Polly O'Keefe
Encyclopedia
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. Calvin O'Keefe
, she is born shortly after the events of A Swiftly Tilting Planet
.
, German
, French
, Portuguese
, Russian
and a little bit of Dutch
. Despite her abilities, Polly has not yet settled on a specific career
path, but may have found her calling as of the end of An Acceptable Time
.
In The Arm of the Starfish (1965, ISBN 0-374-30396-7), Poly (as she is called at the time) is a twelve-year-old girl who has been living with her parents and six younger siblings (Charles, Sandy, Dennys, Peggy, Johnny and Rosy) on the fictional island of Gaea off the coast of Portugal. While returning from the United States
with her godfather, Canon
Tallis
, she meets marine biology
student Adam Eddington
, and is subsequently kidnapped from an airplane restroom
while under Adam's supervision. An enemy of Calvin O'Keefe, industrialist Typhon Cutter, arranges for Adam to "rescue" Poly in a bid to gain Adam's trust and cooperation.
In Dragons in the Waters (1976, ISBN 0-374-31868-9), Poly and her brother Charles travel with their father by freighter
to Venezuela
. As the trip begins, she befriends Simon Renier, an orphan
who is accompanying his long-lost cousin and a famous family portrait of Simon Bolivar
. Odd interactions between the passengers lead Poly and Charles to believe that a mystery is afoot, which they help to solve as Simon's alleged cousin, an impostor, is murdered and Simon is kidnapped.
In A House Like a Lotus (1984, ISBN 0-374-33385-8), 16-year-old Polly (who has changed the preferred spelling of her name) visits first Greece
and later Cyprus
as she tries to come to terms with her memories of a drunken sexual advance from her mentor
Maximiliana Horne, and Polly's subsequent seduction of a sympathetic friend, Dr. Queron Renier. While in Greece, Polly meets a rich but troubled college student named Zachary Gray. Zach follows her to Cyprus, where Polly is acting as an assistant to delegates at an international conference, including her favorite writer, Virginia Bowen Porcher. Polly's experiences help her to forgive the dying Max for what she did.
In An Acceptable Time (1989, ISBN 0-374-30027-5), 17-year-old Polly visits her grandparents, scientists Alex Murry and Kate Murry, at the house in rural Connecticut
in which her mother Meg grew up. While there she is reunited with Zach. Both are transported back in time to an ancient civilization. The People of the Wind consider Polly a goddess and a healer, but their neighbors, the People Across the Lake, want to sacrifice her heart to end a drought. Polly's sacrifice to save Zachary, and the timely return of rain, cause the tribes to change their attitudes, and Polly returns to the modern world.
, the Greek muse
of sacred music. In The Arm of the Starfish, Poly explains that she was named and christened by her godfather, Canon Tallis
, and says it is "an awful name to give anybody". Her preferred nickname is spelled Poly in the first two books in which she is featured, but in A House Like a Lotus she writes in her journal
that it is better if she spells it with two l's, because the other spelling leads people to pronounce it with a long o as in the word "pole."
of the Austin family stories. Each is kidnapped as part of an international plot, only to be rescued by Adam Eddington
. Each takes a sea voyage to South America
(although Vicky continues on to Antarctica). Both characters experience the death of someone they love (Joshua Archer and Maximiliana Horne for Polly, Grandfather Eaton for Vicky), and both date Zachary Gray
, who builds their self-esteem but proves to be unreliable. Like her mother Meg Murry
, another major L'Engle heroine, Polly travels well beyond the reach of home and family by science fictional means; like her three uncles on her mother's side, Charles Wallace Murry
, Sandy and Dennys Murry
, she travels in time to the distant past.
