Today I finished reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I’ve read it countless times since my first reading when I was around ten years old. Like any great book worth rereading until your childhood copy falls apart and you have to buy a new one, I learn something different with each reading.
This time I really noticed Meg having to grow up in the truest sense. It’s when she realizes that her parents don’t have all the answers and can’t make everything right again. In her quest to find her father, Meg is certain that in finding him, he will be able to solve her problems both on Camazotz and on Earth.
“Despair settled like a stone in the pit of Meg’s stomach. She had been so certain that the moment she found her father everything would be alright. Everything would be settled. All the problems would be taken out of her hands. She would no longer be responsible for anything.”
When faced with life-changing decisions, I think we all have some small part of us that longs for the day when the big decisions were handled by someone else. If we don’t have to make our own decisions, we won’t have to be responsible for those decisions. And if things don’t work out, it’s always easier to have someone besides yourself to blame.
But the tragedy of Camazotz is that no one makes their own decisions. Which makes everyone exactly like everyone else. And as Meg shouted while resisting IT, like and equal are not the same thing.
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