Apisara Yooyuen 1

English 12
December 6, 2017

Home and School: The Inverse Relationship in A Wrinkle in Time

People always expect for healthy relationship rather than unhealthy relationship to

complete their life. A Wrinkle in Time is a novel written by Madeleine LEngle who is an

American writer. The story is about the adventure of the main character named Meg. Meg

and Calvin who are the characters in the novel are high school students. They meet each other

at the haunted house and start realizing each others personality. Calvin thinks that Megs

personality is completely opposite from what he sees in the school, so she is accepted as an

intelligent person by Calvin. Then, Calvin joins Meg and Charles to help them finding their

lost father. They follow three Mrs. and go to Camazotz which is the planet where their father

is. A wrinkle in Time displays focusing on the bond in family. The novel mostly points out the

difference between relationship of Meg and Calvin with their family and people in their

school to reveal that family is very important and meaningful to Meg. Therefore, A Wrinkle

in Time expresses an inverse relationship between Meg Murry and Calvin O'Keefe, both in

their home and school life.

Meg Murry has a bad social relationship in school since she has no friends and be

judged as a foolish student. Meg is a high school student who does not have friends like other

students. She cannot success in studying and sport. She is not able to do questions by

methods taught in class since she already learned shortcut methods from her father. Even

teachers in school also think that she is a problem student. Others always call her dumb. For

example, when Calvin realize Megs real characteristic after testing her Math and Science, he

says, I suppose I should stop being surprised by now, but youre supposed to be dumb in
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school, always being called up on the carpet (p.50). Meg is left to stay alone at the school

because she seems to be a lonely stupid student, so no one want to make friend with her.

Furthermore, people do not only avoid being friend with her, but they also treat and talk to

her badly. Since she cannot do sport and study well, so many people think that she is stupid

and usually bully her. According to Cynthia Zarin, Madeleine was similar as Meg that she is

bad at sport and she assumed herself being silly. She felt awkward, poor, persecuted, and

apprehension. So, these cause her abhorrence on going to the school. This statement shows

that bullying, failing, and deserting can lead Meg to be not interested in being in the school.

So, she ignores surrounding and dose not try to interact with others at school. She becomes

uninvolved which extremely makes her to stay alone for all the time. No one that she can talk

openly with or helps her. Since there is a huge gap between Meg and others in the school, her

lone-term unhealthy relationship is created. On the other hand, Calvin who is in the same

school seemed to be completely opposite from Meg because he has a lot of friends and be

well known between students.

Calvin O'Keefe is in a healthy relationship among people in the school because he is

beloved and has many friends. Calvin is a popular high school student because he is a

basketball player in the school. He has good looking and be very tall. He appears since the

chapter two and Meg introduces about him including talking about his personality to Charles

Wallace. He can study, and play sport successfully which Mag fails to do at school. He meets

Meg and Charles at the haunted house. Then, he comes to Megs house and has dinner. In the

novel, when Calvin surprises about Megs ability and blames himself, Meg comforts, But

youre good at basketball and things, Meg protested. Youre good in school. Everybody likes
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you (p.52). This quote demonstrates the others view about Calvin when they see him at the

school. Calvin is good in sport, so he is in the basketball team at school and being popular, so

Meg opposes him immediately that he is good in school when he reproaches himself. Calvin

is seemed like to be the model of kind of people that Meg and also other people want to be at

school. Olivia Morris states that because Calvin has a great height, he is a basketball player

following anticipation of other people and he uses his extra potentiality easily. This infer

analyzes his characteristic that he has a character as the expectation of people in the school

which promote him to have a good image. He does what others say is good for him, so he

always be an ideal type for other people. His behavior makes him being popular among the

teachers and students in the school. This kind of his characteristic lead him to have many

friends and much healthier bond with others in school more than Meg. However, even in the

school Calvin has a better relationship with other people more than Meg in their school, but

in their home life their connection is completely opposite from their school life.

At home, Megs family relationship is healthy and strong even they lose contact with

Megs father for a long time. There are five members in Megs family including her. Meg

lives with her mother, her twins brother, and her youngest brother. They cannot contact

Megs father, but still hope that he will comeback someday. Meg is very close to members in

her family especially her mother and her youngest brother. Before going to Camazotz, Meg

Charles and Calvin meets The Happy Medium to see their home planet by a crystal ball.

