DOCUMENT RESUME CS 216 968 ED 436 785 AUTHOR Warner, Mary Teaching the Madeleine L'Engle Tetralogy: Using Allegory and TITLE Fantasy as Antidote to Violence. PUB DATE 1999-00-00 NOTE 23p. Classroom PUB TYPE Teacher (052) Guides MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE DESCRIPTORS *Adolescent Development; *Adolescent Literature; *Allegory; Conflict Resolution; Elementary Secondary Education; Emotional Response; *Fantasy; *Literature Appreciation; Science Fiction; Twentieth Century Literature; *Violence *L Engle (Madeleine); Theme (Literary) IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT The allegory and fantasy in Madeleine L'Engle's four novels: "A Wrinkle in Time," "A Wind in the Door," "A Swiftly Tilting Planet," and "Many Waters," make the books powerful means for addressing the violence pervasive in the lives of so many young people. These books are a valuable curriculum addition because of readers appreciation for them, their usefulness in integrating "character education," and as examples of literary techniques. Teaching ideas for these books include: (1) charting the (2) identifying images or descriptions that signal conflict or conflicts; (4) discussing allegory; and (5) (3) discussing fantasy elements; violence; encouraging students to "Get a Line." (EF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Teaching the Madeleine L'Engle Tetralogy: Using Allegory and Fantasy as Antidote to Violence. by Mary Warner BEST COPY AVAILABLE PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) liThis document has been reproduced as 00 received from the person or organization m u3 rV originating it. Minor changes have been made to .0 2 improve reproduction quality. N TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Points of view or opinions stated in this C./.) document do not necessarily represent official OERI position cr policy. "Teaching the Madeleine L'Engle Tetralogy: Using Allegory and Fantasy as Antidote to Violence" By Mary Warner Q Story allows for humans, but more specifically for children an d to deal with aspects of life we least like to handle, be those evil o r adolescents, From Shirley Jackson's classic short violence or the unexplainable, like death. creates an imaginary naughty child story, "Charles" where a young kindergartner in serious to assume his bad behavior to Sarah Byrnes, Chris Crutcher's heroine and poignant, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, stories are the medium for facing reality while remaining shielded from the immediate harshness. Particularly in this article, when dealing with evil or violence, story-- more specifically the channel to filter the pain in order to deal with allegory and fantasy--provide Madeleine L'Engle's four novels: A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A it. Swiftly Tilting Planet and Many Waters, are filled with allegorical elements an d fantasy; these two elements, instead of causing these novels to be treated lightly or designated as merely "children's works," make the books powerful means for in the lives of so many young people. the violence pervasive addressing a middle or high school English teacher, though I did I am not currently Arts in these settings for nine years; I am, however, a n teach English/Language English Education professor who has truly been "up close and personal" with public school classrooms and with the pre-service teachers. I know in-service, Arts teachers who are eager to find news ways to u se veteran English/Language in general, for the great "end" desire: story, and literature all of us "literaphiles" find their life paths through the texts we so love. as a means to help our students 1 3 for use in a curriculum of The selection of the Madeleine L'Engle tetralogy peace arises from my love of these stories as well as from the love young readers "test case" has been nieces and nephews have for these books; my immediate for hours by a read aloud of A Wrinkle in Time. These same children enthralled I also offer these teaching ideas based then avidly read the rest of the Tetralogy. on L'Engle works because I'm keenly aware of the desire to infuse "character in these waning months of the 2 Oth into school curricula, particularly education" of the 2 1st, and the Tetralogy so viably achieves such century and in anticipation fully aware that teachers will I offer a range of strategies, integration. Further, select whatever they esteem as usable and beneficial for their teaching context; I give more suggestions than teachers might want to use or be able to use primarily because I appreciate options and because my work with pre-service teachers leads for discussion of literature: More is better. me to see that in the case of strategies in that L'Engle's books fit the created category of Young Adult literature or younger, and these protagonists the protagonists are adolescents narrate. The themes of the books, though, clearly are not bounded by age-specificity; rather Also, while often each novel addresses the large universals of human experience. the richer implications of the novels have been read by middle school students, In exploring the the allegory are better interpreted by high school students. theme of the darkness, both literal and metaphorical which clouds Earth and all inhabitants even into the waning