From A Wrinkle in Time through The Arm of the Starfish (and An Acceptable Time, but indirectly), we get to watch Madeleine L'Engle's Meg Murry (O'Keefe) grow from awkward teenager to a loving mother. Each book offers a distinct look into Meg and shows us what makes her an admirable and ultimately human woman.
We first meet Meg in Wrinkle as a teenager with low self-confidence. Her father has disappeared with no indication that he is still alive and her youngest brother, Charles Wallace, with whom she is especially close, is having troubles at school. It's clear from the start that Meg feels things more strongly than most people and has difficulty hiding her emotions, abilities that prove to be both her greatest strength and a difficult weakness. It is Meg's love for Charles and her father that lead her into danger, determined to protect both of them. It's Meg's emotional insight that allows her to pull Charles from IT's hold in Camazotz. Meg's love leads her into Charles's body to save his life in A Wind in the Door and, in spite of an almost crippling fear for the fate of the world and her unborn child, her love leads her into Charles Wallace's mind and into history in A Swiftly Tilting Planet. It's her anger that she must learn to curb. This outrage on behalf of the people she loves leads her into fist fights with older boys, defending her little brother. In Wrinkle, it is her rage that makes her susceptible to the control of IT. IT throbbed with the rhythm of anger and hate and nearly pulled her down with them.
Meg's low self-confidence often emerges when she is comparing herself to her mother. In Wrinkle, she is frustrated, believing that "it was not an advantage to have a mother who was a scientist and a beauty as well." Meg is described as plain when she is a teenager but by Starfish, she is "a tall, strikingly beautiful woman." She knows that she has an exceptionally high IQ but never feels like she can stack up to her mother. We know from Many Waters that she's gone to college and studied high level biology but when we see her later in Starfish, she is using her education and intelligence to school her seven children. Her mother confesses to Meg's daughter Poly in An Acceptable Time that Meg's choices were at least partially because her "estimation of herself has always been low" and she chose to be the best mother she could be instead of running the risk that her best efforts in science would still prove to place her only second. Mrs. Murry adds that "women have come a long way...but there will always be problems--and glories--that are unique to women."
Meg Murry O'Keefe is a woman with a mind of her own. She is courageous regardless of her fear and loving to the point of self-sacrifice. Her strength regarding her family is boundless, raising seven children in near isolation, eagerly leaping to Charles Wallace's aid. She's also painfully self-conscious and self-demeaning. She doesn't believe that her intelligence can equal that of her mother's and in order to keep from setting an insurmountable goal for her own children, she doesn't exhibit it. She holds herself back out of fear and a misguided sense of kindness. Meg is a flawed heroine, the best and most realistic kind we can hope to have. We know that we are not perfect, that we can make mistakes, misjudge ourselves, and be afraid. Heroines like Meg allow us to see that we can do all those things and still be incredible people. We can fear but be brave. We may look down on ourselves but reading about Meg makes us think twice about what we believe we lack.
We can be humans and heroes, all at the same time.
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"Love. That was what she had that IT did not have."
-A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
