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2. The Clock of the Time Dragon
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Wicked, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Nature of Evil
Power and Oppression
Identity and Otherness
Destiny vs. Free Will
Guilt, Blame, and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
That evening, when Frex finally begins his sermon in Rush Margins, he quickly realizes the villagers are more interested in the arrival of the Clock of the Time Dragon, operated by a dwarf. Once the show starts, Frex is powerless against its grip on the crowd. The puppet performance features a minister—clearly modeled after Frex—who preaches poverty while secretly hoarding jewels, and who is eventually murdered by his own congregation. Suddenly, Frex is attacked by hooded figures in the audience. A sympathetic woman rushes in and helps him escape, promising to hide him and send help for Melena.
Here, Frex is undone not by theological debate but by the spectacle of theater, which captures the crowd’s imagination more powerfully than his sermon and emphasizes just how much Oz is changing. The most important revelation in this scene is the Clock of the Time Dragon’s ability to influence audiences to recreate what they see on stage, no matter how illogical or violent it may be.
Themes
Back at home, Melena is in labor, assisted by two midwives—a fishwife and a crone. They give her medicine to help her sleep through the pain. As Melena begins to lose consciousness, a maiden enters the minister’s lodge, warning that the men of Rush Margins, riled up by the puppet show, plan to kill Frex, Melena, and their unborn child. The three women quickly load Melena into a hay cart and wheel her to a graveyard on the edge of town. There, hidden away, they find the Clock of the Time Dragon. They drag Melena into a crawlspace inside of it, where she gives birth.
Melena’s chaotic labor that culminates inside the Clock of the Time Dragon, of all places, foreshadows the disorder, isolation, and sense of performance that will follow Elphaba throughout her own life. Her birth inside of the semi-prophetic Clock—and in a graveyard—strongly suggests that her very existence is fated, and the fact that this machine is responsible for nearly killing her father reflects how Elphaba and Frex are at odds from her very first breath.
Themes
The midwives are shocked when the baby (Elphaba) is born with bright green skin. At first, they think the child is a boy—because of her ambiguous genitalia—but after examining her more closely, they determine she is a girl. Disturbed by her appearance, the women consider killing her out of mercy; with Melena still unconscious, this is their opportunity. But when the baby suddenly bites off the tip of the fishwife’s finger with her razor-sharp teeth, they panic and flee, afraid of what she might do if they actually tried to harm her.
Themes
