When people talk about Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 masterpiece, they usually fixate on the tesseract or the pulsating brain that is IT. But honestly? The most profound moment in the whole story happens on a gray, sightless planet called Ixchel. That’s where we meet Aunt Beast in A Wrinkle in Time, a character that basically redefined what "aliens" could look like in children's literature. She isn't a little green man. She isn't a monster. She’s a tall, furry thing with tentacles where fingers should be, no eyes, and a heart big enough to heal a girl who’s literally been scarred by pure evil.
I remember reading this as a kid and being totally creeped out at first. Meg Murry is terrified. And why wouldn't she be? She just escaped Camazotz, her father almost killed her by accident, and her brother Charles Wallace is still trapped in a hive-mind nightmare. Then these beast-things show up. They look like nightmares. But L'Engle pulls this incredible bait-and-switch. She shows us that looking at the world isn't nearly as important as feeling it.
The Terrifying First Impression of Aunt Beast
Meg is paralyzed. That’s the starting point. After the "tesser" out of Camazotz goes wrong, Meg’s body is a frozen block of ice. She can’t move. She can’t speak. Into this cold void come the inhabitants of Ixchel.
L’Engle describes them as being at least seven feet tall. They have soft, gray fur. They have no eyes—just smooth skin where a face should be. From their heads, dozens of waving tentacles sprout like some kind of cosmic anemone. If you saw this in a movie, you’d scream. Meg certainly wants to.
But the "beast" that picks her up doesn't use words. Not at first. It uses warmth. It uses a sense of safety that Meg hasn't felt since her father disappeared. This is where the character of Aunt Beast in A Wrinkle in Time starts to shift from a "monster" to a maternal figure. The creature smells like "faintly of wet earth, of clover, of things growing in a garden." It’s a sensory overload that bypasses the eyes entirely.
Most sci-fi from the 60s was obsessed with the visual. Ray Bradbury wrote about golden-eyed Martians. Heinlein had his "bugs." L’Engle went the other way. She created a species that communicates through music and telepathy. They don't even have a concept of "light" or "seeing." When Meg tries to explain what a star is, or what "pretty" means, Aunt Beast is just confused. To the beasts, "seeing" is a limited, clumsy way of perceiving the universe. They see with their souls, basically.
Healing Meg Murry
The relationship between Meg and Aunt Beast is the emotional glue of the book’s final act. Meg is angry. She’s furious at her father for being human and flawed. She’s mad at the Mrs. W’s for leaving them.
Aunt Beast doesn't argue with her. She just cares for her.
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She feeds Meg "something like a thick, creamy soup" that tastes like nothing Meg has ever had but feels exactly like what she needs. There’s a specific kind of radical empathy here. The beast doesn't judge Meg’s anger. She absorbs it. She gives Meg a name for her—Aunt Beast—because "Mother" is too sacred and "Friend" is too distant.
What We Get Wrong About the 2018 Movie Version
If you’ve seen the Ava DuVernay movie, you might be scratching your head. The film... well, it made choices. In the 2018 adaptation, Aunt Beast is mostly a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo. Fans were pretty upset about it. Why? Because the movie prioritized the visual spectacle of the Mrs. W’s (Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling) over the quiet, tactile intimacy of the Ixchel sequence.
The book spends a significant amount of time on Ixchel. It’s a transition state. It’s where Meg learns that her "faults"—her stubbornness and her capacity to love—are actually her greatest weapons. In the movie, this gets rushed. We lose the "profoundly different" nature of the beasts.
In the 2003 Disney TV movie, they tried a more practical approach, but the budget just wasn't there. The "beast" looked a bit like a guy in a shag carpet suit. But even then, the core message remained: you cannot judge a being by its exterior. That’s the whole point of Aunt Beast in A Wrinkle in Time. If you skip the beasts, you skip the lesson that prepares Meg to face IT.
The Science of Seeing Without Eyes
L'Engle wasn't just being whimsical. The idea of a species evolving without sight is a real biological concept. On a planet with a thick atmosphere or a different light spectrum, eyes might be useless.
- Echolocation: Much like bats or dolphins, the beasts use sound and vibrations.
- Telepathy: They communicate "mind to mind," which is why their speech is described as more musical and direct than human words.
- Tactile Sensitivity: Those tentacles aren't for grabbing; they're for sensing. They feel the "atoms" of the person they are touching.
When Aunt Beast touches Meg’s chest, she isn't just checking her heart rate. She’s feeling the "rhythm" of Meg’s life force. It’s heavy stuff for a "kids' book," right?
Why "Aunt Beast" is the Ultimate Mother Figure
The 1960s were a weird time for moms in fiction. You either had the perfect "Leave it to Beaver" housewife or the "evil stepmother" trope. L’Engle gave us Mrs. Murry—a brilliant scientist who cooks stew over a Bunsen burner—and then she gave us Aunt Beast.
