know the specialized language you can actually taste all the subleties of the wines much better (the courses would be lost on me though).

Now, to return to pain...

I've been thinking about one of those pet subjects of mine, conversation, language, and have started another thread about this.
The books I'd looked up were mostly a waste of time, but I was lucky enough to be recommended Boris Cyrulnik's books.
This should open new vistas. So far I've only read interviews he gave. He's done what seems to be very impressive research about human language and animals' behaviour, and I think this is just the angle I need.
Cyrulnik is an ethologist, and also a psychiatrist.
( ethology: 1- a branch of knowledge dealing with human character and with its formation and evolution
2 : the scientific and objective study of animal behavior especially under natural circumstances).

He says he was a medical student in the 1930's and his professors taught the golden truth that animals could not feel pain, therefore you could operate on them without using aenesthetics (naturally, humans will never be content with writing books for one another about their nonsense, they need to put it into practise).

So, the veterinary students operated on animals, who howled in pain.
The students would sometimes protest , and the teachers would answer "Not to worry, that's just a reflex, it's not pain!".

I've ordered two of Cyrulnik's books. He seems to be a very positive person-- I hope so, if there are too many stories like this in the book I think I'll just put it down and cry!

So there is a lot of sense in writing the scene with Dr Nikidik.

Boris Cyrulnik explains that we have done great harm not only by putting animals in zoos but by denying their dignity, for example, by laughing at them.

Gregory Maguire and Cyrulnik would have a lot to say to each other I think-- Cyrulnik always operated with specialists in other fields than his, by the way, literature would just be one more.

Maguire added the creation of an intermediary species, sentient Animals who use language, but of course the ordinary animals in our world communicate with one another, and sometimes with us-- if we can hear!
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