Sandy and Dennys Murry
Encyclopedia
Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer best known for her young-adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time...
's Time Quartet
Time Quartet
The Time Quartet/Quintet is a fantasy/science fiction series of five young adult novels written by Madeleine L'Engle.Those novels are:*A Wrinkle in Time , , ISBN 0-374-38613-7*A Wind in the Door , ISBN 0-374-38443-6...
. They play only minor roles in three of the books but are the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
s of Many Waters
Many Waters
Many Waters is a 1986 novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the author's Time Quartet . The title is taken from the Song of Solomon 8:7: "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it...
. As an adult, Sandy is a major character in A House Like a Lotus
A House Like a Lotus
A House Like a Lotus is a 1984 young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Its protagonist is sixteen-year-old Polly O'Keefe, whose friend and mentor, Maximiliana Horne, has sent her on a trip to Greece and Cyprus. As she travels, Polly must come to terms with a recent traumatic event involving Max...
.
Major traits
During their younger years, Sandy and Dennys are the "practical" members of the Murry family, maintaining what they consider a realisticPhilosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
view of the world. Until their adventures in Many Waters, and to some extent even afterward, they tend not to witness the extraordinary events the rest of the family encounters, and assume there must be a rational explanation for them. As adults they have a more comprehensive view of the world, recognizing both its practical aspects and the need to fight the evils encountered there. The twins are very close to each other, with Sandy usually being the leader. It is said that they seldom disagree on any subject for long.
Sandy and Dennys are overshadowed by their Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winning mother and space-traveling physicist father, their mathematical genius sister Meg Murry
Meg Murry
Margaret "Meg" Murry O'Keefe is the main character and main protagonist in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet of Science fantasy novels, the daughter of two scientists, the sister of twins Sandy and Dennys Murry and telepath Charles Wallace Murry, and the mother of Polly O'Keefe and others in the...
and their extraordinary brother Charles Wallace Murry
Charles Wallace Murry
Charles Wallace Murry is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle's young adult science fiction novels A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, sometimes referred to as the Time Trilogy...
. However, the twins are far from stupid themselves. At age eleven, Sandy quotes Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
correctly, and knows what a rachis
Rachis
Rachis is a biological term for a main axis or "shaft".-In zoology:In vertebrates a rachis can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this case the rachis usually form the supporting axis of the body and is then called the spine or vertebral column...
is. Both twins understand the conservation of matter and Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
's most famous equation at the same age. Despite this, Sandy and Dennys are considered the "normal" members of the family rather than misfits. They get along well with their peers, are good at sports, and as children maintain a B average in school.
As of A Wind in the Door, Sandy aspires to become a banker, on the grounds that it is practical and lucrative. Dennys apparently concurs. Their career plans are refined as they get older, with Sandy studying to be a lawyer and Dennys a medical doctor.
As a child, Dennys plays the flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
in the school orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, and is fairly proficient with the instrument. Sandy plays the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, and later is in the glee club
Glee club
A glee club is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs—glees—by trios or quartets. In the late 19th Century it was very popular in most schools and was made a tradition...
at college. As a young adult he is said to have the best singing voice in the family.
Before their adventure in Many Waters, Dennys is generally less skeptical than Sandy about Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe
Calvin O'Keefe
Calvin O'Keefe is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet series of books, and, as "Dr. Calvin O'Keefe", an important character in her O'Keefe series of young adult novels. In an interview released on the DVD of the TV adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle describes Calvin as "the...
's supernatural adventures. He is also more likely than Sandy to pay attention to the family's scientific discussions at dinner. After Many Waters, they are more inclined to believe in creatures and events beyond the everyday world, but remain less open to them than Meg. In A Swiftly Tilting Planet, they are "embarrassed" that Calvin's mother thinks a rune (in this case a spoken charm or prayer
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
) might help to prevent a nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
, and doubt that freak weather conditions are related to either the rune or the nuclear threat.
