Blog 8

In this story, I think l’Engle uses the idea of love to represent “good.” From the passage on pages 201-202 we can easily feel the joy and happiness from the family being together again. Even Fortinbras is shown to be taking part in this joyful reunion. If it weren’t for love, none of this would have happened. It is what drives Meg and Charles Wallace to go on this journey and becomes Meg’s only weapon against IT.

To me, lack of love can represent the “evil” in this story. This can be shown through two of the settings that Meg goes through which makes her unhappy, school and Camazotz. There’s way Mr. Jenkins involves Meg’s father in the discussion and the lack of any sort of feeling through conformity in Camazotz. What I thought was interesting though, was the way they both lash out at Meg in the story. Mr. Jenkins does this by saying “Do you enjoy being the most belligerent, uncooperative child in school?” (pg 32). Then later in the story, the hypnotized Charles Wallace says to Meg, “Why are you so belligerent and uncooperative?” (pg 146)

Besides the lack of love, I believe that “evil” can also be represented by conformity. I thought it was interesting how seriously the citizens took deviating from the norm. Especially when one of the mothers says, “Oh, no! The children in out section never drop balls! They’re all perfectly trained. We haven’t had an Aberration for three years.” The emphasis on the word never and the capitalization of the word aberration shows they are very serious about conformity. The event even leads to the boy being punished later by being placed in a room where he must bounce the ball in rhythm while feeling pain with each bounce of the ball.