?The Chrysalids? By John Wyndham Essay, Research Paper

“The Chrysalids” by John Wyndham is an entertaining yet plausible story. It compels the reader to think about human nature and our attitude to the world around us that we often take for granted.

The setting of “The Chrysalids” is several hundred years after a nuclear war. What is left of civilization is a few small towns here and there all over the countries of the world. The population is by the leadership what the “true image” is apparently meant to be. If you are not of the true image then you are sent to live in the fringes.

Many people and animals are born with birth defects caused by the nuclear radioactivity that is still present from the nuclear destruction of previous years. The population that is considered of the “true image” are cruel to the “freaks” or “mutants”.

Some of the people in the novel are also very bigoted like David’s father. He thinks he is the king of the castle and can’t be wrong. If he says something it should happen like where he has an argument with the inspector about the giant horses or when he burnt that families cat because it didn’t have a tail eg “It is your moral duty to issue an order against these so called horses!!” Various people including David’s father all agree that deviants are from the devil and should be castrated or thrown out of society.

Another thing is that people are forced to agree with the laws and if they don’t they are also thrown from society where they would either be killed or spend the rest of their miserable lives in the sloughs of the fringe people.

Their attitude towards the world is OK I suppose. They don’t really use that much of the worlds resources in Waknuk or any of the other little towns around. They don’t need to think about how much longer the supplies of these materials are going to last because all that they are using at the moment is trees, which they seem to have plenty of, and water which they get from wells and rivers. There food they grow or hunt and cook and bake things over open fires I would assume. But then on the other hand it looks like the people on this other place where they take David, Rosalind and Petra are past the technology of today’s society and therefore I would have to assume that they only use what is necessary as well because they seem to have more advanced flying contrivances and should have overcome the problem of petrol usage etc.

In conclusion it can be seen that in Waknuk etc. they are very primitive and will not go forward.