Wrinkle In Time Mood

Light Vs Dark

Throughout the first chapter of Madeleine L'engle’s perplexing Newbery Honor winning novel, A Wrinkle In Time, she conveys the two opposite moods of the Light and the Dark. L’Engle uses different type of words to illustrate the two moods. Using these different words she is able to grow from the grim and menacing from the beginning of the chapter, to the delightful and sublime feeling at the end of the chapter. Her wording not only shows what the mood is, but foreshadows what the characters such as Meg Murry and Charles Wallace Murry are actually feeling.
In the opening paragraphs that start of the novel, Madeleine L’Engle, is describing a thrashing October storm. She describes the peril emotion going through Meg’s mind, and the unnerving weather outside. Using different types of frightening words to describe the weather and how Meg at the moment is feeling, we can believe that the mood at the beginning of the story is dark, with a sense of fear.

L’Engle states lines that discloses the feeling of trepidation. They include, “It was a dark and stormy night”, “the trees tossing in a frenzied lashing of wind”, “moon ripped”, “wraithlike shadows”, “The house shook”, and “Meg shook”. Using words like frenzied and wraithlike the author makes it obvious that the mood of the story at that time is grim, fearful, and frightening. Meg expresses all of these things when she shakes, hiding under quilt trying to find a comfort somewhere, up all alone in an alarming storm. Meg struggles to keep herself under control from her fear do to the terrifying weather that laid outside.
Near the middle of the first chapter of A Wrinkle In Time, Madeleine L’Engle swings the mood of the story from dark to light. With the comfort of her family Meg is able to forget about the raging storm, and focus on the comfort she is feeling through the warmth and comfort of her mother and brother. Meg is able to relax through “loving admiration”, her family furnishes her with. Reverse to the beginning of the story, L’Engle now decides to use bright and warm words to influence the mood and feeling going around at the moment. They consist of phrases such as, “geraniums bloomed on the window sills”, “reflect the cheerfulness”, “steady radiance’’, and “loving admiration. These words and phrases reflect the good mood throughout the story. It shows how when the family is together, the story swings from a dark side, to a light. When the mood swings, it’s as if the cheerfulness of the family blocks out the utterly horrific storm going on outside.
Near the conclusion, the mood seems to be at a crossroad.

When Mrs.Whatsit arrives at the Murry’s home, everybody has a different feeling of it. It’s as if the mood/tone at that time was awkward. Charles Wallace knew Mrs.Whatsit giving a shock to Meg and Mother, as they did not he befriended a tramp. Meg feels rather irate at Mrs.Whatsit for invading their home and knowing Charles Wallace. Meg irritated said in her mind “this old woman comes barging in on us in the middle of the night”, and “she’s certainly no one Charles Wallace ought to be friends with”. Mrs.Whatsit’s actions only added to the awkwardness of the situation. When her boots come splurging out with water and she’s falls out of her chair, startling the children. The mood turns very suspicious as soon as Mrs. Whatsit stated, “There is a thing called a tesseract”. Mother turns white and the children are anxious to know what it means. When Madeleine L’Engle closes this tangled chapter, the mood is mysterious and curious about the

tesseract.
Throughout the course of the first chapter of the book, Madeleine L’Engle is able to capture the reader with two main moods; Dark and Light. She uses words phrases that express both of these tones perfectly in the convoluted pattern of the story. L’Engle also is able to include the tones of mystery and suspscion together with light and dark. Her characters portray the tones perfectly, giving a very complex and intricate story.