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Fear In The Chrysalids

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The Chrysalids

Fear is one of the most powerful and destructive forces in society and has been a forefront motivator throughout history because of it. But what makes fear so powerful? It can change a person entirely or cause them to perform incredible tasks such as in The Chrysalids. Nevertheless, John Wyndham explores what you can do once you overcome that fear and what happens when that fear overcomes you. In The Chrysalids, the cyclic nature of fear within people in power and those they oppress manifests as the fears of the unknown, being different, new ideas and beliefs, getting caught, and the fear of what you don’t understand.
Throughout history, the fear of the unknown has been a driving force behind many fearful leaders. As said …show more content…

As with the fear of the unknown, the fear of differences has influenced the decisions made by many leaders, especially extremists. It has led to prejudice, bias, bigotry, and discrimination. In the book specifically, discriminations are faced by Blasphemies such as Sophie and Joseph’s older brother Gordon (colloquially known as the Spider Man) and Offences which is deviance in animal. according to Jacob and old farmer “They should be burnt like they used to. But what happened? The sentimentalists in Rigo who never have to deal with them themselves said: Even though they aren’t human, they look nearly human, therefore extermination looks like murder, or execution and that troubles people’s minds” (88), his views are shared throughout Waknuk and it is hard not to believe it if you are normal because Waknuk is isolated and there is hardly any outside influence. This leads to the recurring theme of True Image and purification in the form of slaughtering deviant animals, burning entire crops of deviant plants, and banishing Blasphemies to the Fringes. When David first learns of Sophie’s extra toes he starts iterating in his head the quote “And God created man in his own image. And God decreed that man should have one body, one head, two arms, and two legs: that each arm should be jointed in two places and end in one hand: that each hand should have four fingers and one thumb: that each finger should bear a flat fingernail…” (10-11) he tells us that he knows the quote word for word proving that the community goes by the Bible word for word is obsessed with everything being perfect. The new information of telepaths cause further discrimination, as mentioned above, for it shows that mutations are no longer just physical. Just as it is in the real world, discrimination that is faced by the people with lesser power causes isolation, anger and

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