LEngle writes, Mrs. Murry was sitting perched on her high stool, writing away at a sheet of

paper on a clipboard on her lap. Shes writing Father, Meg thought. The way she always does.

Every night (p.108), detailing when Meg sees her mother through the ball that she still writes
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the letter to her father with hopefulness. This quote reveals that Meg knows her mother very

well since she realizes immediately what does her mother do on their home planet. More

importantly, it displays that members in Megs family have a good and strong relationship

together especially her parents. Dr. Kelly Scott Franklin argues that having freedom is not

caused by being in detestation but giving love. Meg is able to finally release herself with

Charles who is her brother from antagonists dangerous force by just using her gentle love

with him. Megs pure love with her family member saves their life and their bond. It

promotes them to be free and have a happy life. Their relationship is strong enough to bring

Meg to face with danger for saving Charles life and to set them to be free. Because they lose

contact with Megs father, other members left in family are closer with each. So, their bond

gets stronger than before since these children have only mother left. In contrast, Calvin feel

tired and disappointed with his family because of their bad relationship, even he has a good

social connection in school.

Calvins family members have an unhealthy bond with each other which lead violence

to be used many time. Calvin is the third child from eleven children in his family. He is not

close to his family. He loves his mother, but he thinks that his mother does not love him. He

decides to go with Meg and Charles to find their father, so he joins this adventure to travel to

another planet. When The Happy Medium lets him see his house through the crystal ball, in

the novel it narrates, Her mouth was open and Meg could see the toothless gums and it

seemed that she could almost hear her screaming at two small children who were standing by

her. Then she grabbed a long wooden spoon from the sink and began whacking one of the

children (p.107). Calvins mother does not love her children since she forces them with a
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violence when she feels upset. She does not care much about other members in family, so she

does not clean the house, take care others, and does not act as a good model for her young.

Whereas, Calvin seems to not surprise with her behavior. Amanda Gresham assumes that

Calvin is a child out of eleven in the family who has detached father and mother. He strives

to lead his mother, brother, and sister to have familial behavior due to that he significantly

wants to relate them together. This inference reveals that his parents almost ignore him. He

tries to change a family relationship to be better and have a kind of relationship that family

should have, so it means that their bond is very poor till Calvin has extreme desire to try

changing it. Members in his family do not connect with each other, then Calvin need to do

instead. Therefore, the bonds between family members are weak since the connection

between family member is actual bad. Therefore, LEngle create Meg and Calvin character to

be in the opposite way by focusing on their high school and home relationship.

In A Wrinkle in Time, Meg and Calvin have opposite relationship. Meg has a bad

connection with other in school but has a strong relationship at home. In contrast, Calvin has

a good connection with people in his school life but has an unhealthy relationship with his

mother. Meg Murry who is the main character is compared to Calvin about her interaction

with other in an opposite way. First, the story narrates about Meg unhappy life in the school

with her bad relationship. However, after that the story shows that Meg has a stronger and

healthier bond with members in her family than Calvin. So, LEngle wrote about a reverse

relationship to point out and highlight how important family bond is due to even Meg does

not have a good relationship in school, but she has it at home which lead her to be brave to go

to find her father by herself. A Wrinkle in Time is the journey to save healthy family

relationship of Meg Murry.

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References

Franklin, D. S. (2016, June 25). Faith and Sci-Fi: The Christian Universe of A Wrinkle in

Time. Retrieved November 26, 2017, from

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

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

Gresham, A. (2015). General Depiction. PORTRAYAL OF GIFTED CHILDREN IN

CHILDRENS CHAPTER BOOKS. Retrieved November 26, 2017, from

https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/indexablecontent/uuid:6b850e6c-afd9-49ff-a0df-

e373f5814edc

Morris, O. (2016). Charles Wallace, Calvin, and Meg as Ghosts. Unusual Children:

Queerishness and Strange Growth in A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver. Retrieved

November 25, 2017, from

https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1947&co

ntext=honors_capstone

Zarin, C. (2017, June 19). The Fantastic Imagination of Madeleine L'Engle. Retrieved

November 26, 2017, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/04/12/the-

storyteller-cynthia-zarin