Glinda’s Beautiful Maidens
In L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, the great sorceress Glinda the Good chooses to live in a largely, if not entirely, female environment.
In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the first servants of Glinda whom Dorothy meets are “three young girls, dressed in handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braid.” These female soldiers and many more reappear in the second book, The Marvelous Land of Oz. That book describes Glinda’s private bodyguard this way:
Glinda's soldiers wore neat uniforms and bore swords and spears; and they marched with a skill and precision that proved them well trained in the arts of war.Glinda’s army easily overcomes that book’s more famous female soldiers, the Army of Conquest led by General Jinjur. All those ranks of uniformed young women probably sprang from two inspirations:
- Baum’s belief in women’s equality, though he also couldn’t resist satirizing the suffrage movement along with its opposition.
- The great success of marching chorus girls in the 1903 stage adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, which he spent the next fifteen years trying to replicate.
This castle, situated in the Quadling Country, far south of the Emerald City where Ozma ruled, was a splendid structure of exquisite marbles and silver grilles. Here the Sorceress lived, surrounded by a bevy of the most beautiful maidens of Oz, gathered from all the four countries of that fairyland as well as from the magnificent Emerald City itself, which stood in the place where the four countries cornered.The Magic of Oz (1919) says:
It was considered a great honor to be allowed to serve the good Sorceress, whose arts of magic were used only to benefit the Oz people.
Here there were gathered fifty beautiful young girls, Glinda's handmaids, who had been selected from all parts of the Land of Oz on account of their wit and beauty and sweet dispositions. It was a great honor to be made one of Glinda's handmaidens.And finally Glinda of Oz (1920) begins:
When Dorothy followed the Sorceress into this delightful patio all the fifty girls were busily weaving, and their shuttles were filled with a sparkling green spun glass such as the little girl had never seen before.
Glinda, the good Sorceress of Oz, sat in the grand court of her palace, surrounded by her maids of honor--a hundred of the most beautiful girls of the Fairyland of Oz. The palace court was built of rare marbles, exquisitely polished. Fountains tinkled musically here and there; the vast colonnade, open to the south, allowed the maidens, as they raised their heads from their embroideries, to gaze upon a vista of rose-hued fields and groves of trees bearing fruits or laden with sweet-scented flowers.All three of these three descriptions state that Glinda’s handmaidens have been selected for their beauty; one says their “wit” and “sweet dispositions” were also criteria.
At times one of the girls would start a song, the others joining in the chorus, or one would rise and dance, gracefully swaying to the music of a harp played by a companion. And then Glinda smiled, glad to see her maids mixing play with work.
Some latter-day Oz authors give Glinda masculine companions. Jack Snow’s unsold short story “A Murder in Oz” says the handmaids are replaced by handsome giants at night. In her Seven Blue Mountains of Oz volumes, Melody Grandy finds a love interest for Glinda in a powerful sorcerer.
But according to Baum’s books, Glinda is interested in feminine beauty, and only feminine. That’s why I mentioned the sorceress in my posting on possible gay characters in children’s fantasies before 1997.
Now I don’t actually think that Glinda is interested in a love affair with anyone, female or male. I think she lives for knowledge, and to secure Oz from trouble. The bevy of beautiful young women around her, weaving cloth and dancing, seems to reflect not personal meaning but rather mythic overtones. Glinda’s handmaids recall the fates and muses, or bands of fairies. And, of course, chorus girls.
12 comments:
I've disliked Glinda intensely for years because of her cavalier, oppressive, high handed, etc. treatment of the Three Adepts, who were much more interesting characters. I bet her desire to control every smart, witty woman (who might be rivals) she can get her hands on is some deep rooted psychological problem, not because of her sexual preference.
That bit about mixing work and play also struck me as suspicious when I read it as a child. Not what I thought of as play.
Glinda is definitely a Woman Who Does Everything More Beautifully Than You.
But we have to be careful—she might read about us.
What an awful thing to have said about an incredibly feminist character who is based on a REAL person.
Your point of view is clearly rooted in misogyny, perhaps even homophobia if you truly believe she surrounds herself with other beautiful women because she feels threatened by them. I truly hope you think differently today. There’s already more than enough misinformation about Glinda out there.
To the anonymous commenter, how is Glinda “is based on a REAL person” in your reading?