years of the twentieth century, A Wrinkle in its the allegory to the real and challenges them t o Time draws readers through discover what each has to counteract the forces of h ate and evil. A Wind in the Door examines the inner sickness that can stifle human growth, particularly the 2 4 of the mitrochondria an d Through the fantastic environment growth of the spirit. too minute to be explored, L'Engle farandola which are literally and scientifically presents the all-important philosophy: Remember, Mr. Jenkins, you're great on Benjamin Franklin's or assuredly we will all saying, "We must all hang together, That's how it is with human beings an d hang separately." and farandolaeand our planet, too, I guess, mitrochondria and the solar system. We have to live together inin (A Wind in the Door147) or we won't live at all. harmony, The next two novels, A Swiftly Tilting Planet and Many Waters both explore or in families and communities, reality of enmity between brothers the deplorable again using the adolescent protagonists who see the reality through those who are lovers of peace and those who are not. Since L'Engle's novels are not necessarily among the canonical texts and thus teachers who are so time-bound by curricular demands and end-of-course tests might not feel they can justify teaching one or more of the novels, a I argue that the rationale for teaching the works does need to be established. discusses many issues of violence Tetralogy pervasively and comprehensively to the human aversion from responsible use of the planet's limited resources t o Additionally attacks on any person of difference. difference and the consequent L'Engle uses allegory and fantasy as media for her narrative and thus provides in these literary techniques. readers with contemporary textual experience teaching, the ninth grade end-of- In North Carolina where I am currently course test has a major component evaluating knowledge of literary term. as science fiction, provide engaging L'Engle's novels, sometimes categorized uses of symbol, fantasy and allegory and reading with easily comprehensible 35 Time might not permit the total-class would be most appropriate for this group. study of more than one of the Tetralogy; A Wrinkle in Time might be the best of The other three novels could be used for out of class texts to cover in class. in North Carolina (and reading and literature The tenth grade curriculum circles. in other states as well) requires the study of world literature, in a culminating writing test involving a prompt that always includes discussion of literary often includes selections from Because the world literature curriculum elements. the Bible, Many Waters would be an excellent text for students to study. This novel would clearly offer an extension of the Flood story and would make a wonderful parallel with the Gilgamesh epic. A working definition of fantasy suggests Fantasy is a "conscious-breaking free from experienced reality that can be seen in several contexts: a work taking place in a non-existent and unreal world; a work that a work that incredible and unreal characters; concerns or not yet discovered employs physical or scientific principles or contrary to present experience " (Thrall, Hibbard, Holman 198). In the Tetralogy, L'Engle creates several non-existent worlds in order to better expose the real world of late twentieth century United States. In seeing the world in A Wrinkle in Time, the reader meets what of Camazotz, which L'Engle creates The man with the red eyes assures as an ideal world. could be seen superficially, Charles Wallace, Meg and Calvin, that indeed Camazotz is a world without pain. All the hard decisions of life have been taken away from the citizens, but then the precious gift of freedom has also been taken. In A Wind in the Door, the unreal world of "inside" helps demonstrate how In this same novel, the "Echthroi," incredible the exterior world can be recreated. characters who are always at the site of war and evil, work away at young to prevent these vital-to-life microscopic elements from "deepening" farandolae and performing their essential role in the life chain. is the basis of both A Swiftly Tilting The non-existent world of time travel In the former, Charles Wallace goes "inside" several Planet and Many Waters. males in the Welsh line of Mrs. O'Keefe, traveling from "long ago to Salem, MA i n the 1640's and eventually to the 1860's in both Civil War America and Vespugia in In the latter, Sandy and Dennys go back into Pre-flood period in South America. the world of such evil that the God who the desert of Noah's era, experiencing All four works then can allow help high created would destroy all civilization. texts of g rasp the notion of utopias or dystopias, school students paralleling A Swiftly Tilting Planet with its tracing of British Literature or World Literature. in Salem, MA and in Civil War America, would work well in the civil hatreds eleventh grade study of American Literature. Fantasy may be used purely for whimsical delight, or it may be the means of an author for serious comment on reality (Thrall et al 199). Clearly Madeleine on the serves to comment seriously on reality, particularly L'Engle's tetralogy yet is as old as centuries range of violence which marks the twentieth century, BCE, when the Nephilim were on earth, having refused to be loyal to the Presence. this article begins with an activity called The Teaching Guide accompanying Students need to see that each novel includes "real world" Charting the Conflicts. in real world conflicts: Meg and Charles Wallace each experience very characters is understood for their intuitive and creative real conflicts in school; neither While the Chart works only with the conflicts coming early in A intelligence. 