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Aunt Beast represents unconditional love without the baggage of human expectation. Meg feels like a failure because she couldn't "save" her father or brother. Her father, Mr. Murry, is actually kind of a letdown in this part of the book. He’s tired, he’s scared, and he’s ready to give up. He’s human.
Aunt Beast, however, provides a different kind of strength. She tells Meg, "We do not know what things look like. We know what things are like." That distinction is everything. It’s the difference between judging someone by their grades or their looks and knowing who they are in the dark.
The Language of Ixchel
One of the coolest parts of the book is when Meg tries to describe the three Mrs. W’s to the beasts. How do you describe Mrs. Which, who is basically a shimmer of light, to a creature that doesn't know what light is?
Meg struggles. She uses words like "bright," "shining," and "beautiful."
Aunt Beast just tilts her head. Those words mean nothing. Finally, Meg realizes she has to describe their essence. She describes them as "good." She describes them as "against the Black Thing." That, the beasts understand. On Ixchel, the battle between good and evil isn't fought with lasers or swords; it’s felt as a presence or an absence of warmth.
Critical Reception and Legacy
When A Wrinkle in Time won the Newbery Medal in 1963, critics were divided on the alien sections. Some thought the beasts were too weird. Others thought the religious undertones (the beasts are clearly "unfallen" beings in a theological sense) were too heavy-handed.
But for readers, Aunt Beast became a symbol of safety.
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In her later journals and speeches, collected in works like The Crosswicks Journal, Madeleine L'Engle often talked about how characters like Aunt Beast came to her almost through "automatic writing." She didn't plan them; they just emerged as a necessity for Meg’s growth. Meg needed a mother who wasn't her mother. She needed to be "re-parented" by the universe before she could go back to Camazotz and save Charles Wallace.
Honestly, the beasts are the most "alien" aliens in popular fiction because they aren't trying to be human. They don't have human flaws. They don't have human greed. They just are.
How to Re-Read the Ixchel Chapters
If you’re going back to the book as an adult, pay attention to the silence. L’Engle uses it brilliantly.
- Notice the lack of visual adjectives. When Meg is with Aunt Beast, the descriptions shift to smell, touch, and sound.
- Look at Mr. Murry’s reaction. He is terrified of the beasts. He represents the "adult" way of seeing—skeptical, visual-reliant, and fearful of the unknown.
- Watch Meg’s physical recovery. Her healing is tied directly to her acceptance of the beasts' touch.
It’s a masterclass in character development. Meg starts the chapter as a victim and leaves it as a savior. She couldn't have done that without the "boring" middle section on the gray planet.
Modern Interpretations
Today, many readers see Aunt Beast through the lens of disability and accessibility. The beasts aren't "missing" sight; they have a completely different, equally valid way of navigating their world. They don't need to be "fixed." In a world that often demands people conform to a "standard" way of being, Aunt Beast is a radical example of a character who is perfect exactly as she is, despite—or because of—being different.
Actionable Takeaways for Fans
If you're looking to dive deeper into the world of Aunt Beast in A Wrinkle in Time, here is what you should do next:
- Read the rest of the Time Quintet: Aunt Beast doesn't reappear in a major way, but the "unfallen" worlds and the concepts of cosmic empathy are explored further in A Wind in the Door. Pro tip: It gets even weirder (mitochondria are involved).
- Listen to the audiobook: Specifically the one narrated by Charlotte Jones Voiklis (L'Engle's granddaughter). Hearing the descriptions of the beasts' "singing" speech adds a layer that the printed page sometimes misses.
- Skip the movie, watch the stage play: If you can find a local production of the stage adaptation by James Sie, do it. The way they handle the beasts with puppetry is usually much closer to the book's "otherworldly" vibe than any CGI version.
The next time you feel like the world is judging you for how you look or how you "don't fit in," think about Ixchel. Think about the tall, gray, sightless creatures who didn't care about Meg's messy hair or her braces or her glasses. They just cared about the "music" of her soul. That’s why we’re still talking about Aunt Beast sixty years later. She’s the mother we all need when the world gets cold.
To really appreciate the nuance L'Engle intended, pay close attention to the way Meg's internal monologue changes after her encounter on Ixchel. She stops reacting out of fear and starts acting out of a grounded sense of self, which is the only thing that eventually allows her to use the "gift" given to her by Mrs. Which—the only thing IT does not have: Love.
Next Steps for Readers
- Compare the Portrayals: Grab a copy of the graphic novel adaptation by Hope Larson. The visual representation of the beasts there is widely considered the most "accurate" to the book's descriptions.
- Explore L’Engle’s Non-Fiction: Check out Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. It explains her philosophy behind creating non-human characters that represent divine attributes.
- Analyze the Sensory Language: If you’re a writer, highlight every sentence in the Ixchel chapters that doesn't use a visual verb. It’s a great exercise in descriptive writing.