78 pages • 2 hours read
Madeleine L'EngleA Wrinkle In Time
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1962A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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BetaChapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Black Thing”
Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which whisk the children into an intangible darkness where Meg feels “alone in a fragment of nothingness” (57). She emerges from this void on the planet Uriel, a sunlit place permeated by a feeling of pure joy. Calvin demands to know how they got there, and the ladies say they tessered. Before Meg can ask if tessering is related to the tesseract, Mrs. Which commands Mrs. Whatsit to show the children something. Mrs. Whatsit transforms into a radiant flying creature and transports the children to the top of a high mountain. There, they view a shadow in the distant universe that fills them “with a fear that was beyond shuddering, beyond crying or screaming, beyond the possibility of comfort” (72). Meg ends the chapter by asking Mrs. Which if her father is fighting the dark thing.
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Tesseract”
Mrs. Which confirms Mr. Murry fights against the darkness and that they must travel behind it to save him. To do so, they will use the tesser/tesseract, which allows them to travel very long distances in no time. Mrs. Who illustrates the concept by folding (wrinkling) her skirt to allow an insect to cross all the fabric instantaneously. Meg struggles to grasp the idea more than either Charles Wallace or Calvin.
They tesser to a planet in Orion’s belt. There, they visit the Happy Medium, who will show them Earth. At the mention of home, Meg gets anxious about worrying her mother. Mrs. Whatsit explains they took precautions and that the children should arrive home “about five minutes before you left” (82).
The Happy Medium is a jolly woman. She is reluctant to show the children Earth but does upon insistence from Mrs. Which. The dark thing they saw from the mountain on Uriel partially covers the Earth. The darkness is pure evil and has been at Earth for many years, which is why the planet “is such a troubled one” (87). Meg asks again where her father is, and Mrs. Whatsit responds, “On a planet that has given in” (89).
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Happy Medium”
Unable to watch the Earth’s gradual overtaking by the darkness anymore, the Happy Medium shows the children a star exploding to defeat part of the Black Thing. Mrs. Whatsit confesses she was a star once and gave up that existence to fight the darkness.
The Happy Medium shows the children Meg’s mother. Mrs. Murry’s sorrow spurs Meg into action, and the group tessers to Camazotz, where Meg’s father is. The ladies cannot stay, but they give the children gifts and advice before leaving. Of particular importance, Mrs. Whatsit gives Meg her faults, and Mrs. Who offers her glasses with the warning to “save them for the final moment of peril” (101).
The three enter a nearby town, where every house and person is the same as the next. Children playing outside do so to a beat, and each child’s mother opens a house’s door at exactly the same moment. Further down the street, a boy plays out of rhythm. His mother hustles him inside, and the boy loses his ball. The children return it to him, and the boy’s fearful mother slams the door in their faces. A paperboy stops the children to ask why they’re there and explains their city is “the most oriented city on the planet” (108). The boy directs them to CENTRAL Central Intelligence, the home of IT. Meg doesn’t know what IT is, but the name alone instills fear in her.
When they reach CENTRAL Central Intelligence, a massive and imposing building, the children question if going inside is such a good idea. Charles Wallace tries to read the people of Camazotz like he does Meg, but he can’t get into their minds. With no other way of getting answers, they decide to go inside, with a warning from Calvin that “if we go into that building we’re going into terrible danger” (113).
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
The explanation of the tesseract in Chapter 5 gives the book’s title meaning. To tesser, the Mrs. Ws “wrinkle” time to travel distance without time passing normally. Charles Wallace’s ready acceptance of how the tesseract works shows again how his brain is advanced beyond humankind. Calvin and Meg struggle more. It takes Meg longest to understand, which fuels her belief in her own stupidity. Calvin grasps the concept in a different way than Charles Wallace, showing again the similarities between the boys.
In Chapter 2, Meg’s brother told her to find a happy medium. Here, Meg does this literally, completing the foreshadowing of events. When the Happy Medium shows the children Earth, Mrs. Whatsit explains the darkness’s presence on Earth is why the planet experiences so much strife. L’Engle uses the darkness as a metaphor for the war and discord so prevalent in Earth’s past and present. If the darkness is not removed, L’Engle implies Earth’s fall, mirroring how Camazotz has already succumbed.
On Camazotz, the children find a world that literally exists to a beat. The planet is similar to Earth with its familiar trees and human-looking people living in houses like those on Earth. At the same time, it is completely different in its sameness. IT, the villain, is introduced by name only in Chapter 6, and its name instills fear in Meg, both of IT itself and of what IT/Camazotz possibly represents if Earth is not liberated from the darkness.
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