I Am David

In contrast, the narrator of David Goes to the Reserve has been living off the reserve for a great portion of her childhood. She does not feel as though she has deep roots in her First Nation heritage, as she has stopped practicing her culture. Throughout the story, her friend David begins to learn more about the life on the reserve and starts to understand the culture associated with the place. While he learns about the aspects of First Nation life, the narrator also delves into her past and sees that she has been misguided for the entirety of her life. The narrator seems to have a revelation to how she has been living a life that has been unfulfilling to her. She begins to understand that she needs to revert back to her Aboriginal roots to live a more wholesome life.

Everyday, an individual changes in their perspective and personality in one way or another, and it impacts their character. John Wyndham, the author of The Chrysalids, demonstrates that every individual experiences something that changes them in such a way that it prevents them from being able to go back to the person they once were. A prominent character that displays such a change would be David, who is the protagonist of the novel and goes through significant adversities that carve out his character. David changes in the story because of his mutation and his own thoughts, which develop because of the challenges they bring upon him. Not only do these factors bring change upon him but his identity also transfigures throughout the

One of my favorite quotes of this story would be on page 303 which says, “Years ago, I truly doubted whether I’d make it out alive. In my former life I had very little. Today, as I stand in my utopia, I have what any person could wish for- a life and the love of my son. Stephen and I are a family.” The reason I like this quote is because all his life, David was looking for a family and love and he finally found it.

Since David’s mother’ death, he now lived with his loving grandmother, Margret Limpert. David seemed to ignore her and show disrespect to her. In the beginning of the book, his grandmother took him to an Easter egg hunt. He was not happy about going. When David was looking for easter eggs, he saw a girl that he thought was beautiful. He asked if she was dead, and she did not respond. He then starting talking about himself to the girl, and then he ran off. The girl that he mistook as being dead, was a thirteen year-old girl who likes to break all rules, and her name was Primrose Dufee.

The novel begins with David standing at his window watching his reflection in the darkening window pane. There is a repetition of the words still and same. This is a self-reflection of himself as David is staring into his dark past where he is longing to move away from his lost identity. David is in denial with his manhood and he flees to France and leaves behind his life in America to attempt to leave the issues with his sexuality back home. At one point, David says that “perhaps home is not a place, but simply an irrevocable condition” (92). David realizes the internal, emotional state rather than just the physical

Everything David did that was courageous. Most importantly, he survived the Nazi’s horrible control, showing his mother had influenced him. Even though David had a difficult childhood, David’s mother helped him a great

The second story is David’s quest for both the ship and for some contentment in his personal life. His story is revealed by 3rd person narration .David is tormented by his wife’s death and is struggling to find love and friendship with Claire. .

Firstly, Aunt Harriet has a big influence on David, because David feels sorrow due to the situation that his aunt is going through. Aunt Harriet is talking to David’s father, "This is the third time. They'll take my baby away again like they took the others. I can't stand that - not again. Henry will turn me out, I think. He'll find another wife, who can give him proper children. There'll be nothing- nothing in the world for me - nothing. I came here hoping against hope for sympathy and help. Emily is the only person who can help me. I - I can see now how foolish I was to hope at all..." (Wyndham 71, 72) David thinks about his mother, and how she reacts to this situation, which had a negative impact on David. Later on David could not stop thinking about Aunt Harriet after the incidence, “For several nights I dreamed of Aunt Harriet lying

At the age of 5 years old, not only did he began to take showers with his father, but when they went to the beach club, his mother bathed him in the shower in the presence of other naked women. By the age of 6 years old, David noticed the power men had over women, “when a male entered the women’s side of the bathhouse, all the women shrieked”. (Gale Biography). At the age of 7 and 8 years old, he experienced a series of head accidents. First, he was hit by a car and suffered head injuries. A few months later he ran into a wall and again suffered head injuries. Then he was hit in the head with a pipe and received a four inch gash in the forehead. Believing his natural mother died while giving birth to him was the source of intense guilt, and anger inside David. His size and appearance did not help matters. He was larger than most kids his age and not particularly attractive, which he was teased by his classmates. His parents were not social people, and David followed in that path, developing a reputation for being a loner. At the age of 14 years old David became very depressed after his adoptive mother Pearl, died from breast cancer. He viewed his mother’s death as a monster plot designed to destroy him. (Gale Biography). He began to fail in school and began an infatuation with petty larceny and pyromania. He sets fires,

Sophie allows for doubt to pierce its way into David’s life for the first time. At the start of the novel, when David first meets Sophie, he gets an insight into a deviant’s life. She has proven to be the first blow to efficiently impact David’s thoughts and make him question the authenticity of his society’s belief system. “It is hind-sight that enables me to fix that as the day when my first small doubts started to germinate.”

There are other significant similarities between the movie and the book, so if I overlooked or forgot any extremely crucial points, forgive me.

In my opinion the movie helps to understand the situation and the topic of the novel.

his father and dead mother. David's father has an idealized vision of his son as

Throughout the novel, David, the protagonist is abused and tortured several times by his very own father, Joseph Strorm and his recently discovered Uncle, Gordon. David’s father is a strict believer in his religion and is unyielding on the subject of mutations and blasphemy’s. If anyone neglects to follow his beliefs and rules, he has serious consequences for them, like with David, once Joseph found out that David knows a blasphemy, he immediately subjected to abusing him for answers. David’s father continues to beat him until he receives the information he demands. David has been abused more than once by his father and this is evident when David says, “I knew well enough what that meant, but I knew well too, that with my father in his present mood, it would happened whether I told or not. I set my jaw,

Throughout the book Sophie had an exponential effect on David development even when not present. Firstly, when David meets meets Sophie and learns about Sophie’s supplementary toe, David accepts Sophie for who she is. “ It was all twisted and puffy - I didn't even notice then that it had more than the usual amount of toes...” (Wyndham 9). This is critical to David's development as it influenced him to ignore the rules of the uneducated town of Waknuk. Secondly, when Sophie is a suspected deviant David helps her run away to the fringes evading the law. “I managed to find some candles and light them,and when I had blown up the fire and put some more on, that helped to make the place seem less lonely.” (49). In this quote David is trying to make the house seem occupied so the people of Waknuk do not get suspicious. This is imperative as for the first time in his life David rebelled against the rules