The Time Quartet by Madeleine L'Engle

First published: 1989; includes A Wrinkle in Time, 1962; A Wind in the Door, 1973; A Swiftly Tilting Planet, 1978; Many Waters, 1986

Type of work: Young adult fiction

Type of plot: Science fiction

Time of plot: Twentieth century

Locale: Connecticut

Principal characters

  • Margaret “Meg” Murry, the protagonist
  • Charles Wallace Murry, her brother
  • Sandy Murry and Dennys Murry, Meg and Charles Wallace’s twin brothers
  • Kate Murry, their mother
  • Alex Murry, their father
  • Calvin O’Keefe, Meg and Charles Wallace’s friend
  • The Mrs. W’s, helpful strangers

The Story:

Meg Murry, Charles Wallace Murry, and Calvin O’Keefe are in a battle of good versus evil. The three find themselves aided by mysterious beings, who are helping them in a battle against the forces of evil, represented by the Black Thing and the Echthroi. Meg and Charles Wallace’s twin brothers, Sandy and Dennys, soon have an adventure of their own.

A Wrinkle in Time. A stranger named Mrs. Whatsit, one of the Mrs. W’s—Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Who—arrives one night at the Murrys’ door during a storm and informs Kate Murry, a microbiologist, of the existence of something called a tesseract, a method for moving through time and space. As so happened, scientist Alex Murry—husband and father—had been experimenting with time travel for the government when he had disappeared some time ago.

Meg is fourteen years old and considers herself to be awkward, gangly, and an ugly duckling. She has a bad temper that is made worse when the inhabitants of her small town talk about her father or about her five-year-old brother, Charles Wallace, who exhibits some savant abilities. Charles Wallace had not started to speak until he was four years old, but when he did first talk, he did so in complete sentences. Most of the townspeople do not know this, as he rarely speaks in public.

When Meg and Charles Wallace visit Mrs. Whatsit the next day, they are met by Calvin, a brilliant teenager who goes to school with Meg. He is extremely popular at school, but he is neglected by his own family.

The Mrs. W’s inform the Murry family and Calvin a few days later that it is time for them to rescue Alex Murry. They tesser to the planet where the Happy Medium lives, and she shows them the Black Thing, which has taken over planets and shadows Earth, held back only by brilliant artists, scientists, philosophers, and religious leaders like Leonardo da Vinci, William Shakespeare, and Jesus of Nazareth. Then they are shown Camazotz, a planet overtaken by the Black Thing. Camazotz is where Alex is being held captive.

The Mrs. W’s transport the searchers to Camazotz but cannot go farther, sending Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin into the town. Mrs. Whatsit reminds them of their strengths and weaknesses, and Mrs. Who gives Meg her glasses.

The four searchers go into town, where they see everyone behaving exactly the same. All the children are bouncing balls the same way at the same time. A boy delivering newspapers sends the searchers to Central Intelligence to confront IT, a great pulsating brain that refers to itself as the Happiest Sadist. Everything on Camazotz resonates to the pulsating IT.

Charles Wallace’s pride is his downfall, as he believes he can resist IT when IT approaches in the form of a man with red eyes. Charles Wallace lets the man with red eyes into his mind, giving it the opportunity to take him over. IT uses Charles Wallace to lead Meg and Calvin to Alex, who is imprisoned in a glass column. Meg uses Mrs. Who’s glasses to enter the column and pull her father out. They are then led to IT, which nearly takes over Meg. Alex tessers Calvin, Meg, and himself from Camazotz, but he has to leave his son Charles Wallace behind in the grasp of IT.

The three tesser through the Black Thing, which freezes Meg from head to toe. Creatures on the planet, including one she refers to as Aunt Beast, care for her. The creatures also are fighting the Black Thing, but they cannot help to rescue Charles Wallace from IT. Meg, angry with her father for leaving her brother behind, cannot figure out what to do until the Mrs. W’s arrive.

Meg alone must face IT again, and only with the knowledge supplied by Mrs. Which, giving Meg something that IT does not have. Meg soon realizes that IT can feel hate but not love. Meg’s love for her brother frees him from IT’s grasp. Charles Wallace runs to Meg, and they find themselves suddenly whisked away, landing in a vegetable garden with Alex and Calvin as well, for a joyous reunion with the Murrys, who had stayed behind.

A Wind in the Door. One year later, Charles Wallace is ill with a disease that is taking his breath, and Meg finds herself angry with the elementary-school principal, Mr. Jenkins, for not adequately protecting her brother. She remains angry despite learning about the good deeds of Mr. Jenkins. Kate Murry, a microbiologist, has discovered that something is wrong within Charles Wallace’s mitochondria—parts of his cells.

Charles Wallace tells Meg that he had seen a dragon in the garden; the dragon turns out to be a cherubim, Proginoskes, nicknamed Progo. Meg, Calvin, Charles Wallace, and Progo have all been called to the class of Teacher Blajeny, who tells them of the machinations of the Echthroi, who are trying to destroy the universe by unnaming, or Xing, things. Meg, like Progo, can combat the Echthroi by naming things. Meg’s first test is her confrontation with Mr. Jenkins and two Echthroi, who are masquerading as the principal. She has to name Mr. Jenkins, which she can only do through finding something to love in the unlovable man. Naming him will keep him from being Xed by the Echthroi.

