In the novel the Chrysalids by John Wyndham the society of Waknut is strict.
Close analysis of the novel reveals the post-tribulation society of Waknut is controlled through isolation, propaganda and dehumanization. Firstly the society uses fear to control and isolate it's citizens. Secondly religious propaganda is used to control the society and limit the individual thoughts and freedoms. Lastly the fringes are living in a dehumanized state.
To begin, Waknut uses fear to control and isolate it's citizens. The lack of freedom puts a very strong impact on Waknut's society because of the fear of deviations and blasphemies. "Be good now or I'll fetch old Maggie from the fringes to you". (21) The parents would use the fear of the deviations to children to act upon on what they want, just like Waknut does with the community. Further on in the book, we learn that it's not only the deviations they are afraid of they are also afraid of god, which explains the reasoning on the strict behaviour seen in the book by the society."This isn't a nice cozy world for anyone, especially not for anyone that is different". (51) Anyone that's different is unauthorized to stay in Waknut and is banned and sent to the fringes. The confinement of Waknut is to directing. Lastly the society of Waknut uses the true image as there guide line to follow. "The devil sends deviations to weaken us" (55) Furthermore, the true image is how god created man and deviations were the devils creation. They believe deviations were evil and would harm people. In conclusion, Waknut is a very stern community that shapes the citizens by using boundaries and limitations.
Secondly, David is stuck in a world with religious propaganda where the Nicholas repentances becomes a re...
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...to kill her then let her go.." (120) Deviations are treated poorly because they are different. Waknut society puts themselves before these people because they are not the image of god so they are not a priority. Moreover, the society of Waknut do not tolerate any deviations: "I couldn't help it, Sophie... I couldn't help it."(52) replied David. After David got beaten by his father he could not help but tell them that Sophie is a deviation.The last thing David would do is put Sophie in danger.
As a result, Waknut does control the citizens with fear, religious propaganda and the fact that the fringes live in a dehumanized state. The community is to strict and isolated. Waknut does not like deviations because they are not the image of god. The fringes are treated poorly and the society isolates it's citizens. These are the key characteristics of a dystopian novel.
The people of Waknuk are irrational and are oblivious to the fact that their beliefs are aimless. Waknuk is located in Labrador just outside of the place the old people call the Fringes. What the people of waknuk thought happened to the world was punishment from god, they called this tribulation. Their thoughts on tribulation had no proof, other than a book called The Repentances which they had no idea where it was from, only that it was from the old peoples time. Tribulation was most likely nuclear war because radiation is probably causing these deviations in the book The landforms also match up to what looks to be Labrador Canada. The people of Sealand could have been post apocalyptic survivors as well as just not following a blind faith.
Despair is evident throughout the book, more so from Waknuk citizens oppressing those who are different. “Katherine, a girl from a neighboring farm who could produce thought shapes similar to David’s was found out and taken to the inspector, where, she was ”broken”. Sally, who was also taken with Katherine to the inspector, said to the rest of the thought shapers, “They’ve broken Katherine…Oh Katherine darling… [t]hey’re torturing her…She’s all clouded now. She can’t hear us.” Her thoughts dissolved into shapeless distress.” (Wyndham 130). Clearly Katherine had been severely hurt enough to reveal her ability of producing thought shapes which would put all the thought shapers in danger and tortured enough that Sally sends distress showing how hopeless they indeed are. Furthermore when David found out his father was apart of the party coming to battle the Fringe people he is in sheer distress. He states, “ ‘Purity…’I said. ‘The will of the Lord. Honor thy father…Am I supposed to forgive him! Or try to kill him?’” (182). David is conflicted and rather flustered between his respect and love for his father yet as a deviant they are fighting for different sides and he knows either he or his father will die in the end. Additionally, during the battle itself, one of David’s most loyal friends parishes before his eyes. D...
The people of Waknuk do not utilize the advantages of permitting deviations and blasphemies to be a part of the society, consequently this decision troubles the society. First, the society does not let deviations that are beneficial to the society live amongst them. When Uncle Axel explains to David about how the churchgoers would not accept spices that had come from a foreign land because the spices could be a deviation, then Uncle Axel concludes, “Whatever they were, they are profitable enough now for ships to sail south again” (61). The rejection of the spices by the churchgoers was to their own disadvantage to exploit the profitability of the spices. Second, due to the high deviation rate families are force to destroy their crops and livestock. David asks Angus Morton what is troubling him and Angus replies, “Weeks of work gone up in smoke, pigs, sheep and cows gobbling up good food just to produce ’bominations” (87). Since the society does not accept deviations, therefore Angus Morton’s hard work is profitless. Finally, the attacks by the Fringes people are a vexation to the inhabitants of Waknuk. The sentimentalists in Rigo outlaw the burning of blasphemies, which allows blasphemies to live in the Fringes and Angus Morton fiercely says, “You get more Fringes dwell...
To conclude, because the government was able to use censorship and promote ignorance, they were able control and manipulate their citizens. This novel also has resemblance to our world, this novel is a reminder of how powerful media can become if used the right way, society can be mislead into thinking false things. By promoting ignorance, the citizens started having very bland lives with no depth. People did not talk about ideas and feelings because they were obsessed and dependent on instant pleasure, they will start denying they own feelings because of this. Television and easy access to entertainment made books nonexistent.