In other ways, however, Polly is unique among the major L'Engle protagonists. She is the only L'Engle heroine (outside of the novels for adults) to have sex, and the only one with an overtly lesbian
friend. To some extent this difference is generational: when Vicky Austin and Meg O'Keefe first appeared (in 1960 and 1962, respectively), children's and young adult literature were more constrained in their subject matter than in 1984 when Polly was depicted as having these experiences. Both of the earlier characters' first books were rejected by numerous publishers on the basis of content that now seems tame in comparison: Meet the Austins because it begins with a death, and A Wrinkle in Time
because it tackles philosophical questions of good and evil. Nevertheless, all three protagonists's stories share common themes of love, family and morality, and all show the author's resistance to being confined to a certain type of book. L'Engle says in A Circle of Quiet (1972) that prior to her relationship with Farrar, Straus and Giroux
, publishers wanted her to duplicate each moderate literary success by writing "another book like it: you've done it in pink, dear, now do it in blue. But I'd write something quite different, and there I was, out in the cold again." The differences in A House Like a Lotus compared to previous books echo the presence of sexual themes in L'Engle's adult novels A Severed Wasp (1982), Certain Women (1992) and A Live Coal in the Sea (1996), but do not match any of these specifically.
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...
of the Madeleine L'Engle
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...
novels 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...
and An Acceptable Time
An Acceptable Time
An Acceptable Time is a 1989 young adult science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the last of her books to feature Polyhymnia O'Keefe, better known as Poly or Polly ,...
, and a major character in two previous books, The Arm of the Starfish
The Arm of the Starfish
The Arm of the Starfish is a young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1965. It is the first novel featuring Polly O'Keefe and the O'Keefe family, a generation after the events of A Wrinkle in Time...
and Dragons in the Waters
Dragons in the Waters
Dragons in the Waters is a 1976 young adult murder mystery by Madeleine L'Engle, the second title to feature her character Polly O'Keefe. Its protagonist is thirteen-year-old Simon Bolivar Quentin Phair Renier, an impoverished orphan from an aristocratic Southern family...
. The eldest daughter of Meg Murry O'Keefe
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 Dr. 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...
, she is born shortly after the events of 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...
.
Major traits
Like her father, Polly has red hair. In The Arm of the Starfish she ruefully describes her figure as "twenty, twenty, twenty." In A House Like a Lotus she critiques her appearance as "too tall, too thin, not rounded enough for nearly seventeen". Intelligent and widely traveled, Polly speaks numerous languages including SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and a little bit of Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
. Despite her abilities, Polly has not yet settled on a specific career
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....
path, but may have found her calling as of the end of An Acceptable Time
An Acceptable Time
An Acceptable Time is a 1989 young adult science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the last of her books to feature Polyhymnia O'Keefe, better known as Poly or Polly ,...
.
History
In A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978, ISBN 0-374-37362-0), Meg is pregnant with Polyhymnia, although the name is not given.In The Arm of the Starfish (1965, ISBN 0-374-30396-7), Poly (as she is called at the time) is a twelve-year-old girl who has been living with her parents and six younger siblings (Charles, Sandy, Dennys, Peggy, Johnny and Rosy) on the fictional island of Gaea off the coast of Portugal. While returning from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with her godfather, Canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
Tallis
Canon Tallis
Canon John Tallis is a major character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle, appearing in four books. The character is based on L'Engle's real-life spiritual advisor, Canon Edward Nason West of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City....
, she meets marine biology
Marine biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...
student Adam Eddington
Adam Eddington
Adam Eddington III is a major character in three young adult novels by Madeleine L'Engle. A marine biology student, he is the protagonist of The Arm of the Starfish , and a reluctant love interest for Vicky Austin in A Ring of Endless Light , a relationship that continues in Troubling a Star...
, and is subsequently kidnapped from an airplane restroom
Toilet
A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...
while under Adam's supervision. An enemy of Calvin O'Keefe, industrialist Typhon Cutter, arranges for Adam to "rescue" Poly in a bid to gain Adam's trust and cooperation.
In Dragons in the Waters (1976, ISBN 0-374-31868-9), Poly and her brother Charles travel with their father by freighter
Cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...
to Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
. As the trip begins, she befriends Simon Renier, an orphan
Orphan
An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...
who is accompanying his long-lost cousin and a famous family portrait of Simon Bolivar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...
. Odd interactions between the passengers lead Poly and Charles to believe that a mystery is afoot, which they help to solve as Simon's alleged cousin, an impostor, is murdered and Simon is kidnapped.
In A House Like a Lotus (1984, ISBN 0-374-33385-8), 16-year-old Polly (who has changed the preferred spelling of her name) visits first Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and later Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
as she tries to come to terms with her memories of a drunken sexual advance from her 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...
