The Chrysalids is a science fiction novel, even though it may not seem so. The overall setting of a futuristic and post apocalyptic world gives it the main connection to the sci-fi genre. The stereotype of a science fiction is usually a high technologically advanced society different from our modern world. Well the society that the characters are in is very different from our times.
The mutations that have occurred from the radiation poisoning clearly depict a different way of living in the future. The future has become a war between different species of human; the normal verses the mutated. Also with the telekinesis powers that David and the several others posses contributes the theme that a science fiction piece would express. Wyndham has created a new interpretation of what a sci-fi story may be, not just a world that contains complex sciences and technologies but also a world that has experienced a sudden drawback to technologies such as the atomic bomb. The society has gone back to a superstitious way of thinking; following the guides of a corrupt religion. Wyndham describing the way humanity’s morals evolve as more knowledge and information is learned. The author is re-writing history on the renaissance of society but the evolution taking place in the future instead.
The Chrysalids seem to go back in time after a nuclear bomb blew up a society. At the very end of Fahrenheit 451, a nuclear bomb is dropped in Montag’s society. Would Montag’s society end up becoming like David’s society and go back in time to books and religion after the bombing from having and depending on technologies before the bombing?
By: susan92 on June 11, 2009
at 9:42 pm