Flaws In The Chrysalids

Humans are probably the smartest organisms living on this planet as of now. We can all agree on that. We could have anything ever imagined. All we need is a good idea and some tools. Virtually nothing can stop us. We all like to agree on that. But we never like to think about our flaws. We all have imperfections just like every other thing in the universe. Most of us just do not pay attention to them. We are not perfect, after all. One of the few people who believe we humans must accept our flaws is John Wyndham. The evidence is scattered throughout his book, The Chrysalids. His book is a well thought out plot that indirectly recognizes our many problems. Three of such problems that are addressed in the book are that we are religious fundamentalists, we fear the unknown, and the fact that all humans have slight cases of megalomania.

It is something we cannot stop. Many of us fear spiders or ghosts or even homework. But something all of us fear is the unknown. We have and we always will fear the unknown because we don’t know what the unknown is capable of. It is basic human nature. We can see examples of this fear all throughout history, like slavery and the Holocaust. In The Chrysalids, Wyndham easily portrays the fear through the mutants. The normal people in Waknuk are scared of the mutants living among them and in the Fringes (the area where the mutants are exiled to). Many of the mutants there are not feared because their mutations are visible and look harmless. This is not the case when they come to know of the telepath group. They don’t know what the telepaths can do because they cannot see their mutations. It is a mental trait and so the mutation isn’t visible. Because of their fear and curiosity, they try to capture some of the telepaths and experiment on them. They succeed in this and two or more telepaths are now dead. They did this partly to know more about the impending danger of the telepaths and partly because they are all religious fundamentalists. They experimented on them to find out what they can do and to find ways to defeat them because they are a potential threat to the

We think too highly of ourselves and think that we are too great for each other and for our inferiors. This is actually a common human trait. Megalomania is actually a very serious and severe disease but according to various studies, everyone suffers from it just a bit, if not a lot. Some people have more than other and some people have very serious cases of it. The people with megalomania think they are all powerful and great and that they can control everything. In The Chrysalids, megalomania does not really play a huge part in the making of the plot but it is still quite significant. The two main megalomaniacs in the novel are Joseph and Gordon Strorm. Sons of the great Elias Strorm, founder of Waknuk, they both long for complete control of Waknuk and the surrounding area. They are both power hungry and they both want each other dead. These are the mental traits for most megalomaniacs. Gordon is a deviation while Joseph is not. Gordon was exiled to the Fringes and Joseph is now the leader of Waknuk. Gordon was supposed to be the heir apparent but Joseph inherited the power after Gordon was sent away. Throughout their lives, they constantly fight over the power and possession through small skirmishes but soon meet with their ends when they fight in a large battle near the end of the book. Both the Strorms are natural leaders and both of them qualify for extreme cases of