The Chrysalids Critical Analysis

The novel The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, is set in the future and starts in the town of Waknuk, modern day Labrador, years after a nuclear holocaust. The people of Waknuk believe it was God who sent Tribulation upon them for all their sins; this makes the Waknukians strict about anything different. The story’s main character is a boy named David Storm, son of Joseph Storm one of Waknuk’s most intolerant people. David,and only a select few, can communicate without words but in what they call thought shapes. The other thought shapers are Michael, Mark, Katherine, Anne, Rachel, Sally, David’s half cousin Rosalind, and his little sister Petra. Wyndham introduces several of important thematic ideas throughout this novel.
A theme from The Chrysalids
Early in the novel Anne, one of the thought shapers, announces to the others that she is engaged to Alan, a boy who got David’s friend Sophie sent to the Fringes for having six toes, all of the other thought shapers, including her sister Rachel, are against the idea and tell her not to go through with it because if Alan were to find out they would all be caught and either killed or sent to the Fringes. When Uncle Axel hears about the engagement, he tells David they need to kill Alan to protect themselves from getting caught, David is skeptical at first; since he is afraid what it would do to Anne, but Uncle Axel assures him it is in all their best interest to stay alive. “If they hadn’t done it it he’d have died, anyway- and the rest of them too, most likely.”(96) Uncle Axel sticks with his position, that killing Alan would be saving more people. If they did not kill Alan, he would have found out that Anne, and all the others were thought shapers, putting them all in danger. “It had to be done.”(118). Uncle Axel makes the decision that one death is far better than nine and shoots Alan with an arrow, killing him. After being on the run from the people of Waknuk, David was awoken to Rosalind's panic over having to kill a man, Michael comes in, calming her down, insuring her that killing that man was the only way for them to survive. “Don’t be scared, Rosalind. You had to do
All making connections to modern day life, through events taking place in the novel such as fear of the unknown, the resistance towards change, and the justification of murder. Even though the events taking place are in a fictional dystopia, Wyndhams ideas are not as far away from modern day. (1079