The Chrysalids Essay
The Chrysalids is a book filled with different perspective of how Waknukians view their society. John Wyndham has shown how man treats his own kind in the most realistic way. John Wyndham examined numerous actions of our loathsome, commonly seen human nature. Their behaviours were unveiled towards those differences with intolerance, prejudice, ignorance, and discrimination. Similarly, it is the reflection of the world we are living in today. The novel examines the distress, and behaviours of our society in the past, present, and possibly an unpredictable future due to our current actions.
Before the story begins, their society was originated after a cold nuclear war where it wiped out most of the human population. “ the
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Ordinarily, any difference from this definition was an abomination or a blasphemy to God. Since the Bible and Nicholas’s Repentances are the only books who outlived the war, the Waknukians tend to follow every rule and judgement that was being set in these books hundred years ago. David Strorm- the main character in this novel soon learned the unpleasant reality of Waknuk and how the people discriminate against the deviants. Sophie Wender was an ordinary girl yet was born with a pair of six peculiar toes. David was able to realised the cruelty that was blooming in his society through Sophie, who was later sterilized and sent into the Fringes with her family. Similarly, nowadays people will cast out others that differed from them and their cliques. By comparing different pasts and actions, both lifestyles and behaviours were shown with similarities and differences due to two distinct time periods. Throughout the views and perspectives of the Waknukians, their nature and way of life parallels with our present society . There is a certain amount of prejudice, ignorance, and discrimination in today’s world. Throughout The Chrysalids, the Waknukians are prejudiced against anyone who does not fit in “The True Image of God”, and constantly discriminating against those who look or act
Anyone physically different from themselves, the people of Waknuk regard as “abominations” and insulting to the pure image of God based on a fallible old book; Nicholson’s Repentances. Likewise, anyone of a different religious sect, Daesh slaughters with out of context rulings from their religious book. The KKK discriminates against people of colour, regarding them in a very similar way to the way the people of Waknuk regard Deviations. Moreover, calling the Old People’s society (probably secular) a state of “[prevailing] irreligious arrogance” displays their belief that only one way of being is acceptable, and anything else is worthy of punishment (Wyndham 40).
She is reminded of the violence that torn not only communities apart but families as well. How the social norms of the day restricted people’s lives and held them in the balance of life and death. Her grandfathers past life, her grandmother cultural silence about the internment and husband’s affair, the police brutality that cause the death of 4 young black teenagers. Even her own inner conflicts with her sexuality and Japanese heritage. She starts to see the world around her with a different
The movie, The Village, and the novel 1984 provides new insight and connections on a “utopian” society. Both are very similar to each other in a way that their utopian society has many flaws. 1984 is about a rebellion against an iron-fisted totalitarian government while The Village is about an attempt to protect the innocence of people. In these societies, the leaders lie in order to try and achieve a utopian world. Both societies have different purposes to control the people through fear, but despite their attempts to create a utopian society, they were only successful to a certain extent.
This example can be compared to how in Waknuk mutations are thought to be a curse. It really shows that if you go against the things that society has developed to be acts of normality, you are labeled as not a human and are not treated like how humans should be. Lastly, a very common practice in Waknuk is sexism. Husbands have the choice of basically throwing out their wives if she gives birth to more than three children with mutations. Only the males are given high posts or authority and the women of Waknuk are always believed to be less superior than the males.
In The Chrysalids, Waknuk’s society attempts to limit the community’s interaction with those who have unique
The story states that to achieve mental and physical equality among all Americans, the government in the story tortures its citizens, which makes the situation not so ideal. It states that ‘the most beautiful people must wear hideous masks….the most graceful and strong must wear weights…he most intelligent beings must listen to earsplitting noises.’ These sentences inform the reader about how this dystopian world works, and how it is not a fun society to live in. In addition to this, the author writes about how the government system has affected one of the main characters. This impacts the story as the reader is constantly reminded of the negatives about this dystopian world.
This shows the negative effects of the dystopian society. People have become depressed because of their lack of creativity and interaction with people and their confinement to their televisions. The frequency of suicide attempts in this society clearly points to a massive of
By creating characters in the novel who are excluded and labelled the author demonstrates how cruel society can be to people. The purpose of this essay is to show how the author reveals the experiences of marginalised characters in society. Joseph Davidson is an introverted, fourteen year old boy who feels that he is trapped within his own world of chaos, and he too is a marginalised character in the book. It is suggested by the author that other characters believe that Joseph’s mother smothers him too much and his father has
The novel is set in the year of 2025, where the world is overrun by corruption, greed, criminals, violence, famine, thirst, slavery and division. The main character, Lauren Olamina, narrates her life and journey in the novel. Lauren describes the horrendous and corrupt world around her and notes of the population’s response to the violent acts. Lauren views the world around her when she
The society in this book is basically the epitome of a dystopia. It has a totalitarian government and everything about the world the people live in is a frightening nightmare. The government has completely dehumanized the way people live their lives. People in this dystopia aren’t even actually human any more. They aren’t even born the natural way through reproduction, they are created.
The theme of the story is about the happiness in life so many people have numbed themselves to or feel as though they are forbidden to feel. Through the surprise and ironic death of the protagonist, Oates shows how easily that joy and happiness can disappear or be ripped away. The setting and theme of this story relates to our current society and how individuals within society feel entitled to extreme privacy and personal space and are unable to cope with stress, anxiety and the struggles of everyday life. Oates also depicts and how an invasion of this could trigger irrational reactions to something as small as a
The book The Chrysalids is a unique book with suspense, mystery, and different ways of how people view life. With every good book comes a catchy title like “The Chrysalids” but, what does the title mean? How does it relate to the story being told? Personally, I don’t know the meaning of chrysalids although it’s a very interesting word and so simple so it must have some meaning to the book. The book has a very unique storyline with an intriguing title, but what is the true meaning behind the title?
He disagrees with the society’s way of living and is arrested for it, but he takes a step forward to change it. The author takes on different varieties of tone throughout the story such as gloominess, despair, and joy, which clarify the idea that he disagrees with this society’s
The Chrysalids I think society is changing us in a manner that we will follow anything blindly, without knowing the purpose. Like many people follow tradions without knowing why therer following it because there surronded by the tradion there like you are forced into the tradition. There can be discrimination between beliefes that you have extra finger you are not one of us, you have longer hair than us you are diffrent, calling them names this is discrimination. So through all this I think this has fear in culture to so the consequences for the action as if i cut my hair what will happen what are my consequences do i get attacked or killed, what are my punishments? A man named John Wyndham made a Book called The Chrysalids in this book
Out of the three novels we read for the Modern Fiction class, the one I favoured most is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. At first I thought I would hate it, because it indeed has a very unattractive appearance, and the subject did not interested me either. When I started to read, it was still somewhat boring. However, with my experience with every other book I’ve ever read, I was aware most novels have a boring and uncompelling beginnings, and pushed myself to leave those parts behind. As I read, it became compelling, and the light air with which Marlow told his story started to make me love the narration.