Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the eternal boxing match! In this corner, in gleaming white, is Good! Facing off from the other corner, sporting black gloves filled with nails, is Evil! Which will win? A Wrinkle in Time focuses on the fight rather than the outcome, and along the way suggests that good and evil can sometimes look a lot alike. How can one decide whom to trust? In the end, one has to rely on one's gut to tell the difference, because feeling, not reason, makes for more accurate judgment...most of the time.
Questions About Good vs. Evil
- To what extent is evil a matter of personal responsibility in the novel? What role do individual choices have in the propagation of evil, according to the novel?
- How does one do good in the novel? What actions have a positive moral weight, and why?
- How does the novel mash up the good vs. evil debate with that between fate and free will?
Chew on This
By making evil an external force, the novel suggests that living beings are intrinsically good if they're not messed with from the outside.
In refusing to explain the origin or goals of the Black Thing, and suggesting that it may be fought through seeking knowledge, the novel portrays evil as fundamentally irrational.