Wicked Written by Gregory Maguire & No Way Back Written by Linda Newbery - Is conformity and stability more desirable than individuality and freedom for the female characters in these two texts?

The first 200 words of this essay...

Nicholas Kinnaird

Text 1: Wicked

Written by Gregory Maguire

Text 2: No Way Back

Written by Linda Newbery

Is conformity and stability more desirable than individuality and freedom for the female characters in these two texts?

Word Count: 1002

Throughout both Gregory Maguire's Wicked and Linda Newbery's No Way Back it is clearly shown through key female characters that conformity and stability are more desirable than individuality and freedom. These characters are Glinda and Elphaba from Wicked and Ellie and Natalie from No Way Back. Both Glinda and Ellie look for conformity and stability and Elphaba and Natalie desire individuality and freedom within their texts.

Maguire's key female character, Glinda, looks for conformity and stability throughout her life. Being from Gillikin, Glinda is expected to marry into a rich social strata and to be the ultimate socialite. She conforms to this expectation and the reader is manipulated to think she is happy. "She [Glinda] reasoned that because she was beautiful she was significant..." [page 65]. Glinda has always known that she was significant and this later on causes her to a the socialite. "Just put this on Sir Chuffrey's account...have them