Glinda The Good Witch - Literature

Literature

Baum's 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz refers to Glinda as the Good Witch of the South. She finally gets Dorothy home by telling her of the power of the silver slippers. She gets the Golden Cap from Dorothy, and uses it to get the Scarecrow back to the Emerald city, the Tin Man to the land of the Winkies, and the Lion to a nearby forest, areas which the characters have been made rulers of. Later books call her a "Sorceress" rather than a "witch." Baum's writings make clear that he did not view witches as inherently wicked or in league with the Devil, so this change was probably meant to signal that Glinda's knowledge and command of magic surpassed that of a witch.

In the books, Glinda is depicted as a beautiful young woman with long, rich red hair and blue eyes, wearing a pure white dress. She is much older than her appearance would suggest, but "knows how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived" - a fact that is established in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by the Soldier With Green Whiskers. She has ruled the Quadling Country ever since she overthrew the Wicked Witch of the South during the period when Ozma's grandfather was king of Oz.

She plays the most active role in finding and restoring Princess Ozma, the rightful heir, to the throne of Oz, the search for whom takes place in the second book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, although Glinda had been searching for Ozma ever since the princess disappeared as a baby. It may well be that she didn't overthrow the Wicked Witches of the East and West, despite being more powerful than they were, because she wanted all of Oz to be unified under its rightful ruler, Ozma, first. After Ozma's ascent to the throne, Glinda continues to help the Queen of Oz to shape the future of the Land of Oz as a whole, no longer confining her powers to guarding her Quadling Kingdom in the South alone; true to her character, Glinda does not interfere in affairs of State unless Ozma seeks her counsel or help specifically.

In addition to her vast knowledge of magic, Glinda employs various tools, charms, and instruments in her workshop. The Emerald City of Oz reveals that she owns a Great Book of Records that allows her to track everything that goes on in the world from the instant it happens. Starting with The Road to Oz she trains the formerly humbug Wizard in magic; he becomes a formidable practitioner, but acknowledges that she is more powerful yet.

Glinda lives in a palace near the southern border of the Quadling Country, attended by fifty beautiful maidens from each country of Oz. She also employs a large army of female soldiers, with which she takes on General Jinjur's Army of Revolt, who had conquered the Emerald City in The Marvelous Land of Oz. Men are not prominent in Glinda's court.

Glinda is strongly protective of her subjects in the South. She creates gated communities for the rabbits of Bunnybury and the paper dolls of Miss Cuttenclip, showing a personal interest in the concerns of not only the humanoid Quadlings, but also the other inhabitants of her jurisdiction.

In The Emerald City of Oz, when Ozma goes to consult Glinda about the security of her Ozian citizens, the Sorceress seals off all of Oz from the Great Outside World, making Oz invisible to the eyes of mortals flying overhead in airplanes and such. However, unlike Ozma, Glinda is willing to ignore strife and oppression in remote corners of Oz like Jinxland and the Skeezer territory as long as it does not threaten the Emerald City or innocent outsiders. The readers are left with the sense that Glinda is experienced and seasoned to the point of knowing that there isn't a magic cure for everything, and that certain things cannot be changed or perhaps should not be changed for better or for worse.

One of the more obscure facts about Glinda is that she created the Forbidden Fountain with the Waters of Oblivion, at the center of Oz, whose waters redeemed a former King of Oz who was exceptionally cruel. This happened "many centuries ago" according to Queen Ozma (again alluding to Glinda's advanced age), and it is this fountain that saves Oz from the invading Nome King and his allies in The Emerald City of Oz, by making them forget their nefarious intentions. Glinda clearly made the Fountain at a point in Oz's history when the Land was unified under one of the members of the Royal Family of Oz, albeit a tyrannical king in this isolated incident, and so she was able to intervene in a way that she couldn't when the country was divided between the Wizard and the Wicked Witches of the East and West et al., prior to Dorothy's arrival.

Most intriguingly, in The Emerald City of Oz, when the Nome King considers invading Oz, he is told by a minion, General Guph, that Glinda the Good's castle is located "at the north of the Emerald City," when it has been established that Glinda rules the South. Guph may have gotten his facts muddled, as none of the Nomes had been to Oz at that time, but it portends the depiction of Glinda as the Good Witch of the North rather than the South in the 1939 MGM film (which is the most widely known version of Oz to date).

General Guph also tells the Nome King that Glinda "commands the spirits of the air,". As mentioned above, he is not an expert on Oz, but this statement made by Guph once again foreshadows a much later cinematic rendition of Glinda, in the film version of the Broadway musical The Wiz in which Glinda (played by Lena Horne) is responsible for the twister that brings Dorothy's house to Oz and sets all subsequent events into motion.

Of all the characters in L. Frank Baum's Oz, Glinda is the most enigmatic. Despite being titled "Glinda the Good," she is not a one-dimensional caricature whose sole purpose is to embody and generate all that is generically considered "good," as indicated above.

She ultimately becomes the adult anchor in the Oz books, because she is never distracted or swayed, and always maintains absolute firmness of purpose - something that cannot be said for the other adult characters in the series such as the Wizard and the Shaggy Man or even the Good Witch of the North. They all fall short of Glinda's wisdom and resoluteness.