Monday, April 7, 2014

Stick and Stones



In A Wrinkle in Time often there was a fault in communication through words or simply a lack of ability to use words to describe something. Through out the book the character rely on non-verbal communication or find that language has its limiting faults. Charles Wallace is the cross between the line between verbal and non-verbal. He is able to cross the two lines and often is the relayer between the non-verbal to those who depend on words. Meg, the one who wants everything in clears words at the end depends on emotion to save her little brother; words were not apt enough. 
Little Charles Wallace is able to connect with his mother and sister more because he understands their emotion and brains more than their words. He is always able to be there for them “Hi,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve been waiting for you.” (pg 5). Though he is such a young age he is so much wiser than most people. He reads people on a deeper level and is therefore able to connect with them more deeply. 
Meg demands more explanation from Mrs. Whatsit about tessering. She wants a direct explanation and Mrs. Whatsit is unable to provide it simply because it is not something that can not be told through words. “Explanations are not easy when they are about things for which your civilization still has no words.” (pg 65). There are somethings that simply cannot be conveyed through words. Just because it does not have an explanation does not mean it does not exist. 
Meg has a second encounter with being unable to communicate something that is so real in her everyday life, light. For a blind person seeing light and colors is simply something inexplainable. That does not mean it is not there  or has not power, it just is unquantifiable for someone who cannot experience it. “How can you explain sight on a world where no one has ever seen and where there is no need of eyes?” (pg 157). Aunt beast will never know what light is, but it exists like emotions, they are simply felt and cannot be held in one’s hand, but they are real. 
In fact it is through her emotion of love that Meg realizes the sometimes uselessness of words. Meg returns to save her brother and realizes that love is what can save him, her love for her little brother. “Oh, Charles Wallace, I love you.” (pg 178). She would have never realized her own power over IT if she did not have the true emotion. Many people can say I love you, but until you mean it, the power is unrealized. Though Meg does say it out loud that she does love Charles, it is her inner realization that frees Charles Wallace from IT.
Language sometimes fails, sometimes things cannot be explained until it is experienced. Gravity has existed for all man, it existed before it was named and it still had the same affect over man. Language is sometimes leaned upon too heavily to prove something, but many people can talk falsely or be misled. For someone who has never seen color, racism would have seemed ridiculous. For a society that has no gender, the sexism in The Color Purple  would have been not understood, but solely through the action of Mr. ____ and Shug anyone could understand what love is and isn’t. When all factors that society claims differences through words are gone, it is purely the expression of one’s affections and how they treat others is how they are studied. When Mr. ____ treats Celie badly he does not get pardoned because he is a man, he is seen as a bad character through his expression of his personality on Celie. He can say he is her husband and has sex with her, but it is Shug who reclaims that action for Celie. Celie is still a virgin because she has not allowed herself to be defined by others words. Her virginity is not something that can be defined in words, it is a state of emotion. When she feels that she is no longer a virgin than it is true, and since she never gave herself to a man, then emotionally she is still a virgin. Charles Wallace is labeled as a dumb boy, but he does not allow that label to limit him. 
My best friends since seventh grade has a rare recessive genetic disorder. Her entire life the condition of her body has made her different, but that is not what makes her unique. What makes her unique is that she is really freaking weird. The first time I met her I asked her if she was the girl that got dared to make out with her hand. Instead of becoming embarrassed or insulted that I would ask her that she blasely said, “Probably.”  She is probably the hardest person to embarrass and her view on life has greatly impacted mine. 
She does not try to be the same, she is fully aware that she is different, and she revels in it. Like Charles Wallace who lets people believe what ever they want about him because he is so sure about who he is. “Thinking I’m a moron gives people something to feel smug about,” Charles Wallace said. “Why should I disillusion them?” (pg 26). Unlike myself, who when we first started our friendship, was embarrassed to answer questions in class. 
I still do not really talk much in class but I would say I have grown into a much more confident person in myself. With her I am not afraid to sing along with the music playing in the store or break out in a few dance moves. I am also no longer embarrassed to be silly in public and find a perverse enjoyment from jamming out to the radio and making eye contact with the people in the car next to me at red light. I have also been trained to no longer have embarrassment, being repeatedly pantsed in public or been blamed for the made up awful smell in the grocery isle will knock all embarrassment from a person. 
My friend made me realize I have something that no one else has. We all do, we all have a uniqueness about us and we can decide to be limited by the way we were born or accept it and turn it into a positive. I would saying living with excepting my uniqueness has been a much more freeing lifestyle rather than being constantly concerned with what every one else is doing, which can be tedious. I am the Meg of the story realizing that what I once would have hidden or been red in the face about is really no big deal. Accept the card you were dealt and through accepting yourself you open yourself up to love, both in yourself and of others. 

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