Censorship in A Wrinkle in Time

Censorship on "A Wrinkle in Time"

Madeleine L'Engle's children's book A Wrinkle in Time is one of the books which have been included on the list of the banned books in the United States. The censorship of the book is explainable through the many sensitive spiritual matters it touches upon, and for the way in which it chooses to explore them, which has been considered by some critics as inadequate for children. A Wrinkle in Time has been equally subject to praise and critics and even serious censorship. It has received the Newbery Award as well as the National Humanities Medal, and has been extensively praised as a good challenge for children's imagination and a really good starting point for teachers to serve their educational purposes. However, at the same time, it has been termed as highly improper by other critics, who saw it as inappropriate for a children's reading, because of the biased spiritual interpretations found in it.

First of all, the book, is a challenging science fiction work, that uses elements from Einstein's special theory of relativity and mathematical notions, such as the tesseract, or the " wrinkle in time" which is in fact, the fifth dimension of time which can enable time-traveling, one of the most inspiring themes for science fiction works of all times. The book describes the adventures of Meg Murry, her five-year-old brother Charles Wallace and Calvin O'Keefe, a friend of the two brothers, who travel through space and time, in the fifth dimension more precisely, accompanied by three mysterious old ladies, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. The reason for this travel is the search of Meg and Charles's father, who is a physicist and who somehow got lost during one of his scientific missions.

However, the book goes beyond the mere fantastic and imaginary adventures of the three children: it is a sort of spiritual quest, blending science and mysticism to create a special view of the Christian duality of good and evil. The book seems to have a spiritual didactic core, and the implications of this have been many times the reason for its censure.

First of all, there are the fantastic creatures that the novel introduces, all of which seem to have some spiritual bearing: the three ladies that act as and protectors of the children and who are endowed with supernatural powers are constructed like messengers of God. Their names are the all contain a question, suggesting, probably the mystery of creation and the universe.

The most important fantastic character is the disembodied brain called IT, that the children meet on the planet Comazotz and who is plainly L' Engle's symbol for cosmic evil. This implies that evil is seen, as in theology, as being outside human nature, existing in a different dimension as an entity in itself. It is suggestive that the author uses the impersonal pronoun It, as its name, since this indicates that evil is an "it," something that can only penetrate into the inner world of a human being from the outside. Another embodiment of evil is The Dark Thing, which is seen hovering in the universe and threatening the world with its darkness. The battle between light and darkness suggested here is another theological allusion in the book.

The weapon to be used against evil is, in L' Engle's recipe, primarily love, then individuality and creativity, the only things that IT does not have. Of course the Biblical interpretations can be extended to the meaning suggested by this as well: hope and faith, and most of all love, are often mentioned as the only proper means of defeating the evil. Another fantastic creature, Aunt Beast, is an example of superior good, through its special faculty of knowing things otherwise than by mere sense, which seems to have God-like qualities and goodness.

It is for the non-conformist spirituality that results from the blend of science and different theological meanings that the book has been censured most often. L' Engle herself talks about her ideas about science and theology, and admits to the belief that the new science is about "the true nature of being":

also read quite a lot in the area of particle physics and quantum mechanics, because this is theology. This is about the nature of being. This is what life is all about. I try to read as widely as I possibly can." (L'Engle)

Nancy-Lou Patterson notices that A Wrinkle in Time is, in its structure and meaning, a Christian fantasy:

In LEngle's works, as in the works of other Christian fantasists, the narrative gains its dynamism from the creative and attractive powers of the good characters. There is a dialectic in Christian literature in which the meeting of good and evil results in more and better good. The plot is always precisely this, that the corruption of the good created world by the forces of antibeing proves to be a felix culpa, a happy fault, whereby the action of God brings a new good, a new creation, even out of evil." (Bloom, 73)

This was the most powerful reason that led to the banishing of the book, because it was structured as a Christian fantasy, blending science and religion to convey its main meaning about the opposition good and evil.

L' Engle herself also talks about the difficulties she encountered when publishing the book, and she intimates that, in all probability, the ideas she put forth in the book about evil, and the nature of science and religion were not accepted because they were ahead of the time when the book appeared, in 1962, and were not common in children's books:

Wrinkle in Time was almost never published. You can't name a major publisher who didn't reject it. And there were many reasons. One was that it was supposedly too hard for children. Well, my children were 7, 10, and 12 while I was writing it. I'd read to them at night what I'd written during the day, and they'd say, "Ooh, mother, go back to the typewriter!" A Wrinkle in Time" had a female protagonist in a science fiction book, and that wasn't done. And it dealt with evil and things that you don't find, or didn't at that time, in children's books."