Both twins occasionally express the pessimistic
Pessimism
Pessimism, from the Latin word pessimus , is a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?"...
idea that because of the evil perpetrated by people, it might be just as well if humanity destroys itself entirely. However, they are quick to say that they are "whistling in the dark" when they do this. Their actions and career choices are clearly in the service of making things better, enhancing life rather than destroying it or responding with apathy
Apathy
Apathy is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical or physical life.They may lack a sense of purpose or meaning in...
.
History
In A Wrinkle in TimeA Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
, the twins, age ten, offer to physically defend the rest of the family, and are generally protective of them. However, they understand that their ability to help is limited, and believe that Meg, Charles Wallace and their mother all lack common sense
Common sense
Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have...
. They maintain a vegetable garden, which is where their siblings and father arrive at the end of the book.
A Wind in the Door
A Wind in the Door
A Wind in the Door is a young adult science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle. It is a companion book to A Wrinkle in Time, and part of the Time Quartet .-Plot summary:...
, the twins are friendly with a wild super-intelligent snake that lives in a wall at the edge of their property, which they name Louise the Larger after their family doctor, Dr. Louise Colubra. Both insist that Louise is "special", but Meg highly doubted that before her creepy encounter with the Echthroi
Echthroi
Echthroi is a Greek word meaning "The Enemy" . The singular form of the word, Echthros , is used in many versions and translations of the Bible for enemy...
-Mr. Jenkins. Blajeny says to Meg that they will become "teachers"; but in light of their later careers this identification is not to be considered in a narrow, literal sense. During the crisis the twins work in the garden, not expecting it to help Charles but because they feel the need to do something practical. Afterward, Sandy and Dennys flatly disbelieve Meg's claim that she was inside Charles Wallace's mitochondrion
Mitochondrion
In cell biology, a mitochondrion is a membrane-enclosed organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. These organelles range from 0.5 to 1.0 micrometers in diameter...
because it's not "realistic", and are "stunned into silence" when Mr. Jenkins agrees with Meg.
In Many Waters
Many Waters
Many Waters is a 1986 novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the author's Time Quartet . The title is taken from the Song of Solomon 8:7: "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it...
, Sandy and Dennys idly type their desire to go "someplace warm" into their father's computer, unaware that an experiment is in progress. They accidentally "tesser" back to the time of Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
with a sonic boom
Sonic boom
A sonic boom is the sound associated with the shock waves created by an object traveling through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding much like an explosion...
. There they encounter Seraph
Seraph
A seraph is a type of celestial being in Judaism and Christianity...
im, Nephilim
Nephilim
The Nephilim are the offspring of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" in Genesis 6:4, or giants who inhabit Canaan in Numbers 13:33. A similar word with different vowel-sounds is used in Ezekiel 32:27 to refer to dead Philistine warriors....
, tiny mammoth
Mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair...
s, hungry manticore
Manticore
The manticore is a legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx. It has the body of a red lion, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth , and a trumpet-like voice. Other aspects of the creature vary from story to story. It may be horned, winged, or both...
s and "virtual" unicorns. Separated by illness and circumstance for much of the book, they become less interdependent on one another, and learn that they are not as ordinary as they suppose, but speak the "Old Language
Divine language
Divine language, the language of the gods, or, in monotheism, the language of God is the concept of a mystical or divine proto-language, which predates and supersedes human speech.-Abrahamic traditions:...
" of the stars. Both gain maturity over the course of about a year in Noah's time, each falling in love with Noah's daughter Yalith (and she with them) but not acting on their desires (except for Dennys trying to find a way to save Yalith from the flood). They help to build the Ark before returning home.
In A Swiftly Tilting Planet
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
A Swiftly Tilting Planet is a 1978 science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the Time Quartet. In it, Charles Wallace Murry, an advanced and perceptive child in A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door, has grown into adolescence...
, Sandy and Dennys are in law and medical schools, respectively, at the age of about 21. They are proud of their parents, which they say keeps their standards high as examples to live up to. Sandy is said to be a history buff. The remains of the vegetable garden is still in the back yard, but the twins no longer are home to care for it on a daily basis.
