# 8

How L'Engle sets up the beginning of the book makes the passage from pages 201-202 a happier ending. The beginning talks about how the Murrays are struggling without having and closure as to where their father has disappeared. The children missed their father enough to tesseract into a new mysterious world. Even after they saw the black thing and heard about IT they continued on their journey to find their father. They were relentless for their father. The words “reached out and pulled in” stuck out to me. The family is having a huge group hug and Meg reached out for Calvin and pulled him in. Those few words add power to the excitement and climax of their journey. It also adds to the feelings Meg and Calvin built throughout their voyage.

I misplaced my book somewhere over break so I can’t give an exact passage but the part that gave me the biggest sense of bad/evil was when the man with red eyes attempts to hypnotize the three children without directly talking to them. Charles and Calvin were trying to ignore him by reciting random facts and texts. But in the end through their struggle the man with red eyes trapped Charles. The struggle seemed so great and intense and the young boy seemed helpless against a much stronger force.

Ultimately love was the major factor. Us (Charles, Calvin, Meg, Mrs. W’s) went up against them (IT, black thing, man with red eyes). It was love because it was an emotional attachment Meg had for her father and Charles that got her father back and eventually rescued Charles. Love was the driving factor throughout the story. In the beginning Meg’s love for her father was driving her to gain closure for her father. It was also the factor for Calvin and Charles when the man with red eyes was hypnotizing them. They struggled with the man with red eyes for awhile. Even if it meant losing one of them for a significant amount of time and losing him in the mysterious planet. The tougher the struggle the more rewarding it is after you achieve victory.

Overall I supported L’Engle’s approach to good and bad. When someone wants something so bad they would bend over backwards for that person or object. The children heard about “them” and what they could potentially do but that did not seem to phase them. There would not be complete satisfaction until everyone was back home safe and sound. It was a very Christian view of good and bad.