A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle : 5-Minute Cram Summary
A 5-minute cram guide to A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, covering the plot, the tesseract concept, characters, five core themes, and a full exam quiz.
It is a dark and stormy night in a small New England town. Meg Murry, 13, lies awake in her attic bedroom: angry, anxious, and troubled. She is considered a problem student at school despite being gifted at math. Her father, a physicist, has been missing for over a year, and people in town whisper that he has left the family.
Meg's younger brother Charles Wallace (age 5) is waiting in the kitchen making sandwiches: he sensed she was awake. Charles Wallace is extraordinary: he seems to read the thoughts and moods of those close to him and speaks with the fluency of an adult. He and Meg's mother (a scientist who works in a home lab) are joined by a neighbor boy, Calvin O'Keefe, age 14, who followed an inexplicable feeling that he was meant to come to the Murry house.
That night, a strange old woman named Mrs. Whatsit arrives, dripping from the storm. She warms herself by the fire and mentions casually, as she leaves, that "there is such a thing as a tesseract." Mrs. Murry goes pale. It is her husband's word.
The next day, Charles Wallace takes Meg and Calvin to meet Mrs. Whatsit and her companions: Mrs. Who (who speaks in quotations) and Mrs. Which (who barely materializes: she flickers in and out of visibility). The three are ancient celestial beings, not human, who have chosen to help the children.
They show the children something from a high hill: a great Dark Thing: a shadow, a darkness spreading across the universe: and explain that it is the source of all evil and suffering. Earth is partially shadowed by it. Their father is on a planet fully captured by it.
Great fighters throughout history, including Jesus, Buddha, Leonardo da Vinci, Bach, Einstein, and Shakespeare, are described as those who have fought against the Dark Thing with light, art, science, and love. The children understand: this is a cosmic battle between darkness and light, and they are being asked to join it.
The three Mrs. W's tesser the children across space, folding the fabric of the universe, to the beautiful planet Uriel. Mrs. Whatsit transforms into a magnificent winged centaur-like creature and carries the children through the sky, showing them the Dark Thing from above: a terrifying black cloud pressing against the light.
They then visit the Happy Medium: a serene woman who lives in a cave and uses a crystal ball to see across the universe. She shows them Earth, shadowed but not consumed. She shows them their father, imprisoned on the dark planet Camazotz. She also shows them stars exploding: sacrificing themselves in the fight against the darkness. Mrs. Whatsit, they learn, was once a star who gave her life in this fight.
Each Mrs. W gives Meg a gift before they land on Camazotz. Mrs. Whatsit gives her her faults. Mrs. Who gives her spectacles. Mrs. Which gives her the reminder: the darkness cannot be fought with the same weapons it uses; IT must be met with something IT cannot possess.
The children arrive on Camazotz: a planet completely controlled by IT. The first thing they notice: identical houses in perfectly identical rows. Children outside, each bouncing a ball in exactly the same rhythm. A child who skips a beat is snatched inside by a panicked mother. Everything, every person, every action, pulses in perfect mechanical unison. There is no deviation. No individuality. No choice.
They enter a large building called CENTRAL Central Intelligence. A man at a desk: the Man with Red Eyes: speaks to them in a hypnotic, rhythmic voice. He tries to get them to "relax" and give in to IT's pulse. Charles Wallace, confident he can outsmart IT by entering the man's mind directly, looks into his eyes: and is immediately taken over.
Charles Wallace, now controlled by IT, becomes cold, mocking, and cruel. He uses Meg's love for him against her, leading the children deeper into the building. He claims he is fine and that IT offers peace and happiness. But his eyes are flat and empty.
The IT-controlled Charles Wallace leads Meg and Calvin deeper into Central Intelligence to a long corridor of transparent columns. Each column holds a person: frozen, suspended, alive but imprisoned. One column holds Mr. Murry.
Meg uses Mrs. Who's spectacles, which allow her to pass through solid matter, to enter the column and reach her father. She throws her arms around him. He can speak and think, but he has been unable to tesser out alone. Meg is briefly overjoyed: she has found him. But when she asks him to help Charles Wallace, he cannot. He cannot break IT's hold on Charles Wallace. He grabs Meg and Calvin and tessers them away from Camazotz, escaping IT, but cannot get them home. They land on a freezing, dark planet: Ixchel.
The landing on Ixchel is brutal. The intense cold of tessering has nearly killed Meg: she cannot move, cannot feel, and is sinking into darkness. She is found by Aunt Beast: a tall, gentle, eyeless creature with tentacles who radiates warmth and care. Aunt Beast carries Meg to shelter and nurses her back to health over many hours, wrapping her in warmth and singing softly.
