The Chrysalids Essay, Research Paper
The Chrysalids
Imagine living in a place where there seemed to be a sense of evil in the eyes of
everyone, except David Strorm. This place was called Waknuk. Waknuk was a place
where anything out of the ?norm? was wrong and sinful and could even end in a
consequence as serious as death. Life was good for those who believed and practiced the
Waknuk religion. For those whom were not believers in the Waknuk religion found life to
be hard and unfair. Throughout David?s life in Waknuk he was faced with many tools of
evil such as prejudice, pride and deception. David painfully learned that that prejudice
causes individuals to be isolated from each other, pride causes individuals to mistreat each
other and finally that deception causes much hurt and distress among individuals. The first
tool of evil that I found present in The Chrysalids was prejudice.
David was faced for the first time in his life a tool of evil — prejudice. It all started
the day he met Sophie Wender. She was peering through the bushes when David was
playing happily in a sand pile. They soon became best friends and enjoyed playing together
for endless hours. One day as they were playing Sophie’s foot became caught between two
stones. When David helped her free her foot he saw that she had six toes on each foot.
Her toes really did not bother David in fact it made their friendship grow deeper in trust.
They enjoyed going down to the stream to go catch little creatures. Sophie now felt quite
comfortable around David and often took off her shoes to reveal her six toes. Their world
came shattering down when Alan Ervin saw Sophie’s footprint in the dirt that clearly
showed her six toes. Sophie was now discovered. She and her family had to flee because
the community of Waknuk was very prejudice and they would probably end up killing
Sophie and her family. It saddened David greatly to see his best friend leave. The pain did
not end there, Alan told Joseph all about Sophie’s footprint. The next morning David was
interrogated by the inspector and was forced to confess that he was concealing
information about someone who was not a ?norm?. Prejudice was not the only tool of evil
that David was faced with, he was also faced with pride.
Pride for the Waknuk religion was in everyone. Everyone was so full of pride that
they no longer made decisions with heart or compassion, instead decisions were made
through what history said. It all started when David’s Aunt Harriet came to Waknuk, he
had not seen her much because she lived fifteen miles away in the Kentak direction. When
she arrived at the Strorm residence she quickly made it up to the nursery where David’s
mother lay with her new born, Petra. As she made her way upstairs she was carrying a
small white bundle. The small white bundle that Harriet carried was
such she had given birth to week before. There was a slight difference between Petra and
Harriet’s baby girl, which was that Petra had a certificate of normalcy and Harriet?s baby
had not gotten one for the slightest flaw that her child had. Harriet asked her sister to help
her. She asked her to switch babies for a couple of days until she got the certificate of
normalcy. Emily refused and even had the nerve to call her sisters baby a monster. When
Joseph joined the conversation he became so full of pride that that he did not hear
Harriet?s cry for help and for compassion. Joseph continued to taunt Harriet, by telling her
that she should be ashamed for asking to do such a favor he ended by saying that she
should be greatly sorry for having to commit such a sin of bringing a child into the Strorm
home. Joseph showed no remorse about what he said about Harriet and her baby. He and
Emily?s pride was far too great for Harriet that she ended up committing suicide. This
shows that the evil of pride caused Joseph and Emily to mistreat Harriet who did not agree
with them. The last tool of evil that David was faced with was deception.
Deception seemed to be a game that Alan Ervin enjoyed to play. For him evil was
used as a tool for deception. He first deceived David and Sophie. He hurt them both when
he turned Sophie in to the inspector and Joseph when he saw her footprint that showed
her six toes. Alan was once again deceptive when he married Anne. Anne who was part of
the group that shared the special ability of communicating through thought patterns. By
Anne marrying a ?norm? she was not only putting herself in danger of being found out but
also the whole group. Since Alan had once already deceived David and Sophie there was a
great chance that he would do it again. Anne was a women in love in love, she would have
wanted to share everything with him even if it meant hurting the people she loved most.
Anne soon came to the point where she was deceiving herself. She was constantly
disguising her ability by not communicating with anyone. Alan?s deceptive ways ended the
day he was murdered. Anne could not handle the death of her husband and she soon
committed suicide. The evil of deception caused much pain to David, Sophie and
eventually the whole group. Evil had contributed a great deal to deception, prejudice and
pride.
We have learned, throughout David’s life in Waknuk he had to through much
hardship. Evil was used as a tool in many of the situations that he faced. He was faced
with prejudice that caused Sophie to be isolated pride that caused Emily and Joseph to
mistreat Harriet who did not agree with them and lastly the pain that David felt from the
deception of Allen. I feel that in The Chrysalids evil was used as a tool for prejudice, pride
and deception.
324