As Charles Wallace gets sicker, Meg learns that the Echthroi are attempting to destroy Charles Wallace by keeping the fictional farandolae in his mitochondria from taking root. Meg, Calvin, Mr. Jenkins, and Progo are then miniaturized and transported into one of Charles Wallace’s cells to convince an immature farandola named Sporos to take root. Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace learn during this time to communicate telepathically in a manner referred to as kything. As the Echthroi create vacuums in creation, Progo sacrifices himself to fill the void—Xing himself as Sporos takes root—and saving Charles Wallace from death.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Charles Wallace is a teenager, and Calvin has earned a doctorate. Meg and Calvin have married, and Meg is expecting her first child. The Murry family has come together on Thanksgiving—without Calvin, who is at a conference in England, but with his antisocial and unlovable mother, Mrs. O’Keefe. Alex Murry receives a call from the White House, informing him that the South American dictator, Mad Dog Branzillo, is threatening nuclear war.

Out of this news, Mrs. O’Keefe begins to speak, teaching Charles Wallace what she knows as Patrick’s Rune. When Charles Wallace goes out to the garden and recites the rune, he calls the unicorn Gaudior to him. Gaudior explains that Charles Wallace will have to go “within” people in different times and places, using his kything ability, to change might-have-beens. Meg is able to follow Charles Wallace through her own kything ability.

Meg and Charles Wallace discover that the Echthroi are trying to turn the might-have-beens into something evil, an act that would result in nuclear war. Charles Wallace must turn the might-have-beens toward something good. He inhabits different people in the same family line along the way, a Welsh prince who crossed the Atlantic before Columbus, a Puritan settler, a Civil War-era writer, and Mrs. O’Keefe’s brother Chuck, correcting the might-have-beens toward the side of good by reconciling differences between the line of Madoc and the line of Gwydyr. Alex again receives a call from the White House, and this time the news is that the dictator, Branzillo, has become peaceful; Mrs. O’Keefe passes away, so only Charles Wallace and Meg know the truth about what has happened.

Many Waters. Sandy and Dennys Murry, the twin brothers of Meg and Charles Wallace, are on an adventure of their own. The more practical twins are the so-called normal ones of the Murry family. In the middle of a Connecticut winter, they interfere with an experiment their parents are running and wish for someplace warm, with few people.

Soon, the twins are transported to biblical times, before the Flood. They meet Japheth, who takes them to the nearest oasis. Riding unicorns, the boys take the journey but suffer heat exhaustion. The unicorns are “solid” only when the literal-minded twins believe in them, so when Dennys passes out from heat exhaustion, the unicorn he is riding disappears. Dennys is dumped into a trash heap and later found by the family of Noah; they tend to him. Sandy, in the meantime, is now living with Japheth, Noah’s son, and Lamech, Noah’s father.

Over the course of one year, the boys meet two kinds of angels—seraphim, who are heavenly creatures able to transform into animals, and nephilim, who marry human women and are considered fallen angels, also able to transform into animals. Both boys fall in love with Noah’s daughter Yalith. Dennys helps Noah and Lamech reconcile. Both twins help build the Ark, though they worry about the coming Flood and worry that neither Yalith nor they will be on the Ark. Yalith is swept up to Heaven, and the seraphim lead the unicorn-riding boys back home to their own time and place. They have gained a new appreciation for the adventures of Meg and Charles Wallace. According to Teacher Blajeny, the twins will later become Teachers as well, instructing others to fight the greater war against evil and darkness.

Bibliography

Hammond, Wayne G. “Seraphim, Cherubim, and Virtual Unicorns: Order and Being in Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet.” Mythlore 20, no. 4 (Winter, 1995): 41-45. A brief discussion of the angels and other creatures of The Time Quartet and their use as both tangible and virtual beings in a differently ordered universe.

L’Engle, Madeleine. “An Interview with Madeleine L’Engle.” Interview by James S. Jacobs and Jay Fox. Literature and Belief 7 (1987): 1-16. In this revealing interview, Jacobs and Fox discuss writing and personal beliefs with L’Engle and how she interweaves the two in her creations.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth. Colorado Springs, Colo.: Shaw Books, 2002. L’Engle explains her own methods of telling stories and discusses how she brings Christian thought into her fantastic tales.

Oziewicz, Marek. One Earth, One People: The Mythopoeic Fantasy of Ursula K. Le Guin, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L’Engle, and Orson Scott Card. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2008. Argues that the works of fantasy authors, including L’Engle, have socially transformative powers, giving expression to a worldview based on the supernatural or spiritual.

Rosenberg, Aaron. Madeleine L’Engle. New York: Rosen Press, 2005. Rosenberg gives a good overview of L’Engle’s life and writings, including the work and ideas that went into the novels of The Time Quartet.

Schneebaum, Katherine. “Finding a Happy Medium: The Design for Womanhood in A Wrinkle in Time.” The Lion and the Unicorn: A Critical Journal of Children’s Literature 14, no. 2 (December, 1990): 30-36. Schneebaum discusses the female characters and models in A Wrinkle in Time and how L’Engle strikes a balance between traditional and nontraditional female roles.

Shaw, Luci, ed. The Swiftly Tilting Worlds of Madeleine L’Engle: Essays in Her Honor. Colorado Springs, Colo.: Shaw Books, 2000. The essays in this book cover a variety of issues in L’Engle’s books. Published in honor of her eightieth birthday.