(Copy of Lit Circle post for this title, part 1, first 6 chapters)
A Wrinkle in Time is a chapter book of the
modern fantasy genre. Its events,
settings, and characters are outside the realm of (known) possibility. It is both science fantasy and a monomythic
quest in which the beginning setting is a backdrop, establishing the at-first
seemingly ordinary characters in an environment of home, family, neighbors, work
and school, with real-world joys and problems.
Later, as the characters and story become more developed and involved,
the settings change to unique fantastic locations integral to the plot, as the
meaning of the foreshadowing tesseract
term is revealed. The story is told from
the third-person-sympathetic point of view of Meg Murry, an awkward and “different”
girl with a mouthful of braces who does not fit in with the herd. She thinks of herself as ugly and
unintelligent, and she is often at odds with herself and others because she is misunderstood
for who she really is—a brilliant, caring individual who has beautiful eyes hidden
behind her glasses. Meg learns of real
evil, The Black Thing, as she, along
with her unusually intuitive little brother, Charles Wallace, and their friend,
Calvin, are led by three mysterious space-and-time-traveling individuals, Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and
Mrs Which, on the quest to overcome IT,
thus saving the world from the darkness of having everyone be the same as
everyone else—and finding Meg’s father.
I had not
heard of this book before now, or if I had, I had forgotten. Because the version I am reading was
published in 2007 and 2011 by Square Fish, I did not notice until writing the reference
note that it was originally published in 1962.
Ah! That is why, being of a
certain age, I felt a distinct familiarity beyond identifying with Meg’s adolescent angst: the fifth dimension (the dawning
of the age of Aquarius, when peace will guide the planet and love will steer
the stars), possibilities, non conformity, gender equality, rage against the
machine, etc., and of course, ultimately saving the world from its own
darkness. (Where are my tie-dyes and
flowered headband?) It reaffirms that despite certain advances, young and old still face the same struggles compounded by new ones, and that
the insight and wisdom--the spirit of the highest ideals in the radical
paradigm shift that took place in the 1960s--still resonate. I look forward to the rest of Meg’s journey
through the coming chapters.
Tweet for the end of Chapter 5: “And the light shineth in darkness; and the
darkness comprehended it not.” (p. 100)
(Copy of Lit Circle post for this title, part 2, final 6 chapters)
(Copy of Lit Circle post for this title, part 2, final 6 chapters)
In the
concluding half of A Wrinkle in Time,
the action escalates through the frightening encounters of Meg, Charles
Wallace, and Calvin, on the strange and dark planet of Camezotz. Their conflicts are multiplied, culminating
in the ultimate universal conflict of good versus evil—evil in the forms of the
strange robot-like sameness of the people, the man with red eyes, and
ultimately the terrifying antagonist IT at CENTRAL central intelligence, where they
finally find Meg’s father. Using their
respective gifts, all are able to tesser away from Camezotz except for Charles
Wallace, who was left behind for his own immediate well being. Meg is nearly killed by the blackness while
tessering. With her consciousness
recovering sooner than her body, she is in a horrifying state of hearing and
feeling but being unable to respond in any effective way, which seems analogous
to adolescent anxieties arising from the desperately painful need to interact
and be “normal,” but being unable to graciously do so.
As are all
of the main characters, the strange creatures that inhabit the new planet of
Ixchel are described in detail so that their physical appearance can be
imagined by the reader. Interestingly,
these creatures are sightless. They
embody wisdom, warmth and love. One in
particular, Aunt Beast, nurtures Meg as she regains her strength. For Meg, the experience of being cradled in
love flashes back to when she was a baby being rocked in her mother’s
arms. Meg often comes across as a brat
who compounds problems with her rude and hurtful outbursts. Luckily for her, she is surrounded by others
who understand and are more or less patient.
She is overjoyed at finding her father, but she is angry with him
because he does not live up to her unrealistic, childish superhero expectations. A text-to-self connection is that there comes
a time when children usually grow to accept their parents, however wonderful or
not, as fellow human beings with strengths, gifts, flaws, and limitations. Meg is beginning that transformation,
alongside her realization that being the same and being equal are two different
things, and that evil articulates our fears and doubts and tells us lies. She
is finding her happy medium. At the end
of this story, the reluctant heroine Meg is able to rescue her little brother,
and eventually all the travelers return safely home with the exception of the
Mrs Ws, who are immediately off to the next (book?) quest. Do you suppose IT is angry and vengefully
bellowing for having been successfully defied?
Not being a
fan of “scary” stories, and well beyond my time of intrigue with monsters (if
ever I had one), the second half of A
Wrinkle in Time, with the menacing red-eyed man-creature and the terribly
repulsive IT, almost lost me—even though stories need contrastingly dreadful characters
to motivate and illuminate the good. One
of the things that helped to maintain my perseverance was that the possessed,
sinister Charles was embodied in the lovable Charles. I trusted that Meg’s special little brother
was still there and would eventually prevail.
This realization also enabled Meg to demonstrate her love of Charles’s
essence to the degree that she overcame self-conflicts, mustered courage, and
risked her life to save him, knowing he was an unwilling medium for the evil
force--and if she did not save him, no one could. She knew
Charles, beyond his appearance when he exhibited strange-eyed evil. I suspect that Calvin, who became more and
more quiet in this part of the story, will realize a similar knowledge of Meg,
if he hasn’t already, with his assigned task of taking care of her.
Another text-to-self
connection was that the Bible quotes throughout the story not only were profound
but comforting. They resonate with the
story’s overarching theme of the power of Love.
For believers, the essence of
our Biblical God is Love. Biblical inclusions foreshadow that evil will
not triumph. It might be ironic that we are
reading this book together with multicultural themes. Non Christians would perhaps not appreciate and
relate to Biblical references, in some instances exhibiting extremism to the
point of having the book blacklisted in a “free” and multicultural (or totalitarian)
society. I feel certain that IT would do
exactly that. Contrastingly, if non
Christian readers are open-mindedly seeking to understand things different from
themselves, the resounding wisdom and beauty of Biblical (as well as other literary)
quotes might lead to further investigation.
Some text-to-text
connections are: 1) The dark planet of Camezotz reflects a more sinister revisiting
of 1984, the adult novel written by
George Orwell in 1949, in which the main character resists being controlled by
the “mind police,” the totalitarian government and Big Brother, 2) Camezotz is an ironic name for the dark
planet, a contrasting play on Camelot,
the home base of Britain’s beloved King Arthur, who won loyalty from his
subjects by loving and protecting them from evil rather than by controlling
them with fear, and, 3) On a lighter note, a text-to-movie connection is that Camezotz
inhabitants are not unlike those in The
Truman Show, where all the people in Truman’s community except for himself
are actors with scripts.
The big
idea in this story might be Mrs Whatsit’s similie that human life is like the iambic
pentameter of a sonnet, having strict form but complete freedom of choice
regarding the content within the structure.
Question: What will you write in your life’s sonnet?
Mark My
Words: anticlimax, myopic, precipitously, propitious, talisman, pedantic, ominous,
inexorable, omnipotent, miasma, periodic table, trepidation, despondency,
permeating, reiterating.
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