As I am sure that all of you know Wicked is the the story of the wicked witch of the west from the "Wizard of Oz". Many times stories are translated to tell the same story from another characters point of view. Stories also get adapted to focus on specific aspects or characters that may have not been touched on in the original work. What purpose does hearing the same story from another characters point of view serve? Does getting more background information on a certain character help or hurt the way they are portrayed in an original work? Give examples of other stories that are told from another characters point of view or characters that were taken from an original work and had their stories told outside of that original work.
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I think hearing a story from a different point of view can serve multiple purposes. One purpose is that in some cases, the reader can have questions that are unanswered. A question I have always had with the "Wizard of Oz" is how did two sisters end up being one good and one evil (the witches). Having an extra perspective can prove useful for the audience because they get the opportunity to gain the extra knowledge that they didn't have before. Questions and purposes of characters can be cleared up. Often, the other point of view can make the reader see things from an unconventional standpoint. Usually, we root for the "good guy" but who is to say that Cinderella was actually the victim? This example comes from another book of Gregory Maguire, "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister." This novel actually tells the point of view of the story Cinderella from the perspective of the stepsisters. In most cases, I think that the new perspective can actually hurt the original work. This is because, if the original author wanted that side perspective from another character, it would have been provided in the original work. I know there have been times when the same author will provide the other characters perspective and that usually helps the work. But in the case of most interpretations, the original work has a different author than the new perspective told from another character.
I think getting the story from/about a different character in a work also creates a more rounded sense of place. I love the orginal Wizard of Oz, but the view is limited to the places Dorothy goes and how new she is to Oz. Her point of view is very narrow and doesn't really allow for a complete development of the goings on in Oz. Seeing Oz from the witch's point of view gives a sense of the politics and religion of the lands that doesn't really show in the original work. So, seeing the land of Oz from a different point of view develops the setting and motivations behind characters that weren't fully explored originally. I think this can both hurt and help the original character portrayals.
It helps in the ways I talked about above, by creating a more complete sense of characters and setting etc. But I think it can hurt original perceptions. When I read, I picture specific characters and places, and develop them in my mind. Getting new information about the witches throws off my original mindset. In this case, I think the new information from Wicked enhances the original version of the Wizard of Oz.
Old stories told from different perspectives gives the reader a fresh way of hearing new material. I think it works especially well in the case of fairy tales or other folk stories, because the characters are more archetypal (wicked vs. good.) This leaves the characters rather one dimesnsional, and a remake from a different perspective can make the work more relatable in modern times.
On the down side, I feel that some of the characters lose their power when they lose their archetypal quality, (as in the case of Darth Vader in the new Star Wars.) An example of a movie that does a very good job of not losing any intensity is "Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead."In this movie we get a perspective on Hamlet as told by the seemingly inconsequential characters. Because the movie is based around themes of destiny and uncontrolled fate, I think the characters push the mythic quality of the original work more than they harm it. This may also be because they were not main characters to begin with, so there was not any diminishing of their roles.
It seems like the retelling of older stories has become a very popular literary and cinematic theme. Though in the case of Wicked it does give us some important and interesting information about not only the supporting characters from The Wizard of Oz, but of this imaginary world itself, I'm not sure if it is the new authors job to do this. Though Baum's other books are not as well know as The wonderful wizard of oz, he wrote many books set in oz, in different times in the lands history. I've read a couple of them and it is really interesting to see how the details, historical, political, and so forth, were glossed over or omitted in the movie. Not to say that there is anything wrong with the movie, I LOVE the wizard of oz, most of us do. This speaks a lot to something we've discussed in an earlier post about how something can be very different from the original, but still amazing in it's own way.
I definitely wanted to wait until after seeing Wicked to respond to this post. I think that in situations like this it gives context to the entire situation. Many books are written in a way that they switch from one characters point of view to another to another to another, including my favorite book, "The Lovely Bones". The reality is that a story doesn't have just one side to it; in the real world, with every event, and every 'story' there are multiple different perspectives. Although sadly, in reality, we only get our own limited point of view. And conversely, the beautiful thing about literature, and stories, is that they really can give you the whole picture, and with that knowledge comes a level of understanding unlike any other. I mean how many of you can say that afte watching Wicked, and reading it, that you don't feel differently about "The Wizard of Oz"? For me, it completely changed how I saw the original story, and the characters. There is so much going on behind the scenes in everyone's life, fictional or real, that when you are lucky enough to get the whole picture, it can change everything.
I love books that show a different character's view of the events. Life is not black and white like many books are written and hearing events from a different view gives depth and more meaning to the story. This stems from my views that people are not indefinitely good or evil....events shape characters and without hearing these character's histories the plot loses meaning. In Wicked I felt the book and play both stressed on the meaning of "evil" and if there was such a thing as good and evil (black and white) and if so where in creation did it stem. Wicked is written to answer this question as we see Elphaba go from a strong, self less individual to one of disconnect and "evil" deeds such as attempting to kill Madame Morrible. In another sense of looking at it, it's a great way to add to original classics and to explain events that occurred in the original work and why.
Almost everyone has said that retelling a story from a different perspective "rounds out" the narrative, and I agree.
Specifically, I enjoyed reading "Wicked" for this reason - it wasn't hard for me to get into the story because it was a world (Oz) I was already somewhat familar with, but the author made it intersting and new in a lot of ways as well.
I'm hesitant to say that such a retelling harms the original story (although I don't know how I'd feel if it were my story being retold). Mostly, I think it's just another opportunity for creativity and innovation. And it seems to me that a retelling from a new perspective could be less "harmful" to an original work than, say, a film adaptation or something similar in which the original work isn't/can't be entirely represented (I definitely felt this way about the musical of "Wicked", but I'm sure we'll all have a lot to say about that in class!)
Like a lot of you have already mentioned, writing a story from a different point of view allows the reader to understand the story in a different way, and like Sarah, I am not sure if the different perspective harms the original story.
I can't really think of a different story, besides others written by Mr. Maguire that show a different perspective. The way he is able to put reason behind the 'wickedness' is very interesting and creative, but we'll probably have more to say about this in class. I can't wait to hear everyone's opinions.
I feel that the purpose of telling a story from another characters point of view can be to elaborate on the events as they are perceived by someone who could either be overlooked or misunderstood. It can also be used to tell a completely different story within the confines of a previously known parameter, as seen with wicked. In my English 220 class last week (which shockingly occurred while there actually was class on Thursday), we were given a short story and told to write about what would happen if it had been told from the point of view of any one of the other characters, and how that would change the story. In that case, there was very little chance of the different points of view telling even a remotely similar story, because none of them had any real understanding of each others motives. Events could appear tragic, embarrassing, horrifying, or righteous. It would depend on who was doing the telling.
I believe that hearing the same story from different characters’ points of view creates a new story entirely. The new story may have the same sequence of events, but allows the readers to explore an idea they may have never come across before. In Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister, we see the classic tale of Cinderella from a new perspective. In this, we see that Iris (the ugly step-sister) is not as cruel as the original leads her to be. We also see the “protagonist,” Cinderella, in a new light. She is self-absorbed and a brat. In switching points of view, character qualities shift. The mean step-sister is no longer heartless but rather is sweet and kind. I have seen/read a lot of works that have changed the story from one perspective to another. If there is a villain in the original, the second tends to focus on WHY they became evil in that the readers understand the villain more and sympathize; sympathize even to the extent that the original protagonist is now the villain. In changing the point of view, there are endless amounts of time a story can be retold. To some, this may be redundant and boring, but to me, this is exciting and challenges me to new ways of thinking.
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