Earlier this year, I read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time as part of a Christian Literature class that I was teaching at the time. Overall, I think it was an interesting book. It was weird, but an entirely different species of weird from the Disney Adaptation that came out a few years ago. At some point, I may discuss this book in more detail because there is a lot to appreciate about how this book conveys linguistic differences and how this impacts communication. Also, the way it integrates passages from the Bible is fascinating at some points and breathtaking at others. But today, I wanted to focus on the part that I loved the best about this book. In only a page or two, it manages to provide a fascinating and compelling exploration of fate and free will that I find rather compelling.
I have been watching Loki for the past few weeks (Don't worry, no spoilers here!) and Fate vs Free Will is one of the ideas that this show introduces in the very first episode. The TVA works to prevent the timeline from branching into other directions and punishes those variants who take a different path from the one that has been foreordained for them. Predestination and Free Will is a major point of division in Christian denominations, and there are many movies that muse about the extent to which humans are able to make their own choices. Those on the Free Will side often argue that determinism and fatalism make people into cogs in a machine or robots and that this removes some of the beauty and relationality from humanity. If Loki, for instance, only serves the role of being a threat who allows heroes to band together, then what is his worth beyond this one limited part he supposedly must play? And would he ever be able to redeem himself or become something more than that? On the other hand, those who believe in Predestination point out that if God is outside of time and omniscient, Free Will would not technically be possible. If people can make decisions that would surprise God, then he would not be omniscient. In essence, it seems to leave a division between either limiting God or limiting people.
That is why I think this scene in A Wrinkle in Time is so special. It points to humanity's limits while also showing the beauty that can be found within those limits. At the end of the book, right before Meg leaves to save her brother from the Darkness, she has a discussion about the nature of Free Will and Fate that I would like to quote here in its entirety:
“If we knew ahead of time what was going to happen we’d be—we’d be like the people on Camazotz, with no lives of our own, with everything all planned and done for us. How can I explain it to you? Oh, I know. In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet.”
“Yes, yes,” Calvin said impatiently. “What’s that got to do with the Happy Medium?”
“Kindly pay me the courtesy of listening to me.” Mrs Whatsit’s voice was stern, and for a moment Calvin stopped pawing the ground like a nervous colt. “It is a very strict form of poetry, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?”
“Yes.” Calvin nodded.
“And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?”
“No.”
“But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.” Calvin nodded again.
“So,” Mrs Whatsit said.
“So what?”
“Oh, do not be stupid, boy!” Mrs Whatsit scolded. “You know perfectly well what I am driving at!”
“You mean you’re comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?”
“Yes.” Mrs Whatsit said. “You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.”
In this scene, Mrs. Whatsit starts by referencing the concerns that come with people having no choice at all, pointing out that people who have no ability to choose are like the creepy, almost robotic, inhabitants of Camazotz who have had all their liveliness and color drained out of them. After this, she discusses the form of the Sonnet. I love the fact that L'Engle goes with an example of literary form to explain the complexities of choice in a universe with all-knowing beings. There are strict rules for what makes a sonnet. If there are more than 14 lines, it cannot be a sonnet. Sonnets must also follow a specific rhyme scheme with only a few small variations between the Shakespearian, Spenserian, or Petrarchan Sonnet. But in spite of, and to some extent, because of these limitations, poets have written hundreds of sonnets that are beautiful and thematically complex. While venturing outside the limits of the form will make it so that you are no longer writing a sonnet, within this form, there is room to experiment and innovate. And I just think that is beautiful. It is one of those valuable gem ideas that I hope to carry with me for quite some time.
I think this understanding of fate and choice works well with humanity as well. I can make so many different kinds of decisions, but if I venture outside of what gives me my identity, then it is no longer me. These are decisions and actions that fall outside of my "form." This is a complicated issue that people are probably going to wrestle with for a long time, but for me, I think there is a certain degree of both choice and predestination. I believe in an omniscient God, so he must know and have a path for my life and the individual choices that I am going to make, but I don't have this knowledge, so I will continue to make choices for the words that will go in my sonnet. I will make the individual choices in each moment that allow me to continue to pursue knowledge, truth, and inspiration. While it may seem limiting to be confined to this form, I think it is a testament to all of the things that we do not have control over and yet shape us or constrain us all the same. We are limited to a certain extent because to choose otherwise would also make us other than who we are and I don't think we can fathom the choices that are outside of who we are and what we believe. This moment with Mrs. Whatsit is a small one, and not even one that really is central to the book's major themes, but it is an important moment to me. I think there is something beautiful in imagining our lives as sonnets where we craft individual moments of beauty within this frame. We are not cogs in a machine, we are poems in progress!
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