Themes In The Chrysalids

The Sapphires directed by Wayne Blair represents the theme of war throughout the film with the use of cinematic techniques and setting. The Sapphires follows four aboriginal girls; Julie, Cynthia, Gail and Kay on their adventure to Vietnam in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. The film follows the four girls on their journey around Vietnam performing for American troops while fulfilling their dreams of becoming a famous singing group. Throughout the film, Blair explores the theme of war through a variety of scenes and techniques. War ruins the lives of many people and this is demonstrated through the film with the use of cinematic techniques, setting and with the support of other themes. By exploring the theme of war, Blair is able to help the audience make connections to the film through the events and setting the character’s experience.

Being different is okay. But do our societies accept these differences? Not only does the rejection of differences happen today, but has for the past many years. As we all know, in Waknuk, people are devoted to the True Image of Man, which isolates David from not just his community but also his family. The Waknukians consider mutants a threat, as they represent the devil in humans. As the Inspector had stated, “The Devil sends Deviations among us to weaken us and tempt us away from Purity. Sometimes he is clever enough to make a near-perfect imitation, so we have to always be on the look-out for the mistake he has made” (55). Furthermore, David has to hide his true self and he must live in fear, first for himself and Sophie, and then for Petra and the rest of the group. Besides his mutation being a challenge of his it also becomes dangerous

Out of the Past is definitely an interesting movie with a lot of things to talk about. I will touch briefly upon two main things I have noticed during the screen: the film noire genre and the image of the femme fatale.

Sumayyah- Betrayal and loyalty those are two strong words that might have affected us some time in our life. The terms betrayal and loyalty are also relatable when we started our novel the Chrysalids by John Wyndham. In the novel the author shows the concept of betrayal and loyalty as the ultimate result of poor relationships.

As Harriet Braiker once said: “Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.” There are many people that always seek for being perfect, but what does that leads to? In Waknuk society, “perfection” just led to destruction. Joseph Strorm, the father of the main character David Strorm and the leader of this society, started forgetting about the values he should have had and also he was forgetting about the love he needed to give to his family. In addition, God sent Tribulation because He wanted society to become better than what they were being. The citizens in Waknuk were seeking to look more like God, according to the people from the Fringes, which were people who were sent to another place because they

Another predominate lesson in the novel is, how change is possible, but quite difficult to become accustomed to. David proves this point in a conversation he shares with Uncle Axel. Since David was raised in a society where change was not an option, but instead it was mandatory for the people of Waknuk to move towards Gods true image and move away from all deviations. David and many others had a hard time going against their way of living. David admits that he is reluctant to change saying, “Moreover, I was reluctant to admit the flaw in the tidy, familiar orthodoxy I had been taught (pg 64). Similarly, Waknuk is against change and always resisted when change was an option. David reveals that change is quite difficult to become accustomed to when he states, “The place may have been called Waknuk then, anyways, Waknuk it had become; an orderly, law-abiding, God- respecting community of some hundred scattered holding, large and small” (pg 17). This shows that their town, Waknuk, had never become anything different through-out many years. Also Joseph Strorm was a very strict and rigid man who unfortunately was at a point where he and many others who lived in Waknuk were brain washed with the Bible, and Nicholson’s Repentances. Therefore change was a possible option but hard to go forward with it. In this novel it therefore teaches us how change is possible, but overall very hard to do.

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.

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

Women have always had an impact on men! Mothers, sisters, aunts, friends, wives, or girlfriends are all part of this group of women, and can change a man in many ways. Similarly in the book, ‘The Chrysalids’ the protagonist David Strorm deals with three important women in his life, that have a huge impact on him. They all influence his character, and some help him through his journey, and some create problems for him. The three women, Aunt Harriet (David’s Aunt), Petra (David’s full sister), and Sophie (David’s childhood friend), have always helped out David, and supported through harsh times, and thus they have affected David in a big way.

The Chrysalids takes place in Waknuk, a society based on rigid laws and a strict religion. The citizens value what they believe to be normal, enforcing harsh consequences for those who go against the norm or possess traits that are undesirable or feared. Their society developed with strong influences from The Bible and Nicholson`s Repentances, with laws and customs put in place to keep Tribulation from happening again. Deviations and otherwise undesirable traits are not tolerated in this society, anything in question or suspicious is carefully inspected to ensure it is not an offense. The people of Waknuk are a very traditional, law-abiding community built on generations of fear and extreme regulations.

Change, the essential of life, it can be tranquility or turbulence, change has no set goal, it occurs all around us without us knowing. In the novel, The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, change is the major problem in the society even though it is hidden in different aspects of life. To the society, change is their enemy, but it is themselves who are their enemies without knowing it. A society that fails to realize the inevitability of change will indubitably agonize.

“‘She was competent, decisive, self-reliant; perhaps she intimidated them, for before long they drifted their attentions elsewhere’” (93).

The people of Waknuk’s greatest fear, Tribulation, was originally the result of nuclear war. It is obvious that Tribulation was nuclear radiation because of the way that the landscape was affected, as with the Badlands and especially the Black Coasts: a place where almost nothing grows and those who approach it immediately fall ill and usually die. Furthermore, the frequency of Mutations—especially in the Fringes, where they are not curd— points to nuclear radiation, the one of the most common exogenous causes of random genetic mutation. Wyndham uses dialogue and mythology about “the Old People” as well as the novel’s setting to comment on the behavior of the people of his time. The Chrysalids was published in 1955, ten years after the bombing

Female characters are influential in John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids. In the novel, three women are of paramount importance in comparison to all others in shaping David’s views and opinions: Sophie, the Sealand woman, and Aunt Harriet. In the society of Waknuk, individuals exhibit prejudice repeatedly throughout the novel through their own blinkered treatment of deviations. David Strorm’s, a twelve-year-old boy whose parents brought him up in such lifestyle, interactions with those three women throughout the novel sways him to have second thoughts about it. Their dealings with David each have a particular impact on his life. Sophie allows for doubt to enter David’s life for the first time; the Sealand woman expands his views and prompts him to consider other beliefs different from those of his society; and Aunt Harriet makes him more conscious of his society’s despicable activities and more attentive to it. In John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, Sophie, the Sealand woman, and Aunt Harriet are instrumental in influencing David’s outlook on society.

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.