Blog post 8

In the passage at the end of the book, L’Engle uses a sense of urgency to preface the sense of relief the family members (and Calvin) get from finally being together. The author creates the sense of urgency through the use of words like running, crash, catapulted and dashed. The relief comes can be seen in phrases like “a tremendous happy jumble of arms and legs hugging” and “exuberance of his greeting.”

This situation represents their victory and their happiness as well. Happiness is attributed directly to closeness when L’Engle writes about Fortinbras joining the family, stating that he “could not bear being left out of the happiness not one second longer.” In this sense, happiness is not only due to one’s company, but the proximity to that company. For L’Engle these characters represent the “us” and when they are together the “them” and the “it” no longer matter.

In terms of what L’Engle defines as evil, to me it seems like it’s the unknown. From the beginning, the characters do not know what the Thing is, and because it is foreign, and unknown, it is cast as an “it” and thus made to be evil. For example, on page 84 there is a passage in which the Medium shows Meg the Thing, resulting in her immediate, negative response. “Did it just come? Meg asked in agony, unable to take her eyes from the sickness of the shadow which darkened the beauty of the earth “(84). In this passage, the Thing is not only an “it,” but it has a “sickness” and is foul because it has “darkened the beauty of the earth,” which is an evil action in itself.