Broom

The Broom is a seemingly ordinary household object that becomes a magical artifact, a weapon, and a symbol of Elphaba's identity as the Wicked Witch of the West. Given to her by the enigmatic Mother Yackle, the broom initially resists Elphaba's commands but eventually learns to fly for her, serving as her primary mode of transportation, a tool for intimidation, and a final, desperate instrument of confrontation. Its journey from a mundane tool to a legendary relic mirrors Elphaba's own transformation and the myth-making that surrounds her death.

Origin and Gift from Mother Yackle

The broom enters Elphaba's life not as a purchase or a discovery, but as a gift from the mysterious and senile Mother Yackle, a maunt at the Cloister of Saint Glinda. When Elphaba takes refuge there after the traumatic events of Lurlinemas Eve, Yackle gives her the broom, telling her it will be her "link to [her] destiny." Elphaba initially dismisses this, assuming Yackle meant her destiny was "domestic. Not magic." The broom is also part of the supplies given to her when she leaves the mauntery to join the Grasstrail Train, handed over by Sister Bursar alongside black shifts, a shawl, and a basket of simples. At this point, it is treated as a practical item, a tool for sweeping, not a magical implement.

Reluctant Magic and the Discovery of Flight

For years, the broom remains an ordinary object. It is only when Nor, Fiyero's daughter, steals it to clean the soldiers' barracks that its magical nature is accidentally revealed. The broom, of its own accord, lunges toward Nor and then carries her out the window and into the air. Nor is terrified and exhilarated, and the broom obeys her, descending only when the Witch commands it. This event forces Elphaba to confront the broom's latent power. She takes it to the courtyard at night, feeling foolish as she tries to ride it like a hobbyhorse. The broom is resistant, twitching and dumping her on her rear end. After five or six nights of frustrated attempts, she manages to hover six feet off the ground. She discovers she can control it through threats, finding that she can always "threaten it with fire." Eventually, she gains enough confidence to wobble down the valley, feeling like a "night angel." The broom becomes her primary mode of long-distance travel, allowing her to fly from Kiamo Ko to Colwen Grounds in Munchkinland in seven days, a journey that would have taken weeks by carriage.

A Tool of Intimidation and Confrontation

Beyond transportation, the broom serves as a potent symbol of the Witch's power. When Commander Cherrystone and his soldiers arrive at Kiamo Ko, Elphaba descends from her tower with her broom over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised, looking "more like a Witch than ever." She uses it to threaten the soldiers, warning them to leave or "suffer the consequences." Later, when she confronts Madame Morrible in her retirement apartment at Shiz, she raises the broom to strike the already-dead woman, and then uses a marble trophy to bash in her skull. The broom is also present during her final confrontation with Dorothy. She lights the end of it in a torch fire, using it as a torch to illuminate the parapet and as a weapon, holding it up at an angle as she interrogates the girl. A fragment of the burning brush flutters off, landing on her skirt and igniting the dry fabric, a crucial moment in the sequence of events leading to her death.

Symbolic Afterlife and Destruction

After Elphaba's death, the broom becomes a piece of contested evidence. Dorothy brings something from the Witch's house to the Wizard to prove she was there, but the broom "had been burnt beyond recognition." The broom's physical destruction mirrors the erasure of Elphaba's physical form, leaving only her reputation and the legend of the Wicked Witch of the West. The broom, once a gift from a mysterious maunt, a reluctant flying vehicle, and a weapon of last resort, is reduced to ash, its story now part of the larger, unreliable narrative that surrounds the Witch's life and death.