A Wind In The Door

Charles Wallace Murry is blue-eyed, six years old, and in the first grade at the elementary school where Mr. Jenkins is now principal. He is genius-level intelligent, but this intelligence alienates him from his peers and adults outside his family. Because everyone at his school sees him as different, they bully him frequently. Charles Wallace often returns home from school with torn, dirty clothes and visible bruises on his face and body. He recognizes that he is different from his classmates, so he tries to relate to and connect with them. However, because Charles Wallace sees the world so differently, he thinks he is making connections when alienating himself further. For example, he learns about mitochondria and farandolae from his mother and becomes interested in them. Because he is interested, Charles Wallace assumes others will be interested; however, others believe he is simply making mitochondria and farandolae up because they’re unfamiliar with them. So, they push Charles Wallace further away, leaving him alone despite his attempts to fit in and appear normal.

Charles Wallace is also highly intuitive. Much of what he knows, especially related to mitochondria and farandolae as they relate to his declining health, comes from his intuition. Mrs. Murry tells him about the mitochondria and farandolae, but it is through intuition that Charles Wallace knows he has mitochondritis and that it is increasing in severity. He also knows when something is wrong, especially with Meg. Charles Wallace can read people’s feelings and thoughts, giving him a perspective on the novel’s events no one else has. For example, Charles Wallace wakes up and follows Meg to the garden because he can feel her screaming when the first Echthroi-Mr. Jenkins flew away.

Like Meg, Charles Wallace’s relationships are deep and meaningful. Also, like Meg, most of these relationships exist inside his family, as he has difficulty relating to others. Charles Wallace wants more relationships, especially at school, but the one trait he lacks to help him is adaptability. If Charles Wallace learns to adapt, he will likely gain more relationships and feel less of an outsider at school. Blajeny assigns Charles Wallace the task of learning to adapt when telling Meg that she must overcome three trials, illustrating how significant adaptation is to Charles Wallace’s survival. However, readers do not see Charles Wallace accomplish this in the novel. Instead, Charles Wallace will likely develop this characteristic more in the subsequent books in the quintet.

Like Meg and Charles Wallace, Calvin O’Keefe, a tall, blue-eyed redhead, is very intelligent. At 15, he is already a senior in high school. Calvin is also a star basketball player and senior-class president, illustrating his popularity. Despite his popularity at school and with the novel’s other characters, Calvin’s home life is less than ideal. His family is poor and doesn’t value him for his intelligence, leaving him feeling unappreciated and unseen. Calvin feels far more comfortable at the Murry home, where he finds support, validation, and respect.

While Meg and Calvin are compatible on several levels, they are quite different. Calvin acts as a foil to Meg. Calvin is popular and relates to others easily, whereas Calvin’s popularity protects Meg because she doesn’t relate to others well. He can also understand ideas and concepts that conflict with what he already knows more easily than Meg can, allowing him to help Mr. Jenkins and Sporos when Meg struggles to understand how to help them. Further, Calvin’s ability to kythe quickly and easily demonstrates his open-mindedness, and his kything plays a significant role in defeating the Echthroi.

Calvin is a static character; he doesn’t change or develop his character significantly, though he does learn more about himself and others during the novel’s conflicts. Instead, he is a steady presence who supports the other characters, especially Meg. Calvin is more empathetic than the other characters, allowing him to kythe with Mr. Jenkins and Sporos more easily. He also knows how to explain things to others in a way that makes sense and will help them understand complex concepts more quickly.

Mr. Jenkins, another character introduced in A Wrinkle in Time, is a middle-aged man with thinning and graying brown hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and brown eyes. Dandruff often dusts his suit shoulders, and he is neither short nor tall, thin nor fat. Mr. Jenkins was previously the principal of Meg’s high school—explaining their deep resentment for each other—but the school district moved him to the village elementary school. Thus, he is now Charles Wallace’s principal and is displeased at dealing with Charles Wallace and Meg when troubles arise. Overall, Mr. Jenkins is a rather unpleasant individual, who sees nothing special about Charles Wallace and has little desire to help him or any other child at the school.

Mr. Jenkins and Meg conflict with each other from the novel’s beginning, but that is likely because they face some of the same struggles and insecurities. Mr. Jenkins does not like to feel inferior to others, especially when he is in a position of power. Meg sees him as a failure because he couldn’t handle the pressures of a big school, and Mr. Jenkins likely feels the same way about himself. Also like Meg, Mr. Jenkins struggles to see his value and worth, thinking he’s a failure and will always be a failure. Calvin has a different perception of Mr. Jenkins because the principal saw Calvin needed new shoes and knew his family couldn’t afford them, so Mr. Jenkins buys good shoes but tries to make them appear worn. Calvin believes Mr. Jenkins treats him differently because his family never made Mr. Jenkins feel inferior.

Lastly, Mr. Jenkins is a dynamic character, developing significantly, just as Meg does. In the beginning, he is apathetic and dispassionate, but by the end he makes his first deep connections with others in a long time. Mr. Jenkins shows his true character for the first time when he voluntarily goes with Meg, Calvin, Proginoskes, and Blajeny after Meg Names him. He doesn’t understand what’s happening, but he knows that Meg cares enough about him to recognize him against the two imposters. Thus, he tags along instead of returning to school. Once he is in the throes of conflict with the Echthroi, however, he struggles with kything because he is not as open to new ideas or new ways of thinking. Over time, he persists and eventually understands the situation more deeply than Meg. He then demonstrates his new character when he willingly throws himself at the Echthroi in an attempt to save Meg. At the novel’s end, Mr. Jenkins is excited to renovate and improve the elementary school, which he initially had no interest in. This change illustrates hope for Mr. Jenkins’s and Charles Wallace’s future.