In the book “The Chrysalids”, it shows how messed up the society there is, and is sort of a representation of our society now and back then. The similarities between the book’s society and our society back then and now are discrimination, fear and death/killing of the “minority”. Discrimination is a big factor in our and as well as in the book’s society. In the book, mutants or any other un-normal things are considered the minorities. They are minorities because there are little of them and every time one is found they are discriminated by saying they are a blasphemy towards God as said in page 13.
This is just like our society back then when white people discriminated against black people and not even considering them human. Black people were considered lower class than white people and did not have any rights at all. Another proof that discrimination has happened in the book is that Joseph storm who is the father of David storm is that he was a strong believer of God and said that “The Norm is the Image of God”(p. 27). you know that he a person who discriminates the not normal because in the book he showed no sympathy towards mutants at all even when his sister in law brought her child to him and her baby was not a norm.
Joseph said “Send her away. Tell her to leave the house – and take that with her. ”(p. 71) this relates to how some restraunt in our society back then would not even allow black people into the restraunt. Fear is another big similarity between both societies. In the book, mutants feared to be discovered or they will be destroyed. The mutants feared Waknuk people because according to their rules and beliefs they are basically considered mutants. Fear is the base stone for a lot of the mutants, fear is what lead Rosalind one of the telepaths to kill Michael who was a normal person, She even said it herself “I’ve killed him Michael.
He’s quite dead. ”(p. 128) another proof that fear is a main emotion for mutants is when David was talking to his uncle Axel, “I’m frightened Uncle Axel. What’ll they do when they find out I’m different… “(p. 77) and also when David met Sophie, Shopie’s mother tried really hard to keep Sophie’s extra toe a secret because she fears that if he tells anyone, the people of Waknuk will come looking for them and kill him. Sophie’s mother was so frightened that she said to David “Nobody else must know. Nobody at all – not ever”. (p. 2) this is similar in a way to our society, but our fear is not death fear but rather acceptance fear. Our fear in today’s society is if we are able to fit in, if we do not fit in we are considered weird and will shunned. The society these days despises uniqueness just like how in the book, their society despises mutants who are unique. Last similarity between the book’s society and our society back then is the killing. Long-time back in our society, blacks were discriminated and some were even killed just because of their skin colour. The KKK was the biggest discriminator and killer of minorities, they were bad people.
In the book, people of Waknuk were similar to the KKK because they basically killed mutants who were minorities just because they were different. The KKK had their own reasons for killing the minorities and so did the people of Waknuk. The Waknuk’s reason is that “The devil is the father of deviations (also known as mutants)” (p. 18) and so that was a good enough reason to kill the mutants. In conclusion, the 3 main similiarities between both the books and real life society are discrimination, fear and killing of the minority. So the book’s society is not all that different from our society now today and back then.
