Daranporn Tuntiwarasakul 1

English 12
December 6, 2017

The Weakness of Human through A Wrinkle in Time

Literature is use as a media to expressed authors opinions. We can learn authors ideas

by reading their novels. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L Engle is one of many stories that

describe authors thought. In the story, L'Engle tells the story about a girl named Margaret Murry

or Meg on her journey to rescue her father in the space. Her brother, Charles Wallace, and her

friend, Calvin, join her in this journey. Meg gets many helps from Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Which,

and Mrs. Who who have the special power. Meg has a good relationship with her mother and her

brothers but she has no friend at school. Throughout the journey Meg, Charles and Calvin visited

many planets and meet many creatures such as Happy Medium, The Man with Red Eyes, IT and

Aunt Beast. They also visit the planet called Camazotz where every people are identical. At the

end of the story, Meg can help her father and return to Earth safely. In A Wrinkle in Time, the

idea of human is a weak creature is presented by the setting of Camazotz, the dialogue between

characters, and character's communication ability.

On the Camazotz, every citizen is doing the similar behaviors such as children bouncing

the ball in similar rhythm. People live in identical house and identical building. Camazotz is

controlled by one leader called IT. A person who cannot follow the rhythm or be different will be

forced to sleep forever or as Calvin called Murdered. The reason that IT controls every people

to be the same because IT wants to make the most productive planet so every person should do

the same behavior at the same time. As Charles Wallace noted, On Camazotz we are all happy

because we are all alike. Differences create problems. You know that, dont you, dear

sister?(p.155). The quote supports that people should be the same. The similarity is good for the

society. Acting different or be different from other people is unacceptable and should be
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eliminated from the society. Because of this idea, people are afraid to shows their own idea that

is different from other peoples idea. They worry that if they have a different idea from others,

people will not accept them into the group. Human wants to be a part of a group and wat

acceptance from people around them. Eric B. Litwack from Queens University and Syracuse

University in London, reports that people will be anxious if they were isolated from the group.

This feeling can lead to the idea of totalitarianism which agrees that every person should be the

same. Litwack also supports his idea using the quote It seems that nothing is more difficult for

the average man to bear than the feeling of not being identified with a larger group (Fromm,

1969: 234). This quote demonstrates that human cannot tolerate the feeling of loneliness. People

do not want to be seen as different from the group. Satisfying to be similar to other people in the

society is one of humans weaknesses because being similar limited our thinking process. Being

different allows us to explore and learn more ways so we know which way is the most

productive and the best way to succeed.

Secondly, the dialogue between Meg and Mrs.Who emphasize that humans capability is

very limited. In the last chapter, Meg returns to Camazotz alone to rescue her younger brother

Charles Wallace. Only Meg can save her brother because she knows and loves him the most.

Before she travels back to Camazotz, Mrs. Who said to Meg The foolishness of God is wiser

than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (p. 222). The quote shows that

compared to God, a human is beneath in every way such as strength and intellect. The worst

among God is still better than the best person in the world. This shows that human is not the

smartest and strongest organism. From the quote, we realized that human is weaker than god

because humanly is less smart and not as strong as the god. It can be implied that human wants to

be strong and clever as the god. Human believed in God so they compare themselves to god
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instead of a strong animal. Kelly Scott Franklin comments Christians find their power in

weakness, LEngle believes, but the greatest power can be found in love. God hath chosen the

weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. Weak things in the quote

is Meg and things which are mighty is IT. Meg can defeat IT when rescue Charles using her

love. Human is considered as a weak creature because human does not have extraordinary power

like IT that have power to controlled peoples mind. Human sees weakness in themselves and

uses that weakness as a motivation to fight against stronger power. For example, Meg uses her

weakness which is her emotion of anger to avoid hypnosis by IT. Her anger helps her survive

from evil.

Lastly, LEngle points out the failure of human through the different communication

ability between Meg and other creatures in the story. Meg meet three Mrs. and Aunt Beast which

communicating in different ways from humans - do not usually use English as the medium. Mrs.

Who and Mrs. Which cannot talk like normal people. Mrs. Who can talk but she will repeat the

letter and not smooth as people talking. Mrs. Who cannot think of her own word and use quotes

from other people such as a quote from The Tempest of Shakespeare (p.113). Aunt Beast is

creature which has no eyes and live on planet that have little light. In page 70-71, three Mrs. try

to explain to Meg and Calvin about the tesseract but they cannot find the words that can use to

describe it. This shows that word is very limited to describe a knowledge that above human

knowledge. And also in the last planet, Meg tried to explain how human use light to see and

learn about situation happen around them. After hearing about the light, aunt beast asks Try to

tell me, what is this thing called light that you are able to do so little without?(p.199-200). She

cannot explain the light to aunt beast. This shows that word cannot represent every idea that

human want expresses. According to Constance Grady, The knowledge that Mrs. Which who is
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the oldest and the most capable angle understand is the complexity of word so Mrs. Which

explain her idea through word easily. She has problem with words that she uses. Language that

human uses to express the idea and concept is a limitation because it can only express the basic

concept. The way that human communication is not effective so human is considered as a baby

compared to other species in a story. Not be able to understand other planets knowledge proves

that humanly is less developed than another planet. Also we use words to communicate which is

limited to express idea because some idea is beyond words.

A Wrinkle in Time expresses the idea of human weakness through the setting in Camazotz

which stresses that human feel insecure and feel unconfident when they are different from the

rest. They want to become a part of the society by following others. Second, through the

dialogue between Mrs. Who and Meg L Engle reveals that human has less ability than god.

Lastly, through communication of the special creatures in story compare to human

communication. Human use word to share an idea but special creatures in the story use their

mind as a media to communicate so these special creatures can communicate and understand

more complex knowledge than human do because the mind is more complex than words. The

entire book points out that human are not perfect and there are many more organisms that are

better and smarter than human. Human should not be so confident and should keep improving

them through time. Nevertheless, weakness is not bad; a human can change and turn weakness to

be our strength as Meg did in the story. We should not afraid of our weakness because without

weakness we will never find our strength.

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References

Franklin, K. S. (2016). Faith and Sci-Fi: The Christian Universe of A Wrinkle in Time.

Retrieved from http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2016/06/25/faith-and-sci-fi-the-

christian-universe-of-a-wrinkle-in-time/

Grady, C. (2016). Rereading A Wrinkle in Time: whats up with that giant evil brain? Retrieved

from https://www.vox.com/2016/7/5/11797992/rereading-wrinkle-in-time-madeleine-

lengle

Litwack, E. B. (n.d.). Totalitarianism. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/totalita/