The Chrysalids by John Wyndam
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In The Chrysalids by John Wyndam, a group of children who look normal but are not that causes a lot of conflict because anyone who is not the exact definition of man written in Nicholson’s Repentance is a blasphemy. Fighting for the reason to live a normal life, David, Rosalind and Petra run away from there farming community to a dark side called the fringes and finally to a heaven called Sealand. By looking at the views of people from Waknuk, the fringeman, and the Sealand woman, we clearly understand the need for people in a community to accept change and stop being prejudiced towards each other.
Joseph Strorm is the most dogmatic and outspoken member of his community. He is a strong believer in God and his life is based around his religion: “The Norm is the Image of God.” (p27) He believes that if they follow the bible and Nicholson’s Repentances they will go back to the golden age. He is a cruel and inhumane person to anyone who has or is involved with a deviation. He has no sympathy towards anyone; not even David. Joseph thinks he is more superior and likes to take things into his own hands instead of going to the inspector like others. When Jacob found out that the Daker’s cat was born tailless, “he personally [attends] to the demise of the Daker’s cat while the matter was still sub judice.” (p37) However, he was not the only one with orthodox views.
An elder from Waknuk, Old Jacob, believes that the government is becoming less and less religious just to please everyone. Jacob explains how a generation ago mutants were killed like other deviations, not jus killed but burnt. David’s generation is brought up thinking that only “crops and stock,” (p88) were burnt and mutants were sterilized then banished to the fringes. Jacob thought there was nothing wrong with burning mutants because they are not humans and fire is the only way to “cleanse deviations.” (p88) He believes that the present treatment of blasphemies is sentimental. He thinks it is because some “wishy-washy minds [do not] have enough resolution and faith”, (p88) that new laws were made about near-human deviations. Although there are such people like Jacob and Joseph Strorm there is a special group of people who are more liberal.
Throughout such outspoken people,