5 the reading of the Wrinkle in Time, the same process can be used throughout that power A Swiftly Tilting Planet for example, shows the corruption Tetralogy. wreaks in "the People of the Wind" an early civilization, while also exposing the violence spawned during the Witchcraft hysteria in Colonial America and the of war, particularly a civil war. brutality At the same time, each novel is rich in the fantasy elements serving as (in the sense of conduits of reality. Students can create a list of the incredible that are part of each novel to or difficult to believe in) characters unbelievable recognize the fantastical and its power in the narratives. Animals like Fortinbras in the first two novels; Ananda, Louise the Larger, the mammoth, the manticore, and the Nephilim or other creatures fit the category of like the Echthroi as in the case with Ananda, her name is allegorical and her incredible; in addition, arrival, seemingly from nowhere and at such a crucial time in the events of A Swiftly Tilting Planet further demonstrates L'Engle's careful craft. A second literary device which L'Engle uses is allegory. Allegory is a technique of aligning imaginative constructs, or moral models. mythological or poetic, with conceptual structures were in Medieval times, imaginative Particularly as rhetorical analogues to the revealed truth, regarded in conceptual which was communicated more directly (and mainly theological) language (Frye, Baker and Perkins,12-13); Allegory is a form of extended metaphor in which objects an d are equated with meanings that lie in a narrative persons one thing outside the narrative itself; allegory represents 6 in that of a in the guise of another an abstraction are usually concrete image. In allegory, characters the action and the setting personifications of abstract qualities, of the relationships among these abstractions. representative to evoke a dual interestone in the events, Allegory attempts and settings presented, and the other in the ideas characters, The characters, they are intended to convey or the significance. events and setting may be historical, fictitious or fabulous the test is that these materials be so employed in a that they represent meaning or pattern logical organization in the surface story. of the action described independent Such meaning may be religious, moral, political, personal or satiric (Thrall et al 8-9). These definitions, and those connected with fantasy, are provided for teachersyou will have your own ways of helping students grasp these terms, but again L'Engle has provided a series of allegorical elements. From A Wrinkle in Time a dominant image is "the Black Thing"" What could there be about a shadow that was so terrible that she knew that there had never been before o r that would chill her with a fear that was beyond ever would be again, anything beyond crying or screaming, beyond the possibility of comfort? (72) shuddering, Also from A Wrinkle in Time: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, the and "IT" each represent Happy Medium, Aunt Beast and her fellow creatures, In the case of the latter, IT, the wisdom is the seductive temptation to b e wisdom. part of a world where all human initiative All wisdom figures are is acquiesced. 7 9 allegorical; specifically in the L'Engle works, the allegorical significance is religious and moral. in the garden, the microscopic elements From A Wind in the Door: dragons that signal the "sickness" of the whole universe, Louise the Larger, Proginoskes Blajeny(the meaning of their names and the occupation of Teacher), birth an d deaths of stars, Naming, Kything, "Going inside," Sporos, and X-ing --all these characters and elements convey the central message of interrelatedness. While each living thing is unique and separate, each also depends on other life forms. When we destroy or corrupt any one element, we hurt the whole. In A Swiftly Tilting Planet, poetic elements, the Rune and the oracle poem about the special gifts of the blue-eyed child, serve as central conveyors of th e This novel also has wisdom figures like Gaudior, the unicorn, who allegory. constantly challenges Charles Wallace to fulfill his call. "You human beings ten d to want good things to last forever. Not while we're in time" (169) In They don't. the allegorical and fantastical, time can be altered; L'Engle's use of time and space variations allows her fiction greater scope of reality than she might have in solely using realism. to the In each work there are sensory allegorical elements, integral smells, soundsfrequently music, the warmth or coldness, the light o r ambient: darkness, the wind; and the power of eyes or looks or vision. In Many Waters, to "listen to the stars." Yalith, the youngest of Noah's household has learned She teaches Dennys this art as well: "Alarid says you are able to "Listen," Yalith suggested. understand."