Major characters in the works of Madeleine L'Engle
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Madeleine L'Engle, an American novelist, diarist and poet, has produced over fifty books since her first novel, The Small Rain, in 1945.[1] Many of her fictional characters have appeared in more than one novel, sometimes in more than one series of novels. Other major characters are the protagonists of a single title. This article provides information about L'Engle's most notable characters.
In a family tree chart first published inside the front cover of Many Waters (1986, ISBN 0-374-34796-4), L'Engle divided her major characters into categories she calls "chronos" and "kairos", two Greek terms for different concepts of time. The stories of the Austin family take place in the milieu of chronos, which L'Engle defines as "ordinary, wrist-watch, alarm-clock time."[2]. These are presented in a primarily realistic framework, though occasionally with elements that might be regarded as science fiction. Kairos, the framework in which the stories of the Murry and O'Keefe families take place, is defined as "real time, pure numbers with no measurement", and often includes such elements as time travel, fantasy and religious content in a struggle between good and evil. A third category of characters, called by L'Engle "those who cross and connect", link the works of chronos and kairos in a latticework of appearances in multiple series of books, ultimately placing nearly every L'Engle character in the same fictional universe.
Although L'Engle's early protagonists (including Katherine Forrester, Philippa Hunter and Camilla Dickinson) tend to be, like L'Engle, an only child, later ones are often part of a large family, possibly in reaction to L'Engle own lonely childhood.[1] Thus, Meg Murry and Vicky Austin each have three siblings, and Polly O'Keefe has six brothers and sisters. Most of her heroines are artists, such as a pianist, a painter and a poet; but Meg Murry O'Keefe is a mathematician, Camilla is an astronomer and Polly O'Keefe's vocation is undetermined. L'Engle's most important male characters (John Austin, Adam Eddington, Calvin O'Keefe and others) tend to gravitate toward science, or more specifically medicine (Charles Bejart, Dennys Murry, etc.).
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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[edit] Recurring Kairos characters:
[edit] Murry
- Alexander Murry — Astrophysicist in the employ of the Federal government of the United States. He took part in an early experiment in "tessering" and was consequently lost on the planet Camazotz for a few years before being rescued.
- Katherine Murry — Microbiologist and Nobel laureate. Works from lab located at her rural home.
- Margaret "Meg" Murry — Eldest daughter of Alexander and Katherine. Somewhat awkward and plain as an adolescent, she acquires social graces and beauty during the course of her maturation covered in A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. As a child, she was closest to her youngest brother, Charles Wallace; as an adult she is married to Calvin O'Keefe and has seven children. Meg, a mathematical genius, has not completed her Ph.D. as of A House Like a Lotus, but is frequently described as a scientist and mathematician who helps Calvin with his work.
- Alexander "Sandy" Murry and Dennys Murry — Twin sons of Alexander and Katherine. They describe themselves as the "squares" of the Murry clan. As teenagers, they take a trip to Biblical times, specifically the time immediately preceding the Deluge. In later life, Sandy is an "anti-corporate" lawyer, and Dennys is a neurosurgeon.
- Charles Wallace Murry — The youngest of the Murry clan. Charles Wallace is "something new", i.e., superhuman in intelligence (broadly conceived) and telepathic, an evolutionary next step similar to the Indigo child concept. Charles Wallace is a protagonist in A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and one of his mitochondria is the site for the climax of A Wind in the Door. Charles Wallace is small for his age, and is misunderstood and bullied by his peers at school. In later life, Charles Wallace is largely absent from the books owing to secret responsibilities.
[edit] O'Keefe
- Calvin O'Keefe — Marine biologist, husband of Meg, father of a large brood. As a boy, Calvin was a "sport" among what the uncharitable might call degenerate white trash, excelling academically, socially, and in sports from an early age, but feeling disconnected from his peers. He finds a truer home with the Murrys.
- Polly/Poly (Polyhymnia) O'Keefe — Eldest child of Meg and Calvin. Named, somewhat to her annoyance, by her eccentric Godfather, Canon Tallis. Poly takes part in various socio-political intrigues in Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters, more personal ones in House like a Lotus, and is incorporated into the Murry time-and-space travel tradition with An Acceptable Time.
- Charles O'Keefe — Named for Charles Wallace Murry, Charles is characterized by sensitivity to others, clairvoyance, and an introspective personal style. He aspires to a career as a doctor who can "take care of all of a person — body, mind and spirit", and is later said to be living with his uncle Dennys Murry in order to take advantage of a better science curriculum at the nearby high school than is found at Polly's school.
