Both utopia and segregation are polar opposite concepts. Hence, the ableism in the town of Waknuk creates a dystopian society. In Waknuk it is believed that the devil is the father of deviation, and the norm is the will of god. This belief drives the “normal people” to expel other beings that are born with deviations; the expulsion is in an attempt to create a pure and holy community. This unethical act destroys the lives of many people. Mothers are often forced to kill their new born if they spot a deviation. In the case of Joseph’s aunt, Aunt Harriet, she gave birth to a child with a slight deviation. Trying to protect her child she was later murdered for doing so and was found floating in a nearby river, with her “mutated child”. This act of barbarism is similar to the horrors that aboriginal parents faced, when their children were forcefully taken away by missionaries who wanted to educate “uncivilized children”. Both these incidents show the atrocities mothers face when they are forced to give up their beloved children, and it is these types’ heinous actions that creates a dystopia in The Chrysalids.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
In a society that offers no hope of happiness or release from struggle and suffering, people quite naturally begin to place their hopes elsewhere. They respond to their condition by hoping for something that lies outside the conditions and constraints they cannot control or influence. Religion becomes some kind of hope for rescue from life. Religion responds by offering either internalization to a spiritual realm or an external hope of a better world and a better life beyond the pale of death.…
- 4035 Words
- 17 Pages
Better Essays -
Purity: Waknuk is afraid that they’ll be ruled by Deviations which they find signs of deviation growth and devil’s doings. They couldn’t think of anything more and so they formed their…
- 904 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
In the novel “The Chrysalids” by John Wyndham, religion is the most important aspect of everyones lives. They believe in the true image of god, and that all else is the devil and must be killed. For most, they would sacrifice their own children for god, yet for some people their children are more important. Mothers love their children over their religion. Some examples covered in this essay are Sophie, Aunt Harriet and The Spider-Man.…
- 568 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The Chrysalids, John Wyndham is a science fiction novel about people who can communicate with their minds. This essay with prove that the book has both hopeful and pessimistic view on humanity. The books has very inhuman laws and has inhabitable lands, but also has a hopeful future.…
- 366 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Waknuk is a very strict community, and its inhabitants are compelled to maintain numerous rigid beliefs. They are taught, from a young age that all living creatures should look the same as their parents, and that all living things which diverge from their true form are deviations. To Waknukians, it is compulsory to, "know what Offences were. They were…
- 780 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The intolerance of physical deformities is demonstrated by the unfair treatment of Sophie Wender because she was born with six toes on each foot. Due to her mutation, the Waknukians portrayed her as a deviant or blasphemy. When Alan found Sophie’s six-toed footprint, the Wender’s were forced to flee from Waknuk. The reader can see the feeling of isolation in the Wender family when Sophie exclaims “You've never known loneliness. You can't understand the awful emptiness that's waiting all around us here. Why didn't they kill me? It would have been kinder than this” (Wyndham 167). This quote shows how Sophie would have rather been killed than to suffer from heartache. Multiple signs are hung in David’s house explaining how deviants…
- 354 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
A utopia is a perfect society. One in which everything works according to plan, and everything is how it is imagined it should be. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and George Orwell’s 1984, utopian societies are built upon varying terms. Each society, while proclaimed to be perfect, has it’s inevitable flaws. The main characters in these novels, Winston and John, deal with the flaws in both similar and opposite ways. They are created to highlight the ways these utopian societies fall into dystopia, when looked at through an analytical lens. Winston and John have similar traits, as well as different traits, and their characters eventually find their way to almost identical…
- 113 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
Judith and her family felt that they needed to stay together at all costs throughout their experience in the concentration camps. Staying together as a family helped motivate Judith, it also pressured her as she felt she could not leave her family. This shows how her influences on her family values helped her through this traumatic experience. One key example where she put family first is when she risked death when she switched a line that she was assigned by a SS to be with her family. “Ignoring his comment, I started after mother.”…
- 1040 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
