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social structure case study
social structure theory
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The Chrysalids
A society is an organized group of individuals. In the novel, The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham the Sealand society and Waknuk society are both similar and different in the way they live. The Sealand and Waknuk societies are both egocentric and ignorant, but the Sealand society accepts changes, where the Waknuk society does not accept change and would rather stay the same.
Both the Sealand and Waknuk societies experience egocentricism. The Sealand society believes that Waknuk and other societies are uncivilized. An example of this is when the Sealand woman suggests that Waknuk is primitive and David and the thought-shape group are close to being primitive too. The Sealand society also shows eocentricism when they come for Petra, David and Rosalind because they kill everybody who is unable to send thought-shapes. The Waknuk society is egocentric because they banish people who are different to the Fringes or destroy and kill crops and animals because they are offences. Another example that shows Waknuk is egocentric is that they believe they are the “true image” and all other societies are primitive and the work of the devil. Not only do these two societies show egocentricism, they are also ignorant.
These two societies are ignorant because they do not know a lot about the world. The Sealand society was unaware of how huge the world really was when they came for David, Rosalind and Petra. They think that the “true image” should be able to send thought-shapes. The Waknuk society was unaware of what the world really looked like. They were afraid of what was beyond the Badlands, so therefore they did not know much about the rest of the world. The people of Waknuk did not know that the people of the Fringes believed in God. An example of this is when David is talking to a Fringes man, “God’s little game of patience I reckon it is, but He certainly takes His time over it.’ ‘God?’ I said doubtfully. ‘They’ve always taught us that it’s the Devil that rules in the Fringes.’” pg. 153. Although the Sealand society and Waknuk society seem similar, they are also different.
The Sealand society wants change where the Waknuk society wants to stay the same. Unlike Waknuk, Sealand does not want to be like the Old People. This is shown when the Sealand woman tells David, “We are the New People – your kind of people.
For my Independent novel study project, I chose to do a book cover on The Chrysalids. The cover of a book cannot target a specific audience; however, I constructed mine to target people in the age group 12-18. I chose that specific group because the main character, David, is in that group when the story is being told; thus, the audience can relate to the characters at personal level.
Just because people within a family are blood related and living together, it does not mean they are identical in their beliefs and actions. In some cases the generations of people in the family have the same way looking at things and understand the same sets of rules and believe in same kind of moral behavior. Unlike that, in the novel, “The Chrysalids”, the protagonist, David Strorm and his father, Joseph, the antagonist have very different characters and conflicting points of view.
Today’s society is accepting of differences, where as in the Chrysalids if you had any type of difference that was visible, you didn’t get a certificate, you were sterilized and sent to the fringes. Conformity was the only way of having control over the people of the Waknuck society and they didn’t want mutants or deviations to take over. Another story about mutants is portrayed in the movie X-Men First Class, all the normal people are afraid of them. They are afraid because of what they can and could possible do and they had no way of controlling them without making them come out of hiding. They would have to tell the government what they could do and the government would then decide whether or not they were too dangerous for the public. The Waknuck society was not into have individualism, just like in the Hunger Games. In the movie people were separated into districts and every year to remind them of why they were separated, they have one male and one female from each district between the ages 12-18 as tributes. This happens because of the rebellion Seventy-four years before and every year all twenty-four tributes are to fight to the death until one lone victor remains. In the Chrysalids they are to keep to their jobs in their district and to report any deviants. They control conformity through and by historical beliefs, for example the only two book’s left from the “Old People” were the revised Bible to tell them what the true image really is and the book Repentances. Furthermore the Chrysalids is about how conformity after devastation may not be the greatest idea.
Within every story of tragic events there is always a visible spark of hope. The novel The Chrysalids by John Wyndham is a story of great despair and tragedy yet with hope prominently noticeable. The protagonist, David as well as his companions face various challenges, which result in double edged swords exhibiting despair throughout; however, nearing the end the desperation breaks apart letting hope shine through.
...ng to hunt the deviations and fail, the decisions the society make are calamitous to them and the ones they love and the norms try to eliminate change, but instead they eliminate themselves and their society.
