UNCONSCIOUS MOTIVATIONS 1

Unconscious Motivations of Meg Murry

A Wrinkle in Time is a fantasy novel written by Madeleine L'Engle, in which talks

about a girl who travels through time and space. Meg Murry is a smart girl who is struggling

in a high school because of her problems including losing her father, Dr. Murry and also

being cast out because she is different from other people. As she loses her father, Meg and her

little brother who named Charles Wallace, decide to find out her father. After that, they meet

with three witches, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which. The witches help them find

their father. They travel through the universe by tesseract and they notice that their father is

on the planet called Camazotz. While they are traveling, they face many difficulties including

when the children find out that there is an evil living on this planet. It is called IT or Black

Thing. After that, they have to fight with IT. Even though Charles has the special ability but

he still fails because IT has more power than him. Charles is hypnotized by the Man with Red

Eyes and who is part of IT. So, Meg decides to fight alone with IT by using the power of love

to win the power of ITs mind and she can win the IT. At the end, Dr. Murry reunited with his

family and everything seem to be normal. In A Wrinkle in Time, Meg, the main characters

have the unconscious motives which are trauma, fears, and her inner conflicts.

At first, Meg does not care about her school life at all. Sometimes when she goes to

class she got send out from the class to meet the principal of the school, talk about her life

and the reason why she does not pay attention to her teacher. As Megs dad is missing for

many years, causing the problem that she is unable to fall asleep and makes her feels anxious.

That is why she does not care about the other things except for finding the way to find her

father back even though it is not her job at all. Since in chapter one, Megs behavior at the

school is weird and she cannot fit in the school. Her teacher also lower her grade down too

because the teacher does not like her that much. Due to her action in the school, even she
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does nothing but everyone thinks that she is strange and stupid. In chapter two, during the

social studies class, she is tired and her mind wanders. So, the teacher pick on her, the teacher

asks her a question but she cannot answer it because she does not remember anything. The

teacher and the rest of the class make fun of her, in which she does not even care about it

anyway. Thus, she gets sent to the principals office. Mr. Jenkins, the principal asks her about

the problem that she faced, especially her home life because he heard the rumor about her

family. As her father has gone it causes the following problem like Meg cannot concentrate

on her study at school or her other activity. Due to the fact that people think that Meg is

strange from other people so Meg becomes more stress. This is connected to trauma, trauma

is a reaction to emotion after an unexpected event that occurs, but an only awful event. It

consists of flashbacks, emotions and feels sick which is for long-term reaction. Even though

it is normal, but for some people, they have the problem which is cannot move on with their

lives (Trauma, n.d.). She is always thinking about her father that has gone. Therefore, she

cannot perform well in the classroom.

Moreover, she fears of being alone and lost people whom she loves. Fear is also one

factor of unconscious motive. Fear can affect the processing of the brain Brain, is the one that

can control fear by controlling the thinking and emotions. Thus, its lead to a negative way of

decision and our thinking. These effects make people to unable to act normally (Towey,

2017). In a Wrinkle in Time, Meg thinks that she unable to be smart like other people, she

always thinks that shes dumb and thats why she is odd from other people around her. Hence,

people call her oddball because of her behavior or what she acted. Megs attitude likes

childish because she wants to do what she wants, not what she supposed to do according to

the quote, Why do you always act like a baby? (8) This quote is said by the girl whom she

met during lunch. It shows that she always behaves instinctively without considering the
UNCONSCIOUS MOTIVATIONS 3

moral for example, she often doesn't care about the other people so people dont want to stay

with her. The reason is that she has lost her father and she also gets scared of losing her little

brother which is Charles. Charles is one of the member of her family which she loves the

most because they are closed to each other. Meg and Charles decide to go to find their father

since they traveling to find their father they have to fight with many barriers especially IT.

While Charles fighting and his mind got control by IT, Meg tries her best to help him by

using the power of love and this shows that her fear is scared of losing people whom she

loves.

Lastly, Meg has a confusion with herself that makes she unable to make a decision.

This conflict is called Man versus self conflict or internal conflict. Internal conflicts occur in

the character itself. Fighting with belief or morality will make confusion occurs. Therefore,

there will be a decision between two or more that will indicate our life. Values, roles, and

society are referred to character emotional or another obstacle thats will help to find

themselves in what they are thinking (Review of Literature, n.d.). In this story, Mrs. Murry

is beautiful unlike Meg, Meg is plain, wearing glasses and braces. Thus, she lacks confidence

and this makes she thinks that she is unattractive because she wants to be like other people. In

order to get along with other, but she didnt notice that the uniqueness of herself is better than

being similar to other people. According to the book, it says, is that Meg and her father used

to play with numbers and Meg learned far too many shortcuts. So when they want her to do

problems the long way around at school she gets sullen and stubborn and sets up a fine

mental block for herself (50). Actually, she is smart in math and physics because she got

taught by her father, for example, solving the math in a faster way, while other people do it in

a longer ways or the way that got taught at the school which Meg doesn't follow. Therefore,

people always see her as a weird person by not doing the same way as other. In chapter four
UNCONSCIOUS MOTIVATIONS 4

when Calvin asked her to solve the problem for his homework and she can do it, he was

shocked. Calvin is a clever boy, athletes and also very popular in her school.

As a conclusion, Meg Murry has the unconscious motives which are trauma, fears,

and her inner conflicts. As can be seen, Megs problem is that she lost her father so she

cannot concentrate on her study because she always wanders outside her class not focusing

on the lecture. After she lost her father it makes she felt that losing people are the hardest

thing to move on. Thus, it makes she scared of being alone and in the story, she is a weird

person so this makes other people not to come near her. Also, her little brother Charles, he

fights with IT and that makes Meg scared of losing him again like her father. In this story,

Meg is a girl that is lack of confidence which makes she unable to think of what she wants to

do. Like she doesnt think of the outcome that it's going to happen after she did that
UNCONSCIOUS MOTIVATIONS 5

References

Towey, S. (2017.). Impact of Fear and Anxiety. Retrieved December 08, 2017, from https://

www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/enhance-your-wellbeing/security/facing-fear/

impact-fear

Trauma. (n.d.). Retrieved December 07, 2017, from http://www.apa.org/topics/trauma/

Review of Literature. (n.d.). Retrieved 08, 2017 from http://repository.usu.ac.id/bitstream/

handle/ 123456789/35198Chapter% 20ll.pdf;jsessionid= 749BCB3B9

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