. Plants are burned, animals are slaughtered, and human deviations are banished to the Fringes where they are out of sight, cannot reproduce, and will either die or live a miserable life. The main reason that the citizens of Waknuk desire such sameness and conformity is because of their superstitious and religious beleifs. They believe that God sent tribulations to "The Old People", and that was why their society was destroyed. Because they don't want the same thing to happen to their society, the people of "The New World" and of Waknuk believe that they must keep the gene pool free of mutations and deviations, so that everyone is made in the "true image" of God. Those who are not in the "true image", and those who do not do everything within their capability to keep society true to how God created and desired it are shaming God, and will force him to send tribulations to the town as punishment. The extreme need of the citizens of Waknuk to conform and follow their cultural superstitions drives them to do crazy things that are detrimental to their community, such as burn crops, kill livestock, and send away or kill their friends and family. Without this extreme desire to rid themselves and their community of differences, and to please God and avoid his wrath and punishment, the citizens of Waknuk could probably live fairly normal lives. They would have more food, more livestock, and probably more money from selling anything that they had left over. The Chrysalids demonstrates how diversity can be a good thing, and how dangerous conformity and societal superstitions can be…
- 1331 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
The discrimination exhibited in this story is alarmingly relative to today’s and past’s society. Many characters in The Chrysalids commit wrongful but seemingly socially acceptable acts against living things that do not fit their society’s norm, or in other words, are considered deviations. In addition to this, people who are attempting to protect a blasphemy are discriminated against, possibly due to ignorance of what it’s like to live with the looming possibility of losing a loved one. For example, when Aunt Harriet brought her blasphemous baby to her sister’s house to beg for help, Joseph Strorm said “Send her away. Tell her to leave the house – and take that with her,” (71). This clearly exhibits what is considered acceptable treatment towards deviations and those harbouring deviations. This cruelty is similar to the reality of the past and the present, where many humans are actually desensitized to the importance of living with diversity, causing them to discriminate against people who do not fit their norm. The holocaust is an example of great lengths and extremities being made to try and control the physical…
- 1034 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
In his novel, The Chrysalids, John Wyndham argues that in order to evolve, society must accept change. He does this by presenting the ideas: it’s destructive when society doesn’t change, society stagnates when it doesn’t change and differences are strengths. The book is set in a post nuclear war era and is about a boy called David who lives in a community of religious and genetic fundamentalists who are constantly on alert for any mutations. At first he doesn’t think much of their values but as the story progresses he realises that his gift of telepathy could doom him and his friends.…
- 449 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham is a great novel in my opinion. It occurs in the future but it focuses on…
- 895 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Waknuk takes extremes when it comes to trying to rid their lives of mutants; if a person does not look like them or follow their way of life they take measures that would ensure them of no future contact with them. To do this Waknuk sterilizes mutants, hunts them down and finally, exiles them. On page 167 Sophie says “I’d have given him babies gladly, if I could. …I – oh why do they do that to us?” This quote shows that Waknuk does something to the deviations so that they are not able to reproduce and create more deviants in the process. Waknuk also goes to great lengths to hunt down mutants. For example, when David, Rosalind and Petra are found out, Waknuk organizes a big group of people to go out and look for them. Finally once the mutant is captured and neutered, Waknuk exiles them into the Fringes, no matter how old they are Waknuk just drops into the Fringes and leaves them to their own devices.…
- 962 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The people of Waknuk revolve around judging and looking down on others who do not meet the true image. Anyone that has a mutation would be frowned upon and a punishment would be awaiting them, such as being banished to the Fringes or being exiled. Their discrimination is not limited, rather a very common occurrence whether the deviation is an adult, baby, animal or crop. This is evident throughout the novel, such as, when David’s aunt Harriet had her third baby girl, but like the rest she was also born with a small deviation. Harriet visits her sister, Emily, pleading for help to protect her and her baby against the severe punishments of Waknuk, but Emily and Joseph refuse in…
- 1608 Words
- 7 Pages
Better Essays -
Context: In Germany, where Hitler rules, the Huberman’s have adopted a nine-year-old girl named Liesel Meminger. Due to Hitler’s ant-Semitism campaigns, Max Vandenburg had gone for help to the Huberman’s to avoid discrimination and torture in camps, where the Jews were put in. Max felt he had caused the Huberman’s…
- 1692 Words
- 7 Pages
Good Essays