The sibling closest in age to David. She is 5 years older than David, meaning David often played alone due to the age difference. Petra Strorm Chapter 2 discusses David’s family tree and his grandfather, Elias Strorm, the founder of Waknuk. Elias' son, Joseph, who is David's father, is an important man in their town and is a very religious individual—as is his wife, Emily. The Strorm’s family life is filled with religious practices. The religion is focused on keeping the “pure” form of humans, as defined by their text Nicholson’s Repentances. Anyone who does not conform to the norm is considered Deviant. Most Deviants live in the Fringes, the area outside of Waknuk and the surrounding farming communities. As a farming society, Waknuk is also concerned with destroying any genetically mutated plant or animal, known as Offences. For mutant crops, they are burned. Mutant animals have their throats slit at dawn. On the way home, David suddenly realizes that in his religion’s texts, it states that any person who falls outside of the guidelines of the correct number of body parts, etc., is not considered human and is considered a “Blasphemy against God.” David is puzzled and perturbed: he does not understand how it would be possible that Sophie is not an ordinary little girl.

The Chrysalids | Book reviews | RGfE - Reading Groups The Chrysalids | Book reviews | RGfE - Reading Groups

The inhabitants of post-apocalypse Labrador have vague knowledge of the "Old People", a technologically advanced civilization they believe was destroyed when God sent " Tribulation" to the world to punish their forebears' sins. The inhabitants practise a form of fundamentalist Christianity; they believe that to follow God's word and prevent another Tribulation, they must preserve absolute normality among the surviving humans, plants and animals, and therefore practice eugenics. Humans with even minor mutations are considered blasphemies and either killed or sterilized and banished to the Fringes, a lawless and untamed area rife with animal and plant mutations, and suggested to be contaminated with radiation. Arguments occur over the keeping of a tailless cat or the possession of over-sized horses. These are deemed by the government to be legitimate breeds, either existing before or achieved through conventional breeding. The government's position is considered both cynical and heretical by many of the orthodox frontier community, and it is suggested that they support the usage of these animals for the sole purpose of their greater efficiency. Joseph Strorm’s brother who was banished to live in the Fringes outside of the Waknuk society. People call him the spider-man because his limbs are so long and skinny that he resembles a spider. When, as a young child, his "deviance" of having long limbs was discovered, and he mysteriously disappeared from Waknuk, likely at the hands of his mother and nurse. Gordon resents Joseph because if Gordon had been deemed normal, he would have been the heir of Waknuk, not Joseph. Sophie Wender The man who comes upon the group of telepaths in the woods after Petra has sent out her distress call about her pony. He is a new neighbor of Katherine and Sally. He is likely one of the people who reported the telepaths to the authorities. Joe Darley Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth I first read The Chrysalids when I was 12, an age when any child is beginning to wonder about where he or she fits into the world. This is the subject of John Wyndham's novel. His protagonist, David Strorm, inhabits a prospering district on the edge of the Unknown. Everybody lives in awe of the "Old People", whose might built marvels, yet they believe that God sent "Tribulation" (most likely some form of nuclear war) to punish them for amorality. Hence they fear mutations, expelling anybody who bears a sign of difference. In this, they resemble the pioneer community in Arthur Miller's The Crucible (written two years before Wyndham's book and reflecting the same anxieties).

The term “Cosy Catastrophe” was coined by Brian Aldiss to classify John Wyndham’s novels. Why would The Chrysalids be considered a Cosy Catastrophe, and how might the novel go beyond that classification?

The Chrysalids - ESLEO Online: Story Analysis The Chrysalids - ESLEO Online: Story Analysis

The Chrysalids is a post-nuclear apocalypse story of genetic mutation in a devastated world and explores the lengths the intolerant will go to keep themselves pure. Lou Martiniano. "Chrysalids & Survival, The". BBCradio-audiobook.info. Archived from the original on 4 May 2009 . Retrieved 22 May 2010. David's cousin. She is also a member of the telepathic group, and David’s close friend. Their relationship evolves into a romantic one towards the end of the novel. She offers her insight to both David and Petra, and she is quite protective of them. As a cautious individual, she is also very loving and optimistic, and helps plan and make decisions in the best interest of David and Petra. She is a strong woman, and often uses a bow and arrow to protect herself. Angus Morton is her father. Angus Morton

Joseph Strorm is the father of David and Petra. He is a domineering personality, deeply religious, and unyielding on the subject of mutations and blasphemy, even punishing David severely for an unintentionally blasphemous remark about "needing an extra hand" to apply a bandage. a b Wyndham, John. "Random House, Inc. Academic Resources | The Chrysalids by John Wyndham". Randomhouse.com . Retrieved 22 May 2010. Petra looked at us, then at the figure on the bed, then at us again, expectantly. When neither of us moved she appeared to decide that the initiative lay with her. She crossed to the bedside and knelt down concernedly beside it. Tentatively she put a hand on the dark hair. The escape of a group of children from this society, who had a 'mutation' of their own which was a form of telepathy, also provides a gripping and suspenseful tale which readers found very involving.

The Chrysalids (Audio Download): John Wyndham, Noah Reid The Chrysalids (Audio Download): John Wyndham, Noah Reid

David, Rosalind, and Petra have been kidnapped by the Fringes people and are being taken to meet the Fringes leaders. The Fringe people are not all as strange-looking as David expected: they mostly just look dirty. Michael is with the army of people from Waknuk and is updating David on the army’s whereabouts. According to Petra, the Sealand people are going to rescue them, but Michael is skeptical. David meets Gordon Strorm/the spider-man again, who is the leader of the Fringes group. David fights Gordon because Gordon wants to take Rosalind to bear his children. David is thrown out of the Fringes encampment; Rosalind and Petra are kept there as prisoners.One reader actively didn't like the book very much, describing it as a “good Boy's Own story”, and was put off by the repetitive descriptions of the bigotry of David's father and his religious fundamentalist community, the patronising homilies of his Uncle Alex, and the almost equally bigoted New Zealand community. (Another reader particularly liked Uncle Alex, his thoughts and his explanations of how different people looked at their differences). How women’s roles are shaped in The Chrysalids relies heavily on their place in the home, as well as their ability to survive. How does the novel portray this conflict in the struggles of the female characters of Waknuk and the Fringes? In describing his grandfather, David alludes to the fact that he would eventually doubt the honor-laden picture of him that the rest of his family espouses. One again, David is emphasizing his breaking out of the constraints of his society. Elias Strorm is an allusion to Abraham of the Bible, the patriarch of his people, directed by God to leave his own country for another land. Much like Abraham, Elias left his own country because of his strong religious beliefs. Also like Abraham, we find out later that Elias disowns and would have sacrificed his own son, Gordon Strorm/the spider-man, because of his abnormality. A powerful post-apocalyptic allegory of persecution and intolerance, the Penguin Modern Classics edition of John Wyndham's science fiction masterpiece The Day of the Triffids contains an introduction by M. John Harrison.

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham - AbeBooks The Chrysalids by John Wyndham - AbeBooks

The chief interest in this book, we thought, was the clever handling of its themes of a post-apocalyptic society, authoritarian and quasi-religious in nature, dedicated to a kind of purity of race or of species, which one reader compared with Hitler's Arianism. Equally well put is the idea, described obliquely rather than spelled out, of the apocalypse which brought this situation about, which we are free to assume was a nuclear war. Particularly resonant also is the concept of what the 'old world' was like, or what the book's characters thought about it. One reader said:A]bsolutely and completely brilliant... The Chrysalids is a top-notch piece of sci-fi that should be enjoyed for generations yet to come.