Wrinkle's Journey Through Time

by Patrick Hayes, Dramaturg

Like most of Madeleine L’Engle’s works, A Wrinkle in Time depicts time travel and dimension hopping. In particular, Wrinkle covers a time period between the years 1950 – 1969. Most of the important historical events during this time period had direct correlation in her writing, represented by events in the narrative and the fictional science used within the book series. Listed below are some of the major events occurring during that twenty-year period.

1950

First Organ Transplant

First “Peanuts” Cartoon Strip
Korean War Begins
Senator Joseph McCarthy Begins Communist Witch Hunt

1951

Color TV Introduced
Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII
Winston Churchill Again Prime Minister of Great Britain

1952

Car Seat Belts Introduced

The Great Smog of 1952
Polio Vaccine Created
Princess Elizabeth Becomes Queen at Age 25

1953

DNA Discovered
Hillary and Norgay Climb Mt. Everest
Joseph Stalin Dies

1954

First Atomic Submarine Launched
Report Says Cigarettes Cause Cancer
Roger Bannister Breaks the Four-Minute Mile
Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S.

1955

Disneyland Opens

James Dean Dies in Car Accident
McDonald’s Corporation Founded
Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus
Warsaw Pact Signed

1956

Elvis Gyrates on Ed Sullivan’s Show
T.V. Remote Control Invented
Velcro Introduced

1957

Dr. Seuss Publishes The Cat in the Hat
Soviet Satellite Sputnik Launches Space Age

1958

Hula Hoops Become Popular
LEGO Toy Bricks First Introduced
NASA Founded
Peace Symbol Created

1959

Castro Becomes Dictator of Cuba
The Sound of Music Opens on Broadway

1960

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho Released
First Televised Presidential Debates
Lasers Invented
Walsh and Piccard Become the First to Explore the Deepest Place on Earth

1961

Bay of Pigs Invasion

1961

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Berlin Wall Built
JFK Gives “Man on the Moon” Speech
Peace Corps Founded
Soviets Launch First Man in Space
Tsar Bomba, the Largest Nuclear Weapon to Ever Be Exploded

1962

Andy Warhol Exhibits His Campbell’s Soup Can
Cuban Missile Crisis
First James Bond Movie
Johnny Carson Takes Over the Tonight Show
Marilyn Monroe Found Dead

1963

16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
Betty Friedan Publishes The Feminine Mystique
First Dr. Who Episode Airs
First Woman in Space
JFK Assassinated
March on Washington
Martin Luther King Jr. Makes His “I Have a Dream” Speech

1964

Beatles Become Popular in U.S.
Cassius Clay (a.k.a. Muhammad Ali) Becomes World Heavyweight Champion
Civil Rights Act Passes in U.S.
Hasbro Launches GI Joe Action Figure
Nelson Mandela Sentenced to Life in Prison

1965

Los Angeles Riots

1965

Los Angeles Riots

Malcolm X Assassinated
Miniskirt First Appears
New York City Great Blackout
The Rolling Stones’ Mega Hit Song, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam

1966

Black Panther Party Established
Mao Zedong Launches the Cultural Revolution
Mass Draft Protests in U.S.
National Organization for Women (NOW) Founded
Two Multi-Ton Chunks of the Mundrabilla Meteorite Found

1967

First Heart Transplant
Six-Day War in the Middle East
Three U.S. Astronauts Killed During Simulated Launch

1968

Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
My Lai Massacre
Nerve Gas Leak in Utah Kills 6,000 Sheep
Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated
Tet Offensive

1969

ARPANET, the Precursor of the Internet, Created
Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon
Rock-and-Roll Concert at Woodstock
Sesame Street First Airs

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A Wrinkle in Time

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="376"] Margaret Roper[/caption] Margaret More Roper: Scholar and Daughter by Adam White, dramaturg Thomas More was a family man; he was married twice and had four children with his first wife, Jane Colt. After being married for six years, Jane Colt More died, leaving More with four children: Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecily and John. However, More quickly remarried to the widow Dame Alice Middleton, marrying her within a month of his wife’s death. While many of his friends resisted the rapid nature of the arrangement, More went through with it. Thomas and Alice More would raise the four children Thomas More had with Jane, as well as Alice’s daughter from her previous marriage and a foster daughter. Certainly, More valued his family and the welfare of his children. More also valued the power of education. He insisted that his daughters be educated through rigorous schooling, and this was unusual in 16th-century England, as society at large believed women unfit for scholarly pursuits. Despite cultural and institutional norms, Margaret More, the eldest of the More children (and More’s favorite, some would argue), would grow to become one of the most educated people in all of England, a woman of great scholarly knowledge. Margaret More Roper was tutored at home and became well-known for her studies, particularly for her adeptness in Greek and Latin. Her skill in writing and speaking Latin would impress the clergy of England. This specialty is reflected in a scene in Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons where Margaret and King Henry VIII engage in a bit of Latin language sparring. She would also become the first woman who was not of royal birth to publish a translated book. In October 1524, Roper published an English translation of a book called ‘Precatio dominica’ written by Thomas More’s good friend Erasmus. This book was based on the Lord’s Prayer. Instead of translating the book directly from Latin to English, Roper would use her extensive knowledge of both languages to construct the themes and the meanings Erasmus had written in to the treatise with her own words. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="291"] Erasmus, Dutch humanist and good friend to Thomas More[/caption] It was Margaret who would visit the imprisoned Thomas More the most often. They were very close, writing letters to one another regularly the duration of their relationship. It was in a letter to Margaret that Thomas More confided, “I do nobody harm, I say none harm, I thinke none harm, but wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.” We have good reason to believe that Margaret More Roper very well understood what would be her father’s fate. After Thomas More’s execution, Margaret More Roper and her husband William Roper would continue to carry on his legacy in their own ways. William Roper would write the first biography of Thomas More, a glowing and gracious document that would influence our understanding of More’s personality for hundreds of years to come. Margaret More Roper actually kept her father’s head after his beheading, pickling it to preserve it from decay. While many of us may find that historical tidbit a tad macabre, I would like to believe that Margaret More Roper had deep admiration for her father; perhaps it was out of this feeling she kept his head. Please stay tuned to the 4th Wall Dramaturgy Blog to catch clips of my interview with Mallory Gee, the actress who will portray Margaret More Roper in BYU’s A Man for All Seasons. Bibliography: Abernathy, Susan. "Margaret Roper, Daughter of Sir Thomas More." Early Modern England. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. Duerden, Richard. "A Man for All Seasons." Telephone interview. 31 Jan. 2014. "Margaret Roper." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Sept. 2013. Web. 02 Oct. 2013. "Sir Thomas More Quotes and Quotations." Sir Thomas More Quotes and Quotations. Luminarium. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.

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Wrinkle's Journey Through Time

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