I havn't read a children's book in ages, and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time helped me dust off my childhood imagination. I have been consumed with science-type classes for the past three years, and I forgot how nice it feel to let my mind wonder about in a fictional world. The fact that I read the book surrounded by kids at an outdoor pool reminded me of the fact that as a child anything seemed like it could be true. That magic, mind control, and time travel exist, but it isn't publicly known. And, although much of it goes against what I believe today, I found myself enthralled in A Wrinkle in Time.
I think most people see themself as somewhat of a misfit when they look back on their childhood, and that what makes Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin so relateable. I was a different kind of outcast from Meg, but an outcast nonetheless. Meg had untameable hair, braces, and a nack for math...I hit puberty an abnormally young age. What Meg and I had in common is the feeling of being 'othered'.
No matter how outcasted someone is, the feeling of being needed changes their self-perception. The 'need-factor' has been a reoccurent theme in all the novels we have read this semester, though under different circumstances. In Geek Love, we saw Olympias yearning to be needed, whereas in Never Let Me Go, the clones are needed for their bodies. In A Wrinkle in Time, when Meg is told by Mrs. Which that she possesses something unique, and that only she can save Charles Wallace from the hold of IT, Meg gains a sense of importance because she is needed.
Why is the sense of being needed so essential to us? Where does the satisfaction in it come from?
Perhaps it's simply a biological instinct that provides us with a sense of worth - and a way to belong.
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