Glinda is heavily inspired by L. Frank Baum’s mother in law, who also inspired him to become a writer in the first place. She was a writer herself, and more importantly an activist for both the rights of women and that of native Americans and people of colour. She was erased from history, to such an extent that the erasure of other women like her was named after her. The Matilda effect.
Can’t recall if i added this; but her name was Matilda Joslyn Gage.
Thanks for the reply. Matilda J. Gage was my top candidate for the person you were thinking of.
I think Matilda Gage was definitely an inspiration to L. Frank Baum in many ways: as a dedicated writer, as someone who pushed him into publishing fiction, as an advocate for women and the idea that “witches” weren’t inherently wicked.
That said, I have a hard time believing that Baum modeled the character of Glinda on Matilda Gage. Gage was a generation older than Baum; Glinda is eternally young. Gage was a frustrated crusader; Glinda is in charge. Gage was a matriarch; Glinda has no children. They’re both wise women, but otherwise seem quite different.
I think the Good Witch of the North, an older woman who introduces Dorothy to the idea of good witches and sends her on her mission with all the protection she can offer, seems more like what Matilda Gage might have represented to Baum.
I’m happy to consider more evidence on the question. Inspiration for an author can take many forms, so I doubt we can find one certain answer.
I think Charlotte’s read (from 19 years ago now) is a personal interpretation, which any reader is entitled to. The fact that Charlotte seems motivated by fondness for the Three Adepts and concern for Glinda’s anonymous handmaidens undercuts the idea that this reading is rooted in misogyny.
The Witch of The North is a character we barely see or hear of. Her being an older woman should not be what makes you link her to Matilda. Respectfully, I think that is a very shallow way of viewing it, and i highly doubt Baum- who loved his mother in law dearly- would give her such a small, almost unimportant role in the story she encouraged him to create.
Glinda is a character who embodies all of Matilda’s views and everything she fought for, she is the justice Matilda protested for. A statement ahead of her time. She may not be old, she may be the one in charge, but that is exactly the point.
You say Glinda is not a matriarch because she has no children, but a matriarch is more than just the female head of a family. Glinda IS a matriarch, because she is a woman in charge of the most dangerous corner of Oz, and is ultimately shown to have more say overall than any of the other four rulers. She is the cog that keeps everything working, the backbone of Oz. By definition this makes her a matriarch. Not to mention she is shown to embody motherly traits as well, despite the fact that as far as we know she has no children.
Her eternal youth could be read as symbolic of the ideas she promotes being of the present and the future, never wavering, remaining youthfully optimistic and determined to push our views forwards rather than back.
Alternatively it could be completely unrelated, simply a quirk of her own character.
She is highly intelligent, and consistently depicted as a source of guidance. Someone you can go to with your troubles, someone who will aid and protect you. For all of these reasons i would say with confidence that she is the most likely candidate to have been directly influenced by Matilda.
I’d also like to add that the name Glinda (according to some sources) is quite literally a portmanteau of “good” and “Matilda”
The Good Witch of the North and Glinda both appear in one chapter of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Good Witch tells Dorothy about Oz, sends her to the Emerald City, and gives her the magical kiss that protects her from the Wizard and the Wicked Witch of the West. Glinda fulfills Dorothy’s wish by explaining how she can go home. They’re both crucial to that story.
We see much more of Glinda in the rest of the series, and that naturally affects how we perceive the two characters’ importance in the overall mythos. But in thinking of whether Baum created characters based on particular people, I look at their initial appearances.
How does the Good Witch of the North not represent Matilda Gage’s views, in addition to voicing them? She’s wise, helpful, informative, protective, and powerful, just as Glinda is. Not to mention the similarities to Matilda that I mentioned earlier.
How is Glinda “in charge of the most dangerous corner of Oz”? Baum actually says the Gillikin Country, where the Good Witch of the North lives and governs, is the wildest part of the fairyland. To be sure, Glinda exercises much more control over her part of Quadlingland and later all of Oz than the Good Witch of the North ever does. But again, that becomes clear in the later books, not when Baum created the two good witches.
As long as we’re talking about respect and shallowness, isn’t it a bit shallow and disrespectful to argue that an older woman can’t embody female power as well as a younger one?
“Gilda” is one portmanteau of “good” and “Matilda.” There is no N sound in the latter two words.
Based on name similarities alone, it’s easier to argue that Matilda inspired Maetta, the Glinda-like character in Magical Monarch of Mo.
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