The Chrysalids Essay, Research Paper

The Chrysalids

Imagine living in a place where there seemed to be a sense of evil in the eyes of

everyone, except David Strorm. This place was called Waknuk. Waknuk was a place

where anything out of the ?norm? was wrong and sinful and could even end in a

consequence as serious as death. Life was good for those who believed and practiced the

Waknuk religion. For those whom were not believers in the Waknuk religion found life to

be hard and unfair. Throughout David?s life in Waknuk he was faced with many tools of

evil such as prejudice, pride and deception. David painfully learned that that prejudice

causes individuals to be isolated from each other, pride causes individuals to mistreat each

other and finally that deception causes much hurt and distress among individuals. The first

tool of evil that I found present in The Chrysalids was prejudice.

David was faced for the first time in his life a tool of evil — prejudice. It all started

the day he met Sophie Wender. She was peering through the bushes when David was

playing happily in a sand pile. They soon became best friends and enjoyed playing together

for endless hours. One day as they were playing Sophie’s foot became caught between two

stones. When David helped her free her foot he saw that she had six toes on each foot.

Her toes really did not bother David in fact it made their friendship grow deeper in trust.

They enjoyed going down to the stream to go catch little creatures. Sophie now felt quite

comfortable around David and often took off her shoes to reveal her six toes. Their world

came shattering down when Alan Ervin saw Sophie’s footprint in the dirt that clearly

showed her six toes. Sophie was now discovered. She and her family had to flee because

the community of Waknuk was very prejudice and they would probably end up killing

Sophie and her family. It saddened David greatly to see his best friend leave. The pain did

not end there, Alan told Joseph all about Sophie’s footprint. The next morning David was

interrogated by the inspector and was forced to confess that he was concealing

information about someone who was not a ?norm?. Prejudice was not the only tool of evil

that David was faced with, he was also faced with pride.

Pride for the Waknuk religion was in everyone. Everyone was so full of pride that

they no longer made decisions with heart or compassion, instead decisions were made

through what history said. It all started when David’s Aunt Harriet came to Waknuk, he

had not seen her much because she lived fifteen miles away in the Kentak direction. When

she arrived at the Strorm residence she quickly made it up to the nursery where David’s

mother lay with her new born, Petra. As she made her way upstairs she was carrying a

small white bundle. The small white bundle that Harriet carried was her daughter, one that

such she had given birth to week before. There was a slight difference between Petra and

Harriet’s baby girl, which was that Petra had a certificate of normalcy and Harriet?s baby

had not gotten one for the slightest flaw that her child had. Harriet asked her sister to help

her. She asked her to switch babies for a couple of days until she got the certificate of

normalcy. Emily refused and even had the nerve to call her sisters baby a monster. When

Joseph joined the conversation he became so full of pride that that he did not hear

Harriet?s cry for help and for compassion. Joseph continued to taunt Harriet, by telling her

that she should be ashamed for asking to do such a favor he ended by saying that she

should be greatly sorry for having to commit such a sin of bringing a child into the Strorm

home. Joseph showed no remorse about what he said about Harriet and her baby. He and

Emily?s pride was far too great for Harriet that she ended up committing suicide. This

shows that the evil of pride caused Joseph and Emily to mistreat Harriet who did not agree

with them. The last tool of evil that David was faced with was deception.

Deception seemed to be a game that Alan Ervin enjoyed to play. For him evil was

used as a tool for deception. He first deceived David and Sophie. He hurt them both when

he turned Sophie in to the inspector and Joseph when he saw her footprint that showed

her six toes. Alan was once again deceptive when he married Anne. Anne who was part of

the group that shared the special ability of communicating through thought patterns. By

Anne marrying a ?norm? she was not only putting herself in danger of being found out but

also the whole group. Since Alan had once already deceived David and Sophie there was a

great chance that he would do it again. Anne was a women in love in love, she would have

wanted to share everything with him even if it meant hurting the people she loved most.

Anne soon came to the point where she was deceiving herself. She was constantly

disguising her ability by not communicating with anyone. Alan?s deceptive ways ended the

day he was murdered. Anne could not handle the death of her husband and she soon

committed suicide. The evil of deception caused much pain to David, Sophie and

eventually the whole group. Evil had contributed a great deal to deception, prejudice and

pride.

We have learned, throughout David’s life in Waknuk he had to through much

hardship. Evil was used as a tool in many of the situations that he faced. He was faced

with prejudice that caused Sophie to be isolated pride that caused Emily and Joseph to

mistreat Harriet who did not agree with them and lastly the pain that David felt from the

deception of Allen. I feel that in The Chrysalids evil was used as a tool for prejudice, pride

and deception.

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