[edit] Other
- Dr. Louise Colubra — The Murry family doctor and a close friend of the family. Louise the Larger, a telepathic snake, was named for her. Consults with Dr. Kate Murry about Charles Wallace's "mitochondritis" in A Wind in the Door. Sister of retired Bishop Nason Colubra as revealed in An Acceptable Time.
- Mr. Jenkins — Meg's high school principal in A Wrinkle in Time, who in A Wind in the Door has become the principal of Charles Wallace's elementary school instead, an apparent demotion. He is described as having dandruff and smelling of "old hair cream." He appears not to like or understand either Meg or Charles Wallace, and Meg in turn thinks of Mr. Jenkins as a failure and an obstacle, who believes in "the law of the jungle". However, in A Wind in the Door, Jenkins notices Charles Wallace's physical weakness before Meg does, and Meg is reminded that he once secretly bought Calvin a badly-needed pair of shoes. Knowing these things helps Meg to "name" Mr. Jenkins; i.e., to love and understand him, and help him to do the same. Meg eventually realizes that both she and Mr. Jenkins himself have consistently underestimated him. Once named, Mr. Jenkins joins Meg and Calvin O'Keefe on their quest to save Charles Wallace. He is a classic skeptic.
[edit] Recurring Chronos Characters
- Vicky Austin — The heroine of the Austin family series of novels and stories, Vicky is a nascent poet and writer, the second eldest of four children. She is usually the first person narrator of the books in which she appears. Often at odds with her younger sister, Suzy, she has a mentor and kindred spirit in her maternal grandfather, retired minister Grandfather Eaton. Vicky dates several boys before developing what may be a more lasting relationship with Adam Eddington.
- John Austin — Vicky's scientifically-minded older brother, John, enrolls at M.I.T., and is primarily interested in astrophysics. He also works with Adam Eddington for a summer at the Marine Biology Station on Seven Bay Island. John is intellectually curious and philosophical.
- Suzy Austin (Davidson) — Generally considered the beauty of the family, Suzy "has wanted to be a doctor ever since she could talk." She is a vegetarian. As an adult, Suzy is a cardiologist, married to Josiah "Dave" Davidson. They have four children, Josiah (Jos), John, Emily, and Tory.
- Rob Austin — The youngest of the Austin children, Robert Austin is curious and loving, with a penchant for insightful questions. Madeleine L'Engle has acknowledged that Rob is based on her own youngest child, Bion Franklin.
[edit] Crossover characters
- Canon John Tallis — Episcopal Canon. Tallis appears in four novels, alongside both the O'Keefe and Austin families as well as the Wheatons (in Certain Women). Rather like a cross between G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown and Ian Fleming's James Bond, Tallis provides spiritual leadership and insight into the realms of crime and international intrigue in equal measure. The character is based on L'Engle's spiritual advisor at St. John the Divine, Canon Edward Nason West.[3] To preserve West's privacy during his lifetime, L'Engle referred to him as Canon Tallis in her non-fiction as well as her fiction. The name is a reference to composer Thomas Tallis, who composed the Tallis Canon. Because of this namesake, Canon Tallis is nicknamed Tom or Father Tom.
- Adam Eddington — Marine biologist. Adam first appears in The Arm of the Starfish working as an intern for Calvin O'Keefe. He is caught up in a power struggle between the O'Keefes and an unscrupulous industrialist vying for control of an emergent medical technology. Later, working with dolphins in New England, he comes into contact with Vicky Austin. More international intrigue later ensnares Adam and Vicky when she follows Adam to Antarctica in Troubling a Star.
- Zachary Gray — Student. Extremely affluent, disaffected young man, oscillating between his desires for redemption and self-destruction. Has complex relationships with both Vicky Austin and (later) Polly O'Keefe. Like Canon Tallis, he appears in four novels. Charming, exciting, unpredictable and emotionally needy, Zach brings out the best in Vicky and Polly, but they cannot save him from himself.