When Meg recovers, she is furious: at her father. She blames him for leaving Charles Wallace behind on Camazotz. She was supposed to find him and he was supposed to fix everything: but he didn't. He tessered them away and left her little brother with IT. Meg's anger at her father is one of the most emotionally honest moments in the novel: even people we love and admire can fail us, and that is devastating.
The three Mrs. W's appear on Ixchel. They explain that they cannot go back to Camazotz: IT's power is too strong for them there. Only a human can go. And only Meg can do it, because she has something no one else has: a bond with Charles Wallace that IT cannot replicate or understand.
Meg tessers back to Camazotz alone. She stands before Charles Wallace, who is still fully under IT's control: cold, mocking, and trying to pull her into IT's rhythm. IT speaks through Charles Wallace, trying to use logic and reason to convince her to give in: IT offers a world without pain, without difference, without conflict. Perfect equality through perfect sameness.
Meg tries anger: it doesn't work. She tries reason: IT is more logical than she is. She tries to think of what she has that IT does not have. And then she knows: love. Not an abstract love: her specific, fierce, personal love for Charles Wallace. IT cannot feel love. IT cannot understand it. IT cannot counter it.
Meg concentrates all of her feeling, every memory, every argument they ever had, every moment of tenderness, and pours it toward Charles Wallace. She says his name again and again. She tells him she loves him. Slowly, the coldness in his eyes breaks. He begins to cry. Charles Wallace is freed.
Their father tessers all of them home: back to the yard of the Murry house in New England. The three Mrs. W's appear briefly to say goodbye. Mrs. Whatsit turns to Meg and says simply: "We love you." Then they are gone. The family is together. Charles Wallace is himself again. Meg finally cries: in relief and exhaustion and love.
A. Meg is awkward, stubborn, quick-tempered, and deeply insecure about her appearance and intelligence, despite being highly gifted at math. She is the emotional center of the novel, and her greatest flaw, stubbornness, becomes her greatest strength: she refuses to give up on her father or her brother. Her love for Charles Wallace ultimately defeats IT.
A. Charles Wallace is extraordinarily gifted, seeming to read minds and understand things far beyond his years. Too confident in his own mental strength, he tries to enter IT's mind to defeat it from within and is taken over instead, becoming a cold, robotic vessel for IT's will. Rescuing him is Meg's central mission.
A. Calvin is a popular, athletic boy who joins the quest seemingly by instinct, feeling he is "supposed to" be with the Murrys. He comes from a large, cold, neglectful family and finds in the Murrys the warmth he has always wanted. He is good at communication and connecting with people in ways Meg is not, and he and Meg begin to develop romantic feelings.
A. Mr. Murry is a brilliant scientist working for the government on a secret project involving tessering, and he has been trapped on the dark planet Camazotz. Though Meg idolizes him, she is devastated to discover he cannot solve everything: he tessers them away from IT but to the wrong planet, and cannot free Charles Wallace. He is human, fallible, and limited, an important revelation for Meg.
A. The most approachable of the three Mrs. W's, Mrs. Whatsit appears as a tramp in old clothes and was once a star who sacrificed herself in the fight against the Dark Thing. She transforms into a winged centaur-like creature on Uriel to carry the children through the sky, and she gives Meg the gift of her own "faults," which turn out to be strengths.
A. Mrs. Who speaks almost entirely in quotations from great thinkers, writers, and scientists because forming her own words is difficult for her. She gives Meg her spectacles, which allow Meg to pass through a wall on Camazotz, and her quotes serve as clues and guidance throughout the journey.
A. Mrs. Which is the oldest and most powerful of the three and rarely fully materializes, appearing instead as a shimmer or a voice. She is the one who directs the tessering and gives Meg the gift of her "faults" as well. Her power is immense but her form is barely there, as if she exists partly beyond the physical world.
A. IT is a massive, disembodied brain that controls all life on Camazotz through a hypnotic rhythmic pulse. IT does not feel, love, or choose; it only enforces total conformity and uniformity, representing totalitarianism and the erasure of individuality. IT cannot be defeated by intellect, since it has never felt love and cannot understand or counter it.
A. The Man with Red Eyes is a human completely controlled by IT who serves as its mouthpiece. He tries to hypnotize the children by speaking in a rhythmic, seductive pattern, the same pulse that controls Camazotz. Charles Wallace, trying to resist by entering his mind directly, is taken over instead.
A. Aunt Beast is a gentle, eyeless alien creature on the planet Ixchel who nurses Meg back to health after she is nearly killed by the cold of tessering. She cannot understand the concept of sight or light, yet she is full of warmth and compassion, representing the idea that love and goodness exist beyond what we can see or fully understand.
Quoted works:
· A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962. Short quotations used for educational commentary under fair use.
This page is a study aid for students. For a richer and fuller experience, we encourage you to read the original book.
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