Maximiliana Horne, and Polly's subsequent seduction of a sympathetic friend, Dr. Queron Renier. While in Greece, Polly meets a rich but troubled college student named Zachary Gray. Zach follows her to Cyprus, where Polly is acting as an assistant to delegates at an international conference, including her favorite writer, Virginia Bowen Porcher. Polly's experiences help her to forgive the dying Max for what she did.
In An Acceptable Time (1989, ISBN 0-374-30027-5), 17-year-old Polly visits her grandparents, scientists Alex Murry and Kate Murry, at the house in rural Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
in which her mother Meg grew up. While there she is reunited with Zach. Both are transported back in time to an ancient civilization. The People of the Wind consider Polly a goddess and a healer, but their neighbors, the People Across the Lake, want to sacrifice her heart to end a drought. Polly's sacrifice to save Zachary, and the timely return of rain, cause the tribes to change their attitudes, and Polly returns to the modern world.
Name
Poly is named after PolyhymniaPolyhymnia
Polyhymnia , was in Greek mythology the Muse of sacred poetry, sacred hymn and eloquence as well as agriculture and pantomime. She is depicted as very serious, pensive and meditative, and often holding a finger to her mouth, dressed in a long cloak and veil and resting her elbow on a pillar...
, the Greek muse
Muse
The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
of sacred music. In The Arm of the Starfish, Poly explains that she was named and christened by her godfather, Canon Tallis
Canon Tallis
Canon John Tallis is a major character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle, appearing in four books. The character is based on L'Engle's real-life spiritual advisor, Canon Edward Nason West of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City....
, and says it is "an awful name to give anybody". Her preferred nickname is spelled Poly in the first two books in which she is featured, but in A House Like a Lotus she writes in her journal
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
that it is better if she spells it with two l's, because the other spelling leads people to pronounce it with a long o as in the word "pole."
Context
Polly O'Keefe shares several characteristics in common with her contemporary, 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...
of the Austin family stories. Each is kidnapped as part of an international plot, only to be rescued by Adam Eddington
Adam Eddington
Adam Eddington III is a major character in three young adult novels by Madeleine L'Engle. A marine biology student, he is the protagonist of The Arm of the Starfish , and a reluctant love interest for Vicky Austin in A Ring of Endless Light , a relationship that continues in Troubling a Star...
. Each takes a sea voyage to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
(although Vicky continues on to Antarctica). Both characters experience the death of someone they love (Joshua Archer and Maximiliana Horne for Polly, Grandfather Eaton for Vicky), and both date Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray is a fictional character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle...
, who builds their self-esteem but proves to be unreliable. Like her mother 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...
, another major L'Engle heroine, Polly travels well beyond the reach of home and family by science fictional means; like her three uncles on her mother's side, 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...
, Sandy and Dennys Murry
Sandy and Dennys Murry
Alexander "Sandy" Murry and Dennys Murry are fictional identical twins in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet. They play only minor roles in three of the books but are the protagonists of Many Waters...
, she travels in time to the distant past.
In other ways, however, Polly is unique among the major L'Engle protagonists. She is the only L'Engle heroine (outside of the novels for adults) to have sex, and the only one with an overtly lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
friend. To some extent this difference is generational: when Vicky Austin and Meg O'Keefe first appeared (in 1960 and 1962, respectively), children's and young adult literature were more constrained in their subject matter than in 1984 when Polly was depicted as having these experiences. Both of the earlier characters' first books were rejected by numerous publishers on the basis of content that now seems tame in comparison: Meet the Austins because it begins with a death, and 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...
because it tackles philosophical questions of good and evil. Nevertheless, all three protagonists's stories share common themes of love, family and morality, and all show the author's resistance to being confined to a certain type of book. L'Engle says in A Circle of Quiet (1972) that prior to her relationship with Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger W. Straus, Jr. and John C. Farrar. Known primarily as Farrar, Straus in its first decade of existence, the company was renamed several times, including Farrar, Straus and Young and Farrar, Straus and Cudahy...
, publishers wanted her to duplicate each moderate literary success by writing "another book like it: you've done it in pink, dear, now do it in blue. But I'd write something quite different, and there I was, out in the cold again." The differences in A House Like a Lotus compared to previous books echo the presence of sexual themes in L'Engle's adult novels A Severed Wasp (1982), Certain Women (1992) and A Live Coal in the Sea (1996), but do not match any of these specifically.