A Wrinkle in Time characters

Appears from the start

An awkward, stubborn teenage girl who feels like a misfit at school and is unhappy with herself. She is fiercely loyal to her family and deeply troubled by the long, unexplained absence of her scientist father. Impatient and quick to anger, she doubts her own worth, though she is sharp at mathematics and braver than she believes. Her faults, she will learn, can also be strengths.

Appears from the start

Meg's youngest brother, a five-year-old of startling intelligence who speaks like an adult and seems able to sense the thoughts and feelings of those close to him. Outsiders think him slow because he chooses not to talk much among strangers. Unusually calm and knowing, he is the one who first makes contact with the strange visitors who set the family's journey in motion.

First appears in chapter 3

A tall, popular older boy from Meg's school who comes from a large, neglectful family in which he feels unseen. Drawn by an instinct he cannot explain to the spot where Meg and Charles Wallace are, he meets them and feels at once that he has found people he truly belongs with. Friendly and warm, he joins their quest and grows close to Meg.

Appears from the start

The first of three strange old women to appear, arriving at the Murry house during a storm dressed in odd layers of scavenged clothes. She is peculiar and a little comic, but her offhand mention of the tesseract deeply unsettles Meg's mother. She is far more than the eccentric tramp she first seems and becomes one of the children's otherworldly guides.

First appears in chapter 2

The second of the three mysterious women, who wears large spectacles and finds it hard to put her own thoughts into words, so she speaks almost entirely in quotations from great writers of many languages. She is one of the celestial guides who help the children on their journey.

First appears in chapter 3

The third and eldest of the three women, who has difficulty holding a solid shape and usually appears as a shimmer or a voice rather than a body. She speaks slowly, drawing out her words, and is the leader of the three guides who direct the children's mission across space.

First appears in chapter 8

Meg and Charles Wallace's father, a government scientist who disappeared long before the story begins while working on a secret experiment in space travel by folding space and time. He is found held prisoner in a transparent column on a distant, controlled planet, unable to free himself. Loving and clever, he is nonetheless not the all-powerful rescuer his children had imagined.

First appears in chapter 7

A figure who sits in the central building on the rigidly ordered planet of Camazotz, where everyone moves in identical, controlled rhythm. He does not speak aloud but reaches into the minds of the children, urging them soothingly to give up their own wills and surrender to the power that runs the planet. He is a mouthpiece for a greater controlling force.

First appears in chapter 9

The controlling power of Camazotz, revealed to be a giant disembodied brain that pulses with a hypnotic rhythm. It forces every mind on the planet into perfect, mindless conformity, promising freedom from pain and choice while stealing all individuality. Its beat can seize and absorb anyone who lets down their guard.

First appears in chapter 11

A gentle, sightless creature covered in soft fur, with tentacles instead of hands, who lives on a peaceful planet and tends to Meg when she is hurt and cold. Motherly and endlessly kind, she nurses Meg back to health and comforts her, communicating through touch and feeling rather than sight.