In Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the silver shoes are a gift to Nessarose (the Wicked Witch of the East) before she and her sister, Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) start college. They are made by her father using special glass beads another man (Turtleheart, possibly her biological father) taught him to make, which make the shoes appear silver OR ruby depending on the light. They are enchanted by Glinda (the Good Witch of the North) to give her the necessary balance to walk. In the Broadway musical adaption of the book, Elphaba is the one who enchants the shoes. Her spell made the silver shoes burn red hot, turning them into the ruby slippers.
Read more about this topic: Silver Shoes, Appearances in The Books
Famous quotes containing the words life, times, wicked and/or witch:
“Life! Life! Don’t let us go to life for our fulfilment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, incoherent in its utterance, and without that fine correspondence of form and spirit which is the only thing that can satisfy the artistic and critical temperament. It makes us pay too high a price for its wares, and we purchase the meanest of its secrets at a cost that is monstrous and infinite.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
““Were not all her life but storm,
Would not painters paint a form
Of such noble times ...””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“A wicked mortal is not the idea of God. He is little else than the expression of error. To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life’s idea, Truth and Truth’s idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal.”
—Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910)
“Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead.”
—E.Y. Harburg (1898–1981)