"We do not have whims on the moon": A Wrinkle in Time, The Lotus Caves, and the Problem of American Exceptionalism in 1960s Science Fiction for Children

Abstract

good starting for at A Wrinkle in Time a novel that begins during the space race and presents a defence of American liberties against the dehuman izing forces of Soviet collectivism in the form of IT, a giant, disembodied brain. A a less well-known novel that is set on the moon after has won the and represents those same liberties under threat by an ancient alien plant. Although it’s not certain that had A Wrinkle in Time in when The Lotus Caves , the two much: imprisonment by a being drawn from the pages of 1930s pulp science fic tion, a preoccupation with mind control, a missing adult in apparent need of rescue, and a child’s reliance on familial love as protection against the loss of selfhood. But if both L’Engle and Christopher choose as focalizers children who reject the exchange of freedom for a happiness that demands the loss of identity, in A Wrinkle in Time the temptation to make the bar gain can be traced to a civil society that is losing touch with its divinely constituted foundations, while The Lotus Caves locates the problem in the appeal of religion itself. More precisely, in L’Engle’s novel preserving individual liberties cannot be disentangled from a religious understanding of American exceptionalism, whereas in Christopher’s story loss of faith in America’s moral preeminence is symptomatic of a deeper skepticism about humanity’s privileged position in the natural order. in a post-Cold The