The Dangers Of Fear In The Chrysalids By John Wyndham

As represented in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, fear played an important role and is exploited by the characters in the play. The Crucible beings with a group of girls accusing people of witchcraft for their selfish benefit.Fear is an emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to inflict pain , or a threat. Fear is an emotion that is capable of overtaking and controlling one’s state of mind and well being. However , fear can be used as a motivation factor. Fear influenced these people to take extreme measures and act irrationally. Additionally, fear is a master of suffering capable of haunting those who patronize it Moreover, in The Crucible this erratic emotion causes people to fear being labeled

Fear is a common human emotion, but the way some people react is different than others. Although, it is harder on some humans unlike other people. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said,” Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.” I think that means that fear harms more people than anything else does in the whole world. Also that people can scare themselves way easier than normal and it’s not healthy.

In paragraph five, he explains what he asked his father when he was a young boy: “I remember: he asked his father: “Can this be true? This is the 20th century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?” This explains his feeling and from his point of view as he was a young boy. In paragraph nine, the author explains his emotions of suffering: “Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political views, the must-at the moment-become the center of the universe…” He expresses his feelings and emotions of suffering toward the Jews that were persecuted and all the lives that were lost . He explains when something bad happens, men or women being persecuted, it becomes the center of attention for what they need to focus

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.

Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat. Our own emotions, especially fear, make us do the things we never saw ourselves doing. In the play “The Crucible” many of the characters actions are driven by fear. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. This emotion doesn’t have to control our actions.

Numerous individuals face threatening situations in their lifetime, however, there are different reactions and solutions to counter them, such as the “fight or flight” response. When an individual is placed in a situation to endanger themselves to save their companion, most individuals would rather protect themselves in despite of fear. In the novel Chrysalids John Wyndham explores a civilization that obsessively focuses on religious precepts and the importance of purity. Individuals with uncommon qualities and deviations such as would not meet this society’s ideals and are banished. Characters such as David, Rosalind, and Michael, who have unique telepathic powers and are part of a telepathic group, successfully keep their abilities hidden for a period of time. When they are discovered,

Last similarity between the book’s society and our society back then is the killing. Long-time back in our society, blacks were discriminated and some were even killed just because of their skin colour. The KKK was the biggest discriminator and killer of minorities, they were bad people. In the book, people of Waknuk were similar to the KKK because they basically killed mutants who were minorities just because they were different. The KKK had their own reasons for killing the minorities and so did the people of Waknuk. The Waknuk’s reason is that “The devil is the father of deviations (also known as mutants)” (p.18) and so that was a good enough reason to kill the mutants.

Adversities are hard to avoid in one’s life; everyone has to face them at one point in their life. The effect it has on a person’s life can change their perspective towards the world. When problems arise individuals traditionally become stunned to such difficult situations that they face. The adversity becomes a brick wall that is challenging to break down. An individual's true character in addition to their nature is revealed when they face a conflict in their life or a challenge. The people who conquer the challenges that life throws at them, they are the only one’s worthy enough of being called a warrior. In the novel, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham has his protagonist David go through some conflicts which he overcomes throughout the story.

Discrimination in the novel is mostly obvious from Joseph Strorm, who is ironically the father of a deviant, David Strorm. He is the strictest devout of his religion in Waknuk and being the heir of Waknuk, he bears the responsibility to keep the society deviation-free. He does so by discriminating against deviants, like the society, and punishing them for being born ‘wrong’. His devotion to God and the ‘Definition of Man’ can be seen when he hit his son, David for wishing he had a third hand by mistake. He is sensitive to any form of deviation and punishes them harshly but he does admit that God is merciful, as seen from ‘God, in His mercy, may yet grant you (forgiveness)’. This is ironic as Joseph, being a devout, should be following God’s footsteps and be merciful in his actions too but he is willing to kill and punish people instead, contradicting his religion. His intolerance of deviations led him to discriminate against them, as can be seen from how he refused to help Aunt Harriet and humiliated her instead when she came begging for help to save her innocent deviant child. Joseph had also discriminated against the great horses unsuccessfully as the government had approved of them and there

taking a dark turn in society. The truth brought to one’s eyes, concerning the cruelty that can be brought to this world, including all past events that we had suffered through, is traumatizing; especially witnessing connections from Waknuk to Earth. The horrors of Waknuk, was illustrated through the way the community treated other. However, the realism, that reflects on the monstrosity of our society is uncanny. With the characteristics of racism, ignorance, and fear, it shows how our two realities are similar.

In The Chrysalids the theme of power is demonstrated through religion because of the Strorms’ history and religious influence in Waknuk, the strict religious society, and the severity of punishment for not obeying the religion.

We all think children are all innocent and cute, but is that really true? We always give excuses for children’s misconduct, distracting ourselves from the real truth. Kids are capable of terrible things that adults quickly ignore. Children can be very scary because of their capabilities that most adults believe to be innocent mistakes. One story that explores this fear is Ray Bradbury’s “The Man Upstairs.”

The “Gypsies” were said , by the Nazi’s, to have evil powers and would only bring sorrow and misfortune to the villagers. The fear and suspicion quickly turned into hostility. The villagers poked, prodded, kicked, whipped and tortured the boy for days while other watched and laughed “My body burned from the slashes of the whip...”(Kosinski 17). As time passed, a plague spread throughout the village, they believed that the boy must have brought the misfortune to them. They believed that if they rid themselves of the “Gypsy boy”, they would be free of the misfortune. Enraged, the villagers threw the boy into the river in hopes of his death by drowning. The actions of the villagers were compelled by their prejudice against the boys’ perceived ethnic origins. The alienation and loneliness the boy feels after being separated from his parents and the only other person that has taken care of him is gone, now he is all alone. The boy learns that he will have to learn to cope with the alienation and loneliness in order to survive this world. The unknown causes people to be quick to judge. The fear and hate of the unknown causes people to commit horrible acts, which only gets easier when they are sanctioned by state authority.

Dystopian novels have become more common over the last century; each ranging from one extreme society to the next. A dystopia, “A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control,”[1] through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, criticizes about current trends, societal norms, or political systems. The society in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is divided in a caste system, in which humans are not individuals, do not have the opportunity to be individuals, and never experience true happiness. These characteristics of the reading point towards a well-structured

Just because they have different coloured skin and practice a different religion does that make them someone less than you? In the end without the color and religion barriers aren’t you just a human being so why treat each other differently? Why aren’t “white people” bullied because of their beliefs? Will racism ever go away? These questions also helped build some connections to world. Some connections I instantly made to the world were about how poorly some people are treat because of their race. In the book Muslims were forced to leave their homes and move because of a political crisis and resettle somewhere else. This is occurring even today. Take America for example. Trump and a larger part of America thinks muslims are “terrorist” and have enforced a muslim ban. This has forced many muslims to reconsider living in USA. Another connections to the world is of genocides. The WW2 genocide mentioned in the book, reminded me of the Rwandan genocide and the terrible aftermath of it. This story makes a lot of connections to the social problems that have been carried on from the 1900’s to present