Discrimination In The Chrysalids

The Chrysalids is a novel filled with various themes that impact the story. Though they are often exaggerated, they still reflect society today. Many of the themes overlap each other and are supported by similar evidence in the book. Fanaticism, religious superiority and discrimination are particularly relevant as many of the main undertones in the book have religious roots. Fanaticism and discrimination also branch from the religious beliefs in the novel.

Fanaticism is an extreme commitment to and idea that enables individuals to commit immoral acts for their belief. In Waknuk where the main characters lived, religious fanaticism has been normalized. Joseph Strorm, the protagonist David’s father is a zealot who exhibits fanatical tendencies

In Waknuk, unreasonable actions in response to things outside the established norm have been fully accepted and integrated into their society because very few people question the beliefs, fewer speak out. The narrator David, is still young and impressionable when he meets Sophie who has an extra toe on each foot, a real-life example of a blasphemy, a person who does not fit in the neat image of man. After he meets her, he begins to question the beliefs he has adopted. David thinks, “The ways of the world [are] very puzzling…”(14) after realizing that “there was nothing frightful about Sophie.” (14) David later has a dream that represents his changing values after being able to comprehend the brutality of Waknuk’s primitive thinking. In his dream, “[They] were all gathered in the yard, just as [they] had been at the last Purification. Then it had been a little hairless calf that stood waiting, blinking stupidly at the knife in [his] father’s hand; this time it was a little girl, Sophie…” (28) Waknuk’s values are a perversion of a righteous moral compass and this is also embodied in his dream as Sophie “[implored] them to help her, but none of them moved and none of their faces had any expression.” David’s observations of Waknuk’s community are depicted as thinking Sophie is less than an animal to his father