It is said that she forced them to work hard for “many years” and treated them with great cruelty, but to what work did they toil every day? It is never specified. # The Winkies are the local population of the West, and in the book’s time period the slaves of the Wicked Witch of the West. We know that the Castle is located quite far away from the Emerald City because our protagonists spend at least one week walking away from it, and they still end up “far away” from the Emerald City. Interestingly, the castle is never described as creepy or terrifying looking – in fact, the rooms inside the castle are described as “big” and “beautiful”. Note that this second journey happens at least two weeks if not more after the death of the Wicked Witch – maybe the country had time to regrow a flora and fauna in between? We only see one noticeable location in all of this country – the castle of the Wicked Witch, also called the Yellow Castle because the castle is all yellow, both inside and outside. However, when the heroes travel back to the Emerald City, they describe the Western Country as actually being made of “ big fields of buttercups and yellow daisies” (apparently, the local flowers), as well as having some butterflies flying around.
Contrary to the East, the West clearly suffered from the Wicked Witch’s reign. There are no houses, no farms, as well as no trees, so that in this country the sun shines bright and hot, with no fresh shadow to protect the travelers. The ground becomes “rougher and hillier” as well as “untilled”. But when they enter into the Land of the West properly, things take a very different turn. When Dorothy and her friends start going West, they at first are in the middle of “ fields of soft grass, dotted with daisies and buttercups” (due to the pleasantness of the setting, I guess they are in the western part of the “central” region). The Emerald City has no road leading to the West, not even a pathway, because nobody wants to go there. We know that the river that separates the East and the Center leads to the West, because when their raft is carried away the Tin Woodman tells his comrades they’ll end up in the domain of the Wicked Witch of the West. At the time of the story, it is THE place everyone avoids in Oz. # The West, the Yellow Land, the Country of the Winkies. We explored the East, so why not go this time to the West!