A Wrinkle in Time: Summary, Meaning, and Why Meg Still Matters
A Wrinkle in Time: Summary, Meaning, and Why Meg Still Matters
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review
A short summary:
In A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle sweeps readers into a cosmic battle between light and darkness as Meg Murry, her brilliant younger brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe journey through space to find Meg's missing father. With the help of the mysterious Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, the children learn to travel through a wrinkle in space and time and discover worlds far beyond anything they imagined.
Their search eventually leads them to Camazotz, a world where individuality has been sacrificed for perfect order. Everyone moves according to the same rhythm, children play in identical patterns, and difference is treated as something dangerous. Behind that frightening conformity is IT, a powerful intelligence that promises peace through control and threatens to absorb anyone who resists.
Meg soon discovers that intelligence alone will not defeat the darkness. Neither Charles Wallace's extraordinary mind nor her father's scientific knowledge is enough to save them. To rescue the people she loves, Meg must rely on the very qualities she has often considered weaknesses: her stubbornness, her emotion, and, most importantly, her fierce capacity to love.
My favorite quote:
Questions to ponder while reading:
My review:
Rereading A Wrinkle in Time reminded me why Meg meant so much to me the first time around. She is awkward, angry, impatient, fiercely loyal, and painfully aware that she does not fit neatly into the world around her. She is not the polished sort of heroine who already knows what makes her special. Meg spends much of the novel believing that the things that make her difficult are flaws, only to discover that some of those same qualities are exactly what she needs.
This was also one of the first books that made science feel wondrous to me. L'Engle filled the universe with impossible distances, strange dimensions, stars fighting darkness, and the exhilarating possibility that reality might be much larger than what we can see. A Wrinkle in Time made me want to become a scientist, right up until I discovered just how much math that particular dream was going to require. The career plan may not have survived, but the sense of wonder certainly did.
What strikes me even more as an adult is how unsettling Camazotz really is. Its horror is not chaos but sameness. Everyone behaves correctly. Everyone moves together. No one has to struggle with the messiness of disagreement or individuality because those things have effectively been eliminated. L’Engle turns conformity into something genuinely frightening and suggests that being imperfect, emotional, stubborn, and different may be essential parts of being human.
And at the center of all of it is an extraordinarily simple idea: love is stronger than darkness. Not sentimental love, but stubborn, sacrificial love that recognizes another person as worth fighting for. The fact that A Wrinkle in Time has been challenged over the years only adds to its rebellious charm for me. Be a rebel. Read the strange little science-fiction novel that insists individuality matters, darkness can be resisted, and love remains something evil cannot successfully imitate.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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