Theme Of Discrimination In The Chrysalids

The novel The Chrysalids by John Wyndham is about a group of people with telepathic abilities trying to hide them from their family and their community, which is all about purity, normality, and the image of God. When everything starts to crumble around them, they have no choice but to flee to avoid torture and death. This novel introduces the idea of discrimination early on and continues it throughout the entirety of The Chrysalids as it plays an important role in both the development of the characters and the story itself. Discrimination is ever present in society, and shapes who one becomes. This is evident in the society of Waknuk through the society’s discrimination of appearances. This can also be shown by their discrimination of

The most basic and important thing to these people is the “definition of man” in the “image of God.” This means that to be considered human one must have “one body, one head, two arms, and two legs: that each arm should be jointed in two places and end in one hand: that each hand should have four fingers and one thumb: that each finger should bear a flat fingernail ... and so on.” If one has an undue amount of any of these, they are not considered human, but something almost human, the devil’s creation, a mutant. This basic idea is extremely prejudicial and discriminatory and will affect the rest of a persons life. One of the most important people (in the sense of power) in Waknuk is the inspector. He decides whether something is “right” or not. Shortly after birth the local inspector judges if the child is to receive its “certificate of normality,” which will allow it to live in Waknuk or other communities. If a child is not given a certificate of normality they are banished to the Fringes and not allowed in Waknuk. The very thing that these people base their lives on is severely discriminatory and will affect these people for the rest of their lives, normal or otherwise. These people are so concerned with the purity of everything that they will burn entire fields of crops if they are at all deviant (not normal). They also kill livestock if it looks of acts even a bit different. “Usually the first sign that [an