1. Why are the people on Camazotz different?

Unlike home, alll the houses on Camazotz are the same, and all the children playing outside are wearing similar clothes. Meg notices that there is something strange about the way the children are playing, and then realizes that they are all jumping rope and playing with balls in an exact rhythm. All their movements are coordinated and the same.

The planet of Camazotz is one of the novel’s most striking worlds. It is a picture of perfect conformity: all the houses look the same, all the people wear similar clothes, and they are all compelled to perform the same activities in similar rhythms. In a grand sense, L’Engle here is creating for the reader a world in which evil has taken over. This might seem odd at first, since one might imagine instead that such a world dominated by evil would be a place of immorality and violence. Instead, L’Engle suggests that such a world would be one of total conformity in which people and persons do not have the ability to be individuals.