Perception In The Chrysalids

Anyone physically different from themselves, the people of Waknuk regard as “abominations” and insulting to the pure image of God based on a fallible old book; Nicholson’s Repentances. Likewise, anyone of a different religious sect, Daesh slaughters with out of context rulings from their religious book. The KKK discriminates against people of colour, regarding them in a very similar way to the way the people of Waknuk regard Deviations. Moreover, calling the Old People’s society (probably secular) a state of “[prevailing] irreligious arrogance” displays their belief that only one way of being is acceptable, and anything else is worthy of punishment (Wyndham 40).

I think the movie Simon Birch and the book The Chrysalids go together extremely well, and really help create a full picture of what it means to be made in the image of God. In both the movie and the book, we see persecution because the way someone was made. Perhaps The Chrysalids more extreme than Simon Birch. In The Chrysalids we see that if anyone differs from what is thought to be “normal” then they are considered blasphemy, and either sent away or even killed. They even had a definition of what a man is, “The definition of man recited itself in my head: ‘and each leg shall be joined twice and have one foot, and each foot five toes, and each toe shall end with a flat nail…’ and so on, until finally: ‘And any creature that shall seem to be human, but is not formed thus is not human.

Societies are built to be a safe, welcoming and an accepting environment, but sometimes end up to be harsh, cruel and irrational places. In John Wyndham’s novel, The Chrysalids, we are introduced to a world we can never imagine being, yet we live in a world that is actually not very different. David Strorm lives in post-apocalyptic world as a telepathic who is regarded as a mutant and goes on a tough journey with his cousin Rosalind to escape from their non-accepting community. The Waknuk society is indeed very similar to our world considering that today’s society also fears things they do not know about, do not always accept differences and has major issues with dealing with sexism. By comparing Waknuk to our world, the similarities

“Pain can be alleviated by morphine but the pain of social ostracism cannot be taken away.” (Jarman). Derek Jarman had a very good point when he said this. We all feel pain at some point in our lives and that pain is often altered by pain medication or other remedies but the pain of being pushed away from society otherwise known as Ostracism, that is pain that cannot be taken away. Ostracism is a problem that has been around forever and is still an unsolved problem today.

In The Chrysalids, Waknuk’s society attempts to limit the community’s interaction with those who have unique

Intolerance and oppression have confronted humans as far as history has been recorded. It dates back as far as 18500 BC. Jews, homosexuals, muslims, gypsies, women, prisoners of war, disabled, Africans, these and more religious and ethnic have been suppressed one time or another throughout history. By examining history, all the horrendous acts of intolerance against humans shows all the areas of oppression still active today and the pattern of methods used to oppress people. The Israelites in Egypt forced to be slaves is one of the oldest examples of oppression we have today.

Page 239. “In a society that is historically divided along harsh, unyielding axes of dominance and subordination, individuals cannot escape the influence of cultural stereotypes and other prescriptive representations of the groups they belong to, nor can they escape the influence of the social and economic advantages and disadvantages that institutions confer on these

“We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced,” said Herbert Spencer, a famous philosopher. Prejudice is frequent everywhere and difficult to stop. It is very difficult to destroy something in someone’s mind, and it will inevitably be expressed through various methods with different degrees of subtlety. Any expression of this can hurt. Subsequently, in Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, the main theme is that prejudice is everywhere, and can be of varying degrees.

There are billions of people in the world. They all start as small infants, then grow up. But not everyone turns out the same as the next. Some turn out to be truly evil beings. The truth is, many humans have done acts of evil, but no one is born evil.

Defining their deviant behavior is more difficult, but their definition of that behavior isn’t seen as deviant . They learned to accept that deviant behavior as a norm. Mary was a horrible mother to Precious, but instead of raising her kids the way her mother raised her, Precious did the opposite. Precious didn’t accept the abuse; therefore she didn’t conform. Precious tried to better her life by using her imagination to escape her world and also by trying to complete school meanwhile her mother would call her” dummy.”

The book The Chrysalids is a unique book with suspense, mystery, and different ways of how people view life. With every good book comes a catchy title like “The Chrysalids” but, what does the title mean? How does it relate to the story being told? Personally, I don’t know the meaning of chrysalids although it’s a very interesting word and so simple so it must have some meaning to the book. The book has a very unique storyline with an intriguing title, but what is the true meaning behind the title?

In Waknuk, people have to identify themselves as a norm by being able to meet the qualities stated in the ‘Definition of Man’. The purpose of this identification is so that they are aware and able to recognize any deformities and imperfections. The Normalcy Certificate is used to confirm that the person is normal and is approved by the government. In addition, women are forced to wear crosses to identify their faith. Though, this encourages people to spread hatred to those who are different.

One would think prejudice is a thing of the past. Unfortunately, that is not the case, prejudice is still a common factor in todays society. Vincent N. Parrillo’s essay “Causes of Prejudice,” helped me to understand how we are affected not just psychologically but in a sociological way as well, as John A. Camacho explains in his A Few Bad Apples opinion piece published in the Pacific Daily News. Both forms of prejudice are continued to be explained through Stud Turkel’s “C.P Ellis,” he gives us an understanding of psychological and sociological prejudice through C.P Ellis’own experiences. This furthers our understanding on how we can be affected by both psychological and sociological prejudices.

Sometimes in life, people will have to deal with other people that are judgmental and listen to stereo types when they know nothing about the person. In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, there are some examples of stereotyping. This story is about a woman who has a good friend of hers and he is blind. The blind man, whose wife had just recently died and was traveling to go visit his family, was stopping at the women’s house overnight. The blind man and the narrator’s wife knew each other.

In all actuality, to be ashamed of your religion or faith is a relation to being persecuted on religious accounts. Humans have the right to choose to be a part of an institution and engage with others who seek fulfillment. Through Wolterstorff’s perspective, Christians never received their human right, of religion, and just like Christians were persecuted centuries ago, today we ae still being persecuted. For this century, however, it seems Comment is trying to break down the walls of misconception. People tend to look at labels, and yes, they do separate, but they do more than separate.