In A House Like a Lotus
A House Like a Lotus
A House Like a Lotus is a 1984 young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Its protagonist is sixteen-year-old Polly O'Keefe, whose friend and mentor, Maximiliana Horne, has sent her on a trip to Greece and Cyprus. As she travels, Polly must come to terms with a recent traumatic event involving Max...
, Sandy Murry is Polly O'Keefe
Polly O'Keefe
Polyhymnia O'Keefe is the protagonist of the Madeleine L'Engle novels A House Like a Lotus and An Acceptable Time, and a major character in two previous books, The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters. The eldest daughter of Meg Murry O'Keefe and Dr...
's favorite uncle, an anti-corporate lawyer who travels the world with his beautiful Greek wife and colleague, Rhea, fighting greed and the forces of destruction. Sandy has a blond beard, which he wears partly to distinguish himself visually from his twin. He is a longtime friend of Maximiliana "Max" Horne, an artist who becomes Polly's mentor
Mentor
In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcimus or Anchialus. In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus' foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus' palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.When Athena visited Telemachus she...
. Dr. Dennys Murry is a neurosurgeon, with a wife named Lucy and a 14-year-old daughter, Kate, named after Dennys' mother. Kate is depicted as pretty and popular, albeit a little spoiled, and currently lives with the O'Keefes while Charles O'Keefe stays with Dennys and Lucy to pursue better educational opportunities. Dennys is a friend of Dr. Ursula "Urs" Heschel, another neurosurgeon and Max's longtime lover. Dennys is said to be primarily a researcher, while Urs is primarily a surgeon. Sandy and Dennys both encourage Polly to be strong and independent, and do not tell Meg and Calvin that Polly is alone in Athens, Greece, Sandy and Rhea having been delayed in joining her there.
Names
Sandy is named after his father, and his nephew, Xan O'Keefe, is named after him. Xan's younger brother Den is named after the other uncle. More generally, Sandy's given name, Alexander, probably refers to Alexander the Great, while Dennys is a short form of DionysusDionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
, the Thracian
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
god of wine. (Dennys is said to be un-Dionysian in temperament, being "both sober and reserved.") Although Polly mentions this derivation of the name Dennys in A House Like a Lotus, there is no definite indication that her uncle's actual given name is Dionysus rather than Dennys. In Many Waters, for example, Sandy acknowledges that his first name is actually Alexander, but in a parallel scene Dennys calls himself only Dennys. (The twins' names are promptly shortened to Den and Sand by the people at Noah's oasis.) The name Dennys is pronounced like the more conventional spelling Dennis, as can be heard in L'Engle's audio recordings of A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
Parallels with other L'Engle characters
As an adult, Sandy Murry combines qualities who had found Douglas Austin and Grandfather Eaton in the Austin family series of books. Like Vicky AustinVicky Austin
Victoria "Vicky" Austin is one of Madeleine L'Engle's most frequently-used fictional characters, appearing in eight books and referred to in at least one more. She is the main protagonist of the Austin family series of books...
's Uncle Douglas (Meet the Austins
Meet the Austins
Meet the Austins is the title of a 1960 novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the first of her books about the Austin family. It introduces the characters Vicky Austin and her three siblings, and Maggy Hamilton, an orphan...
), Polly's Uncle Sandy is a beloved, somewhat adventurous, bearded uncle. Like Grandfather Eaton (A Ring of Endless Light
A Ring of Endless Light
A Ring of Endless Light is a 1980 novel by Madeleine L'Engle. The book tells of a girl named Vicky and her struggle to understand life and significance in the universe as she deals with her dying grandfather, while at the same time finding love....
), Sandy is a mentor and confidante to his young, female relative, the book's protagonist. The adult Dennys Murry, in turn, most resembles Vicky's father, Wallace Austin, a doctor who does research in The Young Unicorns.
On television
The twins are shown in several scenes of the 2003 DisneyThe Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
adaption of A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
, playing fooseball, telling their mother about Meg fighting dick's brother, leaving for soccer practice and drying the walls. They are portrayed as normal, active children, relatively unaffected by their family's troubles.