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Theme, Atmosphere, and Style of The Chrysalids. Theme: Theme is very closely
tied with satire in this novel. Numerous main ideas ...
Submitted by Stimfreak on April 23, 2006
Category: Miscellaneous
Words: 1110 | Pages: 5
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Theme: Theme is very closely tied with satire in this novel. Numerous main ideas of the novel are pointed towards the shortcomings of Waknuk society, and even at our society. For example, Waknuk society will banish from their society anything that is not made in their concept of the true image. In our history of mankind some groups have always reacted negatively towards groups that are supposedly different. Recent historical events of genocide make what Waknuk does look like child's play. For instance, during World War II, when six million Jews were killed. The expulsion of the Armenians from Turkey, in Cambodia in the 1970s and in Rwanda in 1994. Our society has institutions and clinics to change to abnormal into our concept of normal.
David's society, despite its great concern for the True Image, allows the great-horses to be introduced into their society. Although they are obviously not normal, for the sake of profit the True Image can be ignored. Hypocrisy is shown to be a universal human condition and the people of Waknuk are no different from us.
The chief critical theme, however, is the one implied by the title of the novel. Chrysalid is a term taken from biology. It describes the state through which a larva must pass before becoming an insect. In this state, the larva is wrapped in a hard case or shell, takes no food and is totally inactive. This is precisely the state that Joseph Strorm and his kind are trying to maintain and force on humanity.
As the Sealand lady points out, evolution cannot be denied and the chrysalid cannot be stopped in its development to the next stage. The Waknuk society's anti-intellectualism, which tries to put a stop to both logic and imagination, and its efforts to deny evolution, are doomed to be a dead end.
Wyndham's attack on this kind of thinking varies from satire to outright virulence....
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