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The Chrysalids Chapter 2 - Theme

The document discusses the themes of a literary work called "The Chrysalids". It explores themes of words, ways of knowing, time and progress, morality, racism, and fear of the unknown. It summarizes a chapter which establishes the setting of a strict religious community called Waknuk that fears and destroys anything deemed impure or mutant. People who differ from the community's norms live in surrounding fringes and are seen as dangerous deviations.

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95 views

The Chrysalids Chapter 2 - Theme

The document discusses the themes of a literary work called "The Chrysalids". It explores themes of words, ways of knowing, time and progress, morality, racism, and fear of the unknown. It summarizes a chapter which establishes the setting of a strict religious community called Waknuk that fears and destroys anything deemed impure or mutant. People who differ from the community's norms live in surrounding fringes and are seen as dangerous deviations.

Uploaded by

George
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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English Literature

Grade 10

What Is a Literary Theme?

A literary theme is the main idea or underlying meaning a writer explores in a novel, short story, or
other literary work. The theme of a story can be conveyed using characters, setting, dialogue, plot, or
a combination of all of these elements.
In simpler stories, the theme may be a moral or message: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” In more
complex stories, the central theme is typically a more open-ended exploration of some fundamental
aspect of society or humanity.

Some themes of the text, “The Chrysalids”, are:

 Words
 Ways of Knowing
 Time and Progress
 Morality
 Racism and Fear of the Unknown
o Real World Allegory

The Chrysalids – Chapter 2

David’s parents consider their well-built house to be a symbol of their strong morals, and his

mother has decorated the house with proverbs from a book called Repentences. The quotes

encourage conformity and emphasize the importance of purity. The largest and most prominent

saying reads “Watch thou for the mutant!” David’s father and the rest of the town exert a great

deal of time destroying these “mutants,” or Offenses, which David describes as “things which did

not look right.” Waknuk has a reputation for Purity, and crops and livestock deemed impure are

destroyed.

According to young David, people who diverge from the norm—known as Deviations—live in the Fringes

that surround Waknuk and the Badlands that extend beyond the Fringes. David has never been to these

places, but believes that anyone who goes there will die from contact with the mutated crops and people

there. Sometimes people from the Fringes raid nearby villages, and the people of Waknuk have formed a
militia to protect themselves. David’s parents taught him and his two sisters to fear the Fringes by telling

them stories of a grotesquely hairy man named Hairy Jack who eats children for supper.

ANALYSIS

The fact that the reader doesn’t learn the name of David’s town until Chapter 2 demonstrates how small

David’s world is. He does not need to explain that he lives in Waknuk because Waknuk is everything he

knows. Horses are used throughout the book as symbols of freedom, and the fact that Elias’ wife is described

as “coltish” (a colt is a young horse) suggests that there may have been others in David’s family who

diverged from the norm. Meanwhile, the origin story of the town establishes it as a place that focuses on a

strict interpretation of what is and isn’t moral.

David’s mother covers the house with sayings from Repentences in order to reinforce their importance. These

sayings make clear that in Waknuk normalcy is determined by physical appearance, and anything that looks

odd should be destroyed. By hanging these proverbs all over the house, however, David’s mother unwittingly

turns them into decorations that are easy to overlook and ignore.

The people of Waknuk feel the need to protect themselves from the Deviations because they are afraid of that

which they do not understand. They also associate physical oddities with moral impurities, and believe anyone

who does not look normal is therefore evil and frightening. Children are taught from a young age to fear new

places and people and anything that looks unusual. It is implied that this fear of mutation stems from past nuclear

war and radiation.

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