ipl-logo

The Chrysalids Gender Analysis

952 Words4 Pages

In the dystopian genre, the role women play in these stories vary greatly from strong heroines to submissive housewives. In the novel titled The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, the women are portrayed far more like the latter throughout the story. This is a constantly repeated theme displaying to the reader that in this society, the women are expected to always be supportive and in constant servitude of their husband; the women who stray away from these preset quotas of how they must act are ridiculed; and a woman’s main purpose that defines her worth is her ability to produce normal, healthy children.. In Waknuk,the women are expected to act as one dimensional stereotypes. The women of Waknuk are expected to always stay supportive and …show more content…

The author establishes this issue well in the cases of Sophie Wender, Rosalind Morton, and Aunt Harriet. These individuals are undoubtedly the most developed emotionally, as well as the most assertive and genuine representations of present day women, shown throughout the novel.. Nevertheless their way of acting is considered “sinful” because they stray from the gendered norms, this is exceedingly present in Aunt Harriet. She is desperate to keep her child even though the baby is considered a deviation. Her attempts at tricking the inspector falls short as her own sister and her husband deny her pursuit and disdain her. “…women get strange ideas at times…she is a dangerous and shameless woman” (73). This statement about Aunt Harriet by Joseph Strorm is a prime example of how women are expected to remain detached and dispassionate about their personal, emotional struggles and have no intervention about how she is placed in …show more content…

A constant theme in what makes some women more valuable and a higher asset in the Waknuk society is her ability to be a mother. From Mrs. Wender’s disbelief as to how well she is treated by her husband given the fact her child is a deviant, to Aunt Harriet’s uncalled for suicide, to Sophie’s sterility causing the man she so dearly loved, to lust after Rosalind purely for the fact she could produce an offspring for him. Sophie explains her dilemma to David in her statement “…I’d have given him babies gladly, if I could” (167). Aunt Harriet reveals her struggles as she pleads her sister to let her swap children for a night to fool the inspector into providing her a certificate of normalcy. Her reasoning behind wanting to keep the child at all costs is profoundly heartbreaking. “This is the third time. They’ll take my baby away again like they took the others. I can’t stand that-not again. Henry will turn me out…He’ll find another wife, who can give him proper children. There’ll be nothing-nothing in the world for me-nothing” (71). This forlorn desperate monologue given by Aunt Harriett is what truly cements the treatment of women when they do not meet the societal standard. This idea that a woman who cannot produce healthy children is less of a woman is not a belief shared exclusively by men. Mrs. Wender is appalled by the fact her husband has not thrown her out for

Show More
Related
1598 Words | 7 Pages

“‘As a wife and mother,’ cried Lucie, most earnestly, ‘I implore you to have pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess, against my innocent husband, but do use it in his behalf. O sister-woman, think of me as a wife and a mother!’ Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said, turning to her friend The Vengeance: ‘The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were as little as this child, and much less, have not been greatly considered? We have known their husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept from them, often enough? All of our lives, we have seen our sister-women suffer, in themselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst, sickness, misery, oppression, and neglect of all kinds?”

Read More
801 Words | 4 Pages

In the nineteenth century, woman had no power over men in society. They were limited in their freedom, as their lives were controlled by their husbands. Some women did not mind this lifestyle, and remained obedient, while some rebelled and demanded their rights. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are short stories that exposes the lifestyle women lived in the nineteenth century. The protagonists from both stories, Jane and Georgiana, similarly lived a male dominated lifestyle.

Read More
1075 Words | 5 Pages

It may skew her thinking and at times be subjective. The intended audience is someone who is studying literature and interested in how women are portrayed in novels in the 19th century. The organization of the article allows anyone to be capable of reading it.

Read More
944 Words | 4 Pages

Societal expectations of women during this time period were for women to follow orders from their husband no matter the conditions. A man would not necessarily get married for love, but rather for the ownership of the women. Edna’s attempt to become an independent women is made difficult due to the the expectation from others, including her husband. When discussing with Doctor Mandelet about going away with her husband, Edna responds, “Perhaps-no, I am not going.

Read More
914 Words | 4 Pages

“This is the third time. They’ll take my baby again like they took the others. I can't stand that-not again. Henry will turn me out. He’ll find another wife, who can give him proper children.”

Read More
737 Words | 3 Pages

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, is set in the 1960’s, a time when men and women had specific and restrictive roles in society. Men were the ones to work and earn money for their families and women were expected to a caring and obedient homemakers. In many ways, those gender stereotypes are still very present today. The contrasting opinions of Atticus Finch and Aunt Alexandra provide the reader with the different views on how men and women should be raised, which in turn, affects the readers thoughts and opinions on the gender expectations and roles that are present in today’s society.

