"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Relationship Spotlight: Meg & Charles Wallace Murray (Time Quintet)

 
I was a little girl when my mother started reading A Wrinkle in Time to my brother and me.  It’s a fantastic beginning to a stellar series, and it contributed a lot to my lifelong love of reading.  Right from the start, I adored the rich characters, the sci-fi/fantasy elements, and the earnest prose.  The first thing that truly grabbed me, however, was this relationship.
 
When I think about it, it would’ve been so easy for Meg to resent Charles Wallace.  As an awkward 14-year-old, she’s a swirling bundle of insecurities.  She chafes at her clumsiness and lack of social graces, she bemoans her ungainly appearance (especially compared to her lovely mother,) and she can’t really see herself as the smart girl she is.  Given all of this, she could’ve regarded her brilliant 5-year-old brother as a reminder of her own less-than-remarkable intelligence.  Furthermore, the mere fact of Charles Wallace is a source of ammunition her classmates use to ridicule her; she’s the girl with the freak for a baby brother. 
 
Many stories about girls Meg’s age would follow a narrative of the girl learning not to be embarrassed about the atypical member of her family, but Meg’s ferocious love for Charles Wallace is one of her most admirable qualities.  It’s a defining facet of her character that she defends his honor at every turn, scrapping with those older and stronger than she is and going to the principal for her troubles.  She’s utterly thrown in her lot with Charles Wallace, and this is what leads to the extraordinary experiences in her life.
 
Charles Wallace is a great character, too – I don’t know why, but when I read his dialogue, he really feels like a child genius rather than an adult writer’s idea of what a child genius sounds like.  He’s knowledgeable, well-spoken, and unnervingly insightful, but he can also be petulant and a bit bossy.  Throughout A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L’Engle weaves in reminders of just how young he is, and that goes a long way toward balancing out the more incredible aspects of his character.  Like his sister, he has a strong sense of morality, and he doesn’t back down from a fight, though his are usually mental rather than physical.
 
As terrific as the Murrays are separately, they’re magnificent together.  They generally talk to each other like adults, discussing their problems and planning their next moves as a team.  Although Meg sometimes pulls “big sister” rank, she doesn’t run roughshod over Charles Wallace.  For his part, Charles Wallace’s higher I.Q. doesn’t diminish the importance of Meg’s input; he’s patient with her and explains without condescending.  Much is made of their innate connection, and it becomes vital when they learn to kythe in later books.
 
Most of all, each character’s primary motivation is often protecting the other.  From the very first chapter of A Wrinkle in Time, Charles Wallace gets up in the middle of the night to make cocoa because he knows Meg is afraid of the storm, and it only grows from there.  He’s her protector through their first adventure as much as she is his, and Meg’s involvement in A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet are entirely for Charles Wallace’s sake.  The climax of A Wrinkle in Time is perhaps the heart of the whole series.  It’s Meg at her most heroic, walking into an unspeakably dangerous situation that plays on all of her insecurities, and her greatest weapon is her love for Charles Wallace.  It’s them against the world (all the worlds,) and there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for each other – now that’s a love that can topple evil.

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