"i wish"- into the woods- Page 2

[Pippin]

Posted: 3/29/06 at 11:07am

I think it means that everything always comes full circle. she started saying I wish. she ends saying I wish. does that mean that she hasn't changed? is she a static character? but how can she be static when she has gone through all that she has gone through throughout the show? she learned things through song. she became an honorary mother and wife at the end, and learned how to accept the things she has, and doesn't have.

but in the real world, we are never satisfied, are we? if we were, nothing would ever change. there would be no progress, no invention, no creation. so in order for the human race to keep progressing we have to keep wanting, wishing, and waiting.

one of the ten commandments say "thou shalt not covet". well, why is that commandment there? because it is human nature to covet, to "keep up with the joneses" we all do it without a thought, because once you have it all, once you are at the top, there is no where else to go. you become stifled and stagnant, and in the end, unhappy. it is that search for more that keeps us all going, and makes us happy and satisfied when we recieve what we wish for. but eventually, that happiness dissapates, and we need again, so much like my post, life is a never ending circle that starts somewhere, and always ends up back where it started. is that the beginning or the end?

I love coffee.

Updated On: 3/29/06 at 11:07 AM

[crazyfangirl]

Posted: 3/29/06 at 11:32am

Pippin said it so beautifully, I don't think I could have possibly said it any better. The beauty of INTO THE WOODS (or Sondheim, and truly, INTO THE WOODS is my favorite musical of all-time) is that the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end. "I wish." -- Don't we all?

Cinderella has learned and grown throughout the course of the musical, that's clear, but inherent wishing and wanting will always get her (and the other characters) into trouble in the end. It's so easy to say "I'm changed! I've turned over a new leaf! I don't need anything else in life!" when you've just gone through a trauma. But actually staying true to that, when the trauma has died away... how many of us can really do that? I tend to see the lessons that Cinderella (et al) have learned as sort of like the New Years resolution we all make but can never follow through with.

Oh, Sondheim, how I love thee.

[children&art]

Posted: 3/29/06 at 12:05pm

Isn't Cinderella saying that line in response to the one right before it, about "happy ever after"?
COMPANY
Into the woods
Into the woods
Then out of the woods
And happy ever after

CINDERELLA
I wish!

She's saying, "I wish(hope) everything will be happy ever after".

So if you were reading the line in a text it would be:
And happy ever after, I wish.

Updated On: 3/29/06 at 12:05 PM

[Pippin]

Posted: 3/29/06 at 12:06pm

depends on interpretation.

I never thought of it that way until this thread, but I like that idea.

[Shay Jericho]

Posted: 3/29/06 at 12:07pm

In a production of this that I saw the other, Cinderella said it at the end of the show, and then immediately covered her mouth as if to imply that she didn't mean to. I took this to mean that although she intellectually believed that true happiness was somewhere in between fantasy and reality, she had a difficult time to get over her natural impulse to want more than she had.

[michelle4]

Posted: 3/29/06 at 1:03pm

Yes, they realize that you can get what you wish for and still not find happiness, but does that make you stop wishing for it. Cinderella, has gotten and lost her Prince and now has a child to take care of a new journey full of new wishes is just about to begin for her.