Read More
738 Words | 3 Pages

In our daily lives, we as modern individuals can be seen drifting through each day, determined to make it past the dreaded 24 hours of school, work, or anything within our daily lives. And as omniscient threats linger in the back, law enforcement brutality, political injustices, world war tensions, and large business corporations growth, we simply ignore them. Why? Because we are so determined to reach the end of each minute of the day, worrying about our appearances, our relationships status, and whether or not we will fail our next midterm. And as all those “small things” become background noise to our own selfish worries, they continue to collide and create deeper friction, allowing enough potential for a catastrophe, something that we

Read More
2199 Words | 9 Pages

The Cult of True Womanhood in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In her essay “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860”, Barbara Welter discusses the expected roles and characteristics that women were supposed to exhibit in accordance with the extreme patriarchy of the nineteenth-century America. The unnamed narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is seen to conform and ultimately suffer from this patriarchal construct that Welter labels the Cult of True Womanhood. The narrator falls victim to this life of captivity by exhibiting several of the fundamental characteristics that Welter claims define what a woman was told she ought to be.

Read More
1051 Words | 5 Pages

Would you ever want to live in a place where having a deviation is not allowed? Or where woman’s rights are basically nonexistent? Well this is where David Strorm is living in John Wyndhams book, “The Chrysalids”. This terrible place is called Waknuk. Primarily, it is ruled by religion.

Read More
915 Words | 4 Pages

Kingston’s mother exposes the story of her aunt to her as somewhat of a warning. Kingston’s mother explains to her how crucial it is to understand that what she does as a woman in their society is looked upon closely

Read More
1141 Words | 5 Pages

Furthermore, the author displays a dystopian society completely dominated by a totalitarian and theocratic state. The main subject of this novel is the role assigned to women, mainly represented by the handmaids. In Gilead, the made-up country where the novel takes place, women are completely subjected by the government, and especially by men, who clearly have a higher status than women. Moreover, women’s freedom is entirely restricted, as they cannot leave their house at their will, they are forbidden to hold properties or jobs, they cannot read or write, and they are treated as sexual slaves whose only purpose in life is to bear children for elite spouses. The other option is a miserable, short life at the Colonies (a type of concentration camp), and death.

Read More
1091 Words | 5 Pages

Gender Inequality: A Woman’s Struggle in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman captures the lives of women in a society based on societal expectations during the late nineteenth century. She focuses on the issue of gender inequality where women were often discriminated against and expected to fulfill the role of a perfect wife and mother. The narrator is based on on Gilman’s personal experience of suffering from her treatment for postpartum depression due to the social restrictions on women which represents a reflection on women's social status in society. The narrator, who remains anonymous, is depicted as a depressed and isolated prisoner who is oppressed under her husband’s control and struggles to break free.

Read More
2801 Words | 12 Pages

Jane Austen lived in a period at the turn from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth century, which was a period of mixed thoughts, which conflicted all the times. Among all the conflicts, the most important one was the disparity in social status between men and women. Not only men’s status was in the center of the society but also common people thought it was right that men were much more important than women were. In those days girls were neither allowed nor expected to study much because they did not have to work for a living. They were supposed to stay at home and look beautiful in order to get suitable husbands.

Read More
1567 Words | 7 Pages

In 1880s, women in America were trapped by their family because of the culture that they were living in. They loved their family and husband, but meanwhile, they had hard time suffering in same patterns that women in United States always had. With their limited rights, women hoped liberation from their family because they were entirely complaisant to their husband. Therefore, women were in conflicting directions by two compelling forces, their responsibility and pressure. In A Doll’s House, Ibsen uses metaphors of a doll’s house and irony conversation between Nora and Torvald to emphasize reality versus appearance in order to convey that the Victorian Era women were discriminated because of gender and forced to make irrational decision by inequity society.

Read More
1495 Words | 6 Pages

The role of women in literature crosses many broad spectrums in works of the past and present. Women are often portrayed as weak and feeble individuals that submit to the situations around them, but in many cases women are shown to be strong, independent individuals. This is a common theme that has appeared many times in literature. Across all literature, there is a common element that causes the suffering and pain of women. This catalyst, the thing that initiates the suffering of women, is essentially always in the form of a man.

Read More

More about The Chrysalids Gender Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document