The Chrysalids Essay, Research Paper

Imagine living in a place where there seemed to be a sense of hate 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 practised the Waknuk religion following the definition of man which was heard every Sunday of their lives:

” And God created man in His own image. And God decreed that man should have one body, one head, two arms and two legs: that each arm should be jointed in two places and end in one hand: that each hand should have four fingers and one thumb: that each finger should bear a flat finger-nail…’

And so on until:

Then God created woman, also, and in the same image, but with these differences, according to her nature: her voice should be of higher pitch than man’s: she should grow no beard: she should have two breasts’

And so on again.” (page 10-11)

Those who did not believe in the Waknuk religion found life to be hard and unfair. Throughout David’s life in Waknuk, he was faced with many tools of hate such as prejudice, pride and deception. David painfully learned 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. Due to these facts, the theme of love is eclipsed or overshadowed by the theme of hate in The Chrysalids.

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 towns 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. However, 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 to the Fringes because the community of Waknuk was extremely prejudice and they would probably end up killing Sophie and her family. It saddened David greatly to see his best friend leave, and at the time he didn’t really seem to understand the reason why. The pain did not end there. Alan told Joseph Strorm, a strong believer in the Waknuk religion, as well as David’s father all about Sophie’s footprint and David’s concealment of this Blasphemy. The following day, David was interrogated by the inspector and was forced to confess that he was concealing information about someone who was not a norm’. Prejudice equals hate, and hate is the total opposite of love. Everyone of Waknuk has such warped’ and strong beliefs against minor or major deviations that hate overshadows love.

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 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 that she had given birth to a week earlier. There was a slight difference between Petra and Harriet’s baby girl. Petra had a certificate of normalcy and Harriet’s baby had not gotten one for the slightest flaw that her child had. Harriet asked for the help of her sister. When she asked her to switch babies for a couple of days until she got the certificate of normalcy, Emily was outraged and disgusted. When Joseph joined the conversation, he became so full of pride saying: “I do not understand how you dared to come here, to a God-fearing house, with such a suggestion. Worse still, you don’t show an atom of shame or remorse.” (page 72) 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 favour. He ended by saying that she should be greatly sorry for having to commit such a sing of bringing a child into the Strorm home. Joseph showed no remorse about what he said regarding Harriet and her baby. He and Emily’s pride was far too great for Harriet, who ended up committing suicide. This showed that the evil of pride caused Joseph and Emily to mistreat Harriet, a family member whom they did care deeply for.

“Deception – 1 the act or an instance of deceiving; the process of being deceived. 2 deceive – to be purposely mislead; believe what is false.” (Oxford Canadian Dictionary- deception, deceive) Deception seemed to be a game that Alan Ervin enjoyed to play. For him, hate 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 to special ability of communicating through though 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 woman in love, she would have wanted to share everything with him, even if it meant hurting the people she loved the most. Anne soon came to the point that 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 by Uncle Axel who felt: “it was the only thing to do. Of course, I knew Anne would reckon it was one of you that had done it. But she couldn’t denounce you without giving herself away and her sister too. There was a risk there, but I had to take it.” (page 118) Anne could not handle the death of her husband so she committed suicide. The evil of deception caused much pain to David, Sophie and eventually the whole group. Evil and hatred contributed a great deal to deception, prejudice and pride.

Throughout David’s life in Waknuk, we have learned he had to live through much hardship and hatred. Hate was used as a tool in many of the situations he faced. He was faced with prejudice that caused Sophie to be isolated, pride that caused Emily and Joseph Strorm to mistreat Harriet who did not agree with them and finally, the pain that David felt from the deception of Alan and Anne. The people of Waknuk never realized how their love was constantly eclipsed by hate as a cause of their eccentricity. In The Chrysalids, the theme of love is overshadowed by the theme of hate.

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