A loss of David’s innocence appears during his killing of a magpie. This “it can be done in a flick of the finger”. The particular significance about this plays an important part in his as he considers that he also is capable of committing such unfortunate yet immoral things. “Looking in the dead bird’s eye, I realised that these strange, unthought of connections - sex and death, lust and violence, desire and degradation - are there, there, deep in even a good heart’s chambers”.
Their attitude towards the world is OK I suppose. They don’t really use that much of the worlds resources in Waknuk or any of the other little towns around. They don’t need to think about how much longer the supplies of these materials are going to last because all that they are using at the moment is trees, which they seem to have plenty of, and water which they get from wells and rivers. There food they grow or hunt and cook and bake things over open fires I would assume.
At the beginning of the Chrysalids, we meet David as a ten-year old boy who has conformed to meet his parent’s strict standards. David then meets a girl named Sophie, who turns out to be a mutant, something he should be frightened of. It is then David first begins to question his father’s beliefs, as shown in the quotation, “A blasphemy was, as had been impressed upon me often enough, a frightful thing. Yet there was nothing frightening about Sophie. She was simply an ordinary little girl,” (Wyndham 14). This phrase is the spark that will ignite the fire of rebellion inside David, as he realizes that his father’s beliefs may not be morally correct and are often flawed. Naturally, David begins to feel a bit betrayed by his father for leading him astray and forcing wrong beliefs upon him, and th...
In a number of African Traditional Religions there exists a varying sense of morality. In Mama Lola author Karen McKarthy Brown states that Vodou morality is a “survival ethic.” Brown goes further and states that morality in Vodou is tailored to the situation and to the specific person or group involved. Brown elaborates by stating that Each spirit has a moral pull, but no one spirit prevails in every situation (Brown pg.242). One of Brown's best explanations of why this is so is because there is no Golden age in the past and no heaven in the future so nothing is valued higher than survival of oneself and the survival of one's group. (Brown pg.242). Furthermore, Vodou is not a religion that promises a dues ex machina (a god that appears and solves a problem). (Brown pg.242). On the other hand, what Vodou does offer is empowerment to fix or do whatever a person wants and allows them to do it for themselves (Brown pg.242). An example of this tailored morality and survival method for women is when they are pregnant, the naming of a father for their child is a part of their strategy (Brown pg.243). Due to Vodou being a religion of survival, it counsels what it must to ensure survival (Brown pg.254). The downside to this lifestyle Brown shares is that it can become brittle and threatened by inner rage (Brown pg.257).
The women in Waknuk are also protective of their loved ones. While there are people like Mary Strorm who will follow everything her husband says and not question him or his religion at all, there are...
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.
...rget it. This negative view of homosexuality is enforced by society, which David absorbs into himself.
Through out the novel Thing Fall Apart, there are many situations have shown societal changes, and those changes always have influences to the characters. One of the specific societal change presented in the novel is the arrival of the white men and Christianity in Umuofia. White men and Christianity missionaries have arrived Umuofia and started to expand their religion. The arrival of Christianity and white men is consider as a societal change because the white men and the new religion have a lot of influence in Umuofia, they trade, built church, school and hospital, they also debates and discuss about religious with the local citizens. Many local citizens, like Okonkwo, rejected white man and Christianity at the first place, they even killed the white man who was the first one to arrive the clan. But slowly they
A lesson taught by Wyndham in The Chrysalids, is that prejudging certain people is not right. In Chapter nine, Petra uses her telepathic powers to communicate with “the group” when she is in trouble, and reveals that her telepathic powers were not harmful, and did not prove, as many had thought, to be evil. They, instead, saved her life. Rosalind admits to the fact that prejudging is not right when she states that, “None of us could command like that” (pg 84). Similarly, Sophie is sent to live in the Fringes, because of her third toe. She was sent there for the wrong reason, along with others deemed different, on account of the people of Waknuk misjudging human kind. David reveals that prejudging certain people is not right when he defends Sophie in Chapter six saying, “But Sophie isn’t really different—not in any other way” (pg 55). In the beginning of The Chrysalids, Uncle Axel admits to David, in one of their talks that there is no right or wrong way for a person to look; therefore there is no way to judge rightly. Axel illustrates that this is true by saying, “I’m telling you that nobody, nobody really knows what the true image is. They all think they k...
There are many different religions in the world but they are all capable of doing similar things. Religion plays a significant role in the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In this book religion is important to the people of Umuofia ,which is the village where the protagonist, Okonkwo lives. The people of the village believed there was only one religion ,and when another religion was introduced to them they would not believe in it. This religion was Christianity. During the novel the power of religion both guides and destroys the society of Umuofia.
Through most of the novel, Okonkwo, his family, and the villagers all experience this struggle. As the missionaries continue to live in the Evil Forest, they repeatedly gain village converts as a result of the Igbo beliefs constantly being proven inaccurate. Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye converts because of confusion in what his people believe, and Okonkwo changes drastically as a person because of the missionaries’ arrival and actions. There are many themes evident throughout Things Fall Apart, but one of the most prominent is the struggle between change and tradition, in the sense that some people change, but others don’t; that clearly takes a toll on