How did Meg's father disappear in A Wrinkle in Time?
This is one of the key questions in A Wrinkle in Time. Early in the story, no one has any idea what happened to Meg's father. In chapter three, Calvin and Meg are having a conversation, and Calvin asks Meg about her dad. She responds,
He's a physicist.
This is a fact commonly known around the town. The community also knows about a rumor that he ran away with another woman and left his family. Meg, however, does not agree with this story and tries to run from their conversation when Calvin brings up this rumor. Meg decides to continue talking, and she shares that her father worked for the government and that his work was top secret. Few people know what project he was working on. Meg tells Calvin that one day the letters her father regularly sent to her family stopped coming.
Calvin questions whether he might...
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have died, but Meg boldly denies this. Instead, she holds onto hope that he is okay, trusting what the government told her mother:
She's been down to Washington and everything. And all they'll say is that he's on a secret and dangerous mission, and she can be very proud of him, but he won't be able to—to communicate with us for a while. And they'll give us news as soon as they have it (chapter 3).
Early in the story, no one, including Meg and her mother, is aware of what has happened to Meg's father. Later, readers find out that he was taken by It, an evil villain, to the faraway planet of Camazotz. He still deeply cares for his family. Ultimately, Meg ends up more involved in her father's secret government mission than she ever dreamed possible.
When was Meg's father last seen before disappearing in A Wrinkle in Time?
In Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, it has been almost a year since Meg Murry and her family have received a letter from Meg’s father. No one knows where he has gone or what has happened to him, and this is especially difficult for Meg, who is the oldest child.
Meg’s mother is certain that her husband will return home, but no one else in the Murrys’ small town believes that. The gossip is rather vicious, and even the school principal questions Meg about her father, telling her that she must face the facts. Meg responds that only when her mother tells her that her father is not coming home will she believe it.
Meg’s father is a physicist, and he has been working on a classified project for the government. He was working in New Mexico and then at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Then he sent the family to live at their summer home because he was going to have to travel a lot. Meg does not know where he was sent, but for a while the letters arrived frequently. Then they stopped coming. Meg is positive that her father is not dead, and the only news the government will give her mother is that her father is on a dangerous mission and will not be able to communicate. The family knows nothing more.