The Timeless Message of A Wrinkle in Time
When I first picked up A Wrinkle in Time myself, I must admit I wasn't all too thrilled. The beginning is slow and dialogue-heavy, expositing mind-numbing details on the Murry family dynamic. As a fifth-grader, I quickly became too bored to get past even the first chapter. Now older, wiser, and bearing an attention span that can last longer than two minutes, I finally found myself finishing the book. In retrospect, I realize I'd read it exactly when I needed it most.
Written by Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time follows Margaret "Meg" Murry, a stubborn and fiery adolescent, as she gets dragged out of an unforgiving world and into a supernatural adventure that transcends both space and time-all to find and rescue her missing father. On the surface, A Wrinkle in Time is a simple, maybe even juvenile, depiction of the battle between a black and white sense of good and evil. However, through the nuances in its sentences and pages, A Wrinkle in Time explores themes of conformity versus individuality, its effect on growing adolescents, and how to strike the coveted balance between the two diametrically opposing values.
No matter where you are in the world, conformity is a universal plague. Societal, social, and even familial expectations are unavoidable. They threaten to mold you into the same box as everyone else. Be molded and you lose yourself; stubbornly remain who you are and you get ostracized. Either way, you lose.
The protagonist in A Wrinkle in Time, Meg, doesn't fit in with her surroundings. She's "ugly", stubborn, and still hung over her missing father, which the rest of town already gave up on. Her mother, on the other hand, is everything society longs for and more. She's beautiful, intelligent, and successful. Comparing herself to her mother, Meg can't help growing in increasing envy and self-loathing. However, the young girl experiences a paradigm shift when she lives out the conformity she so desperately desired in Camazotz, a planet ruled by a disembodied force called IT. In Camazotz, Meg watches perfectly identical children line up in front of their perfectly identical rows of houses, each child bouncing perfectly identical basketballs in flawless synchronization. It was then that Meg's perspective twisted and broadened, helping her realize that it was individuality that made life at large a gift.
A simple summary or review can never perfectly encapsulate the beauty of A Wrinkle in Time. Past themes of conformity and individuality, the book also explored themes of love and self-acceptance. You can only appreciate its full marvel by living out the experience on your own, firsthand. I was at a personal low when I read the book, but it helped lift my spirits; it's no doubt something that can help you as well. Madeleine L'Engle wrote A Wrinkle in Time for those struggling with compromising individuality in favor of conformity. While none of us is exactly like Meg, who else can best understand her struggle except teenagers at the cusp of maturity and adolescence, trying to balance two contradictory ideas-just as she was?
If you're reading this article at all, you must have time to kill. I highly suggest you pick up A Wrinkle in Time, whether or not you've already read it. It resides in our Logos library, eagerly waiting for you to check it out and relive the timeless message it shares.