Literary Devices in A Wrinkle in Time
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
What the heck is a tesseract? We'll let Charles Wallace explain:"Well, the fifth dimension's a tesseract. You add that to the other four dimensions and you can travel through space without having t...
Setting
Could we possibly get vaguer? To be more specific, several different planets within the universe: Earth, Uriel, the Happy Medium planet (it's not named), Camazotz, and Ixchel. Each planet has its o...
Narrator Point of View
A Wrinkle in Time has a third-person narrator, but one that's hovering over Meg's head most of the time. When the kids tesser for the first time, we see it through Meg's eyes, and throughout the no...
Genre
A Wrinkle in Time is published as a children's or young adult book, and like much children's literature, it features young protagonists who go off on a quest in the absence of their parents. In A W...
Tone
Most of the text is either from Meg's point of view or dialogue between the characters, so the narrative voice isn't really a strong perspective. But in the detailed narration of Meg's experience,...
Writing Style
The text straight-up describes what's going on from Meg's perspective, without much in the way of literary flourishes. The heavy use of dialogue adds to this sense that we're right there with Meg a...
What's Up With the Title?
A wrinkle in time is not what happens when you forgot that you were doing your metaphysical laundry and you leave Time in the dryer for too long. But, what, in fact, is it? Mrs. Whatsit uses the im...
What's Up With the Ending?
The kids are back on Earth with Mr. Murry. Group hug in the garden. Everything's hunky-dory, right? Well, not so fast. Mr. Murry and Calvin Wallace both escaped from IT, but the giant brain dude is...
Tough-o-Meter
A Wrinkle in Time is a kids' book, but it's a kids' book that is heavily sprinkled with literary allusions, and that takes its title from a concept in higher-level physics. Fortunately, understandi...
Plot Analysis
Mr. Murry is missingMr. Murry's absence is where we begin, and it's the situation that all the central characters want to fix.Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin finally make it to the planet where Mr...
Trivia
Madeleine L'Engle's childhood experience at a boarding school where students were called by numbers, not names, shaped her portrayal of enforced conformity on Camazotz.(Source)Camazotz and Ixchel a...
Allusions
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1.1)Concise Oxford English Dictionary (2.118) Blaise Pascal (2.136)Seneca (2.145)James Boswell, Life of Johnson (3.63)Book of Genesis (3.113)Dante Alighieri (3....