- Katherine Forrester (Vigneras) — Pianist. Main character of The Small Rain (the first half of which was republished as Prelude) and A Severed Wasp. In The Small Rain, Katherine Forrester is a gifted but socially isolated adolescent studying to be a concert pianist at a strict boarding school. Katherine reappears in A Severed Wasp as an old woman (now Katherine Vigneras, from her marriage to her piano teacher/mentor Justin) looking back on her life and career while facing new dangers. Katherine Vigneras also appears very briefly in A Ring of Endless Light playing a recital that Vicky Austin and Zachary Gray attend. In A Severed Wasp, she has a portrait of her daughter painted by Philippa Hunter, protagonist of And Both Were Young.
- Emmanuele Theotocopoulos (known as "Mr. Theo") — Organist and teacher. Introduced in The Young Unicorns, (1968, ISBN 0-374-38778-8), he is the semi-retired organist at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City, and the piano teacher and mentor to the blind piano prodigy Emily Gregory. Mr. Theo is excitable but warm-hearted, with true affection for and protectiveness of children and adolescents who come under his eye. In Dragons in the Waters, Mr. Theo befriends Simon Renier, and later summons Canon Tallis (whom Mr. Theo calls one of his oldest friends) to come and help when Simon's presumed "Cousin Forsyth" is murdered.
- Mimi Oppenheimer (called Mimi Opp) — Surgeon. She attends the same boarding school as Virginia Bowen, and stays with the family in the Haute-Savoie. She later appears as Katherine Forrester's neighbor and friend in A Severed Wasp.
- Josiah "Dave" Davidson — Dean. A somewhat troubled teenager at the time of The Young Unicorns, Dave is a carpenter's son, a former gang member and choir boy, and the friend and sometime protector of the Austin children. As an adult he is dean at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, married to the former Suzy Austin, and a friend of Mimi Oppenheimer.
- Virginia Bowen Porcher — Writer. Virginia ("Vee") Bowen first appears in A Winter's Love as the daughter of a woman who falls in love with another man during a difficult time in her marriage. She reappears in A House Like a Lotus as Virginia Bowen Porcher, Polly O'Keefe's favorite writer. Her husband, Henri Porcher, is a descendant of Henry Porcher of Ilsa, and institutionalized with a hereditary form of insanity.
- Frank Rowan — Publisher. Frank first appears in Camilla Dickinson as Camilla's first love. He turns up again in A House Like a Lotus as "the publisher of a small educational press in Istanbul." By that point, he has lost his wife and his leg in an automobile accident in the United States.
[edit] Other protagonists
- Camilla Dickinson — As introduced in the novel of the same name (later republished as simply Camilla), the eponymous character is a teenage girl whose suicidal mother is on the edge of having an illicit affair with a man whom Camilla loathes. Meanwhile, Camilla herself develops a romantic attachment to her best friend's older brother, Frank Rowan, who leaves town at the end of the novel. Camilla reappears as an elderly astronomer in A Live Coal in the Sea (1996).
- Philippa "Flip" Hunter — The protagonist of And Both Were Young, Flip is a young artist who is initially miserable when sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. She meets a mysterious French boy, Paul, who is living at a nearby chateau, who does not remember his past. With the help of Paul and a sympathetic art teacher, Flip learns to get along with her peers, acquires self-confidence, and even secretly learns to ski after being declared hopeless at the sport. The character's story closely parallels that of another early L'Engle heroine, Katherine Forrester, and loosely parallels L'Engle's own experiences in boarding school.[4]
- Simon Bolivar Quentin Phair Renier — Simon appears in Dragons in the Waters as a young boy of poor but aristocratic southern background, flung into the wide world after the sale of a portrait of Bolivar, one of the last heirlooms of his family. He encounters the O'Keefe clan and Canon Tallis, and eventually comes into contact with another set of noble roots in distant Venezuela. Although Simon does not appear in other books, some of his relatives appear in Ilsa, The Other Side of the Sun (an historical novel for adults) and A House Like a Lotus.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Chase, Carole F. (1998). Suncatcher: A Study of Madeleine L'Engle And Her Writing. Philadelphia: Innisfree Press, Inc.. ISBN 1-880913-31-3.
- ^ L'Engle, Madeleine (1986). "The L'Engle Family Tree", in Many Waters. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0-374-34796-4.
- ^ [About the Author. Collections: Madeleine L'Engle. Wheaton College. Retrieved on December 31, 2006.
- ^ L'Engle, Madeleine (1972). A Circle of Quiet. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, pp 142. ISBN 0-374-12374-8.
[edit] External links
- L'Engle's Official Site
- The Tesseract: A Madeleine L'Engle Bibliography in 5 Dimensions
- About the Author - Wheaton College
