A Wrinkle In Time is an example of great American literature. It is a plot-based novel with something always happening while an obstacle is standing in the way. Most of the conflict occurring in this book is person versus self and person versus supernatural. A certain aspect that is very prevalent in this book is love. This love takes the characters on the trip of a lifetime, for the sole purpose of finding her father. This love in the background is not known by the reader until the last few pages, and ends up encompassing and explaining the whole novel.
Meg Murray, the protagonist and the person from whom the reader gets their point of view, is the main character. She has a little brother, Charles Wallace, and two twin brothers, Sandy and Denny. Her mother is a guiding figure within the story, and serves as her daughter Meg’s source of ambition. We learn from reading the story that Meg’s father disappears from an extremely secret scientific project, and is expected to return, but hasn’t for several years. Meg can see the pain that her mother feels and the rest of the family also about the loss of their father, and wants to help find him. All the while, feelings are mutual that their father is living, but nobody knows for sure.
Characters begin to develop, and we learn that Charles Wallace and Meg Murray are very close siblings, and Charles seems to have the ability to know whenever Meg or her mother is upset. He can also answer questions directed at him by his sister, but were not actually spoken, almost as if he can read their minds.
None other than little Charles Wallace demonstrates the first example of love being expressed in this novel. During the dark and stormy night that starts the book, Meg becomes afraid of the wind and the thunder, and decides to go downstairs for a cup of cocoa. Charles Wallace is already awake and has warmed the milk for the chocolate. However, this is not the only thing done by little Charles Wallace. “”You put in more than twice enough milk.” Meg peered into the saucepan. Charles Wallace nodded serenely. “I thought Mother might like some”” (L’Engle 8). He even makes sandwiches for both Mrs. Murray and Meg. Charles Wallace is only five years old, yet he knows when his sister is in need of companionship, and is happy to do things for Mrs. Murray. Even the youngest character of this story is capable of love. It is here in the novel that we meet Mrs. Whatsit.
A knock on the door of the Murray’s house during the middle of the night when it is raining is not what anybody expects. Upon opening the door, a strange figure totally covered in rags introduces herself as Mrs. Whatsit. She is complaining about water getting into her shoes. “”I’ll help.” Mrs. Murray squatted at Mrs. Whatsit’s feet, yanking on one slick boot” (L’Engle 16). They also make a tuna fish salad for the old woman. Meg is very dismayed by this, since there is a rumor running around town that a tramp stole some sheets from the constable’s wife. Meg is confident that Mrs. Whatsit is the one who stole the sheets, and is afraid that she may even be dangerous. Since the night is rainy and stormy, Mrs. Murray even offers Mrs. Whatsit bed to sleep upon. Even though she refuses this offer, the compassion and hospitality offered to a complete stranger by Mrs. Murray gives us a hint about her loving attitude.
The book takes us through different worlds to Camazotz, the planet where Meg’s father is located. In their inspection of Camazotz, Meg and her companions find an entire world dominated by a living brain called IT. Everybody is the same, and everybody does the same things at the same time.
After finding her father, Meg encounters another obstacle; her little brother, Charles Wallace, is under the control of IT. She must break IT’s hold over Charles in order to travel home safely. Here is where Meg finds the ultimate use for love in this book. She realizes that love is the only thing capable of bringing Charles’ mind out of the pulsating rhythm of IT. “I love you. Slowly his mouth closed…The tic in his forehead ceased its revolting twitch” (L’Engle 195).
During a time wrinkle, Meg doesn’t arrive conscious, and everybody ends up on a strange planet in a strange galaxy. Some alien beasts that inhabit the planet come forward, almost unexpectedly, and pick up Meg and take her with them. When protests are heard around the group, the beasts say, “The child is in danger. You must trust us” (L’Engle 167).
The beasts take Meg, and to the surprise of Calvin (Meg’s friend) and Mr. Murray, Meg is healed by the beasts. The beasts also offer them food and shelter. Upon waking Meg asks, “Where are Father and Calvin?…”They are eating and resting” the beast said” (L’Engle 169). This demonstration of love by complete strangers (aliens) on a foreign planet shows another place that Meg would have not survived if there was no love.
Over all her faults and her fears, Meg finds that love is what encompasses everything, and that love is something that IT is incapable of expressing. She draws on all the love from every person who shows her love, like her twin brothers, Charles Wallace, Mrs. Whatsit, her mother, and finally after so many years, her father. This love in return helps her to find her father; if she didn’t have it, she would have never succeeded in finding him. She also returns unscathed and perhaps a little wiser from her trip of a lifetime.
Bibliography
L’Engle, Madeline. A Wrinkle In Time. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, March 1976.