... and opinionated society of Waknuk which in turn, allows him to form his own opinions and beliefs. In each perspective, David is provided with evidence against the unrighteous judg,ents of his society. In Sophie's case, she showed him how deviations are really just normal people who dont descerve their branded treatment of cruelty. With Uncle Axel, David was given much knowledge about how he should accept himself and not let a society such as put him down.The Sealand woman provides the final evidence in proving that all societies have their own principles, which means that Waknuk`s precepts cannot be the only perspective to be followed. The influence of these three people on David magnified his approach on Waknuk`s religion, and revealed other directions that differ from Waknuk's
Background: John Wyndham, born in 1903, tried more than four careers before starting to write short stories in 1925. The Chrysalids was written in 1955.
“The Chrysalids” by John Wyndham is an entertaining yet plausible story. It compels the reader to think about human nature and our attitude to the world around us that we often take for granted.
There comes a moment in every person’s life, when toys are no longer playthings but are merely nuisances, when you worry more about finding a job than you do about that new phone, and when your dreams of Santa and the Tooth Fairy begin to fade. In the stage in which every young adult experiences this metamorphosis, somewhere between the ages of ten and eighteen, the choices you make shape your future. In the case of David Strorm, protagonist in John Wyndham’s novel The Chrysalids, the choices he is forced to make are a bit more extreme than normal, but the same principles still apply. David must realize his true identity and how it varies from the society he grew up in, must find differences between his father’s views and his own, and, in the end, must accept that the world he knows isn’t as safe as he thought. Throughout the novel, as David Strorm matures and has to face many difficult choices, he becomes a more harsh and bitter character.
Society is a concept found in all aspects of life; it is a slant which is impossible to avoid. For instance; sadly in life society labels things or people as good or bad, poor or rich, ugly or pretty. The literary piece of the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley clearly reflects this act of society in which they classify all things. The novel reflects how society labels everything; by being judgmental from the way the family is seen, how people view Frankenstein as a monster, and how the monster is affected, his conduct gets altered by all of society judgmental actions.
In the book anthem the societies are a collective. Meaning they work as one. “One for all and all for one”. In this essay I will be comparing a collective society to an individual society. We live in a society supporting individualism.
A patriarchal social system can be defined as a system where men hold all authority over women in all aspects of life. Men also have the most influence on society and the way it functions. When this kind of philosophy exists within a civilization, it can very well form the way each gender is treated. This is extremely clear in John Wyndham’s novel, The Chrysalids. I believe that the citizens of Waknuk hold a patriarchal ideology and that this ideology directly influences the way men and women are treated and represented in Wyndham’s novel.
After conquering northern Israel in 722 B.C.E., the Assyrians engendered centuries of political intrigue and laid the foundation for future unscrupulous kingdoms and idolatrous people.1 Once the Babylonian empire overthrew Josiah, the King of Judah, Habakkuk began to compose a prophetic book, questioning the ways of God. Above all, Habakkuk could not comprehend why “the evil circumvented the just”2; he thought that the impiety of the world did not correlate with a supposedly just God.3 Throughout his narrative, this biblical prophet came to understand that “the just man, because of his faith, shall live” (Hb 2,4). Eventually discovering that righteousness and faith in God lead to justice, Habakkuk cried out to the people of Judah through his prophetic words, assuring that divine intervention would eradicate the wickedness and oppression.
In the “Iks” by Lewis Thomas, the author describes how a small tribe of hunters from northern Uganda called the Iks tries to survive after being forced by the government to give up their homes and living area and move to a poor hills and become farmers. Society is extremely harsh towards the Iks and this causes them to rebel and become abnormal. The Iks were a bunch of selfish people who only cared about themselves, left elders to starve and die, and did not cared about the children. They didn’t share things with each other and they find joy in the other’s misfortunes. Anthropologist were sent to observe the Iks, an anthropologist described the Iks to be ill- mannered fashion. Over the two years he had studied there, he was constantly being harassed and disgraced. After he had published his book, he wrote how he despised the Iks. Thomas then went on to say that he now sees similar behaviors implying on nations and cities compared to the Iks making points saying that the Iks share common characteristics of greed, cruezl, and selfish just like different nations fighting against each other.
There are many cultures throughout the world, which may be far apart and yet still have similarities. Two of those such cultures, the Basseri, that live in Iran, and the Nuer, whom live in Sudan, have their differences, but also have some similarities. Many of the differences and similarities come from their subsistence strategies and the social and political organization of their societies. With the regions of the world, both the Basseri and the Nuer live in, they’ve had to adapt to the environment they live in along with the limitations imposed by that environment.