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The chrysalids thesis analysis
The chrysalids thesis analysis
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Amidst all the pain in John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, there is love. This powerful human emotion has survived in the oppressing society of Waknuk. Wyndham portrays love among hardships to remind us that there is always hope for humanity, despite obstacles it may encounter. Through the Wenders’ sacrificial, unresentful devotion to their mutant daughter, through David’s discovery of reassurance and affection in his uncle amidst fear and uncertainty, and through the telepaths’ undying love for one another despite persecution, The Chrysalids shows us that while Tribulation erased many of society’s aspects, it was unable to extinguish the human quality called love.
Firstly, despite having to live a weary, careful life, John and Mary Wender never resent their deviant child, Sophie. Like everyone in Waknuk, they knew the consequences of harboring a mutant. They knew how careful and alert they would have to be to raise a deviant child. Considering the extreme measures that the Waknuk people underwent to keep their society ‘pure’, the Wenders must have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect their daughter. The novel states that Sophie and her parents lived apart from the rest of Waknuk. They would have had to do this to hide the child from suspicious eyes. Their remote location, however, was not enough to ease their worries, as they lived prepared for the day they would have to flee. Although they were constantly on anxious guard for any who might discover Sophie’s mutation, the stress was not enough to make the parents unaffectionate towards their daughter; both Mr. and Mrs. Wender displayed love for their child in ways modern parents would. Mrs. Wender’s genuine concern when Sophie sprained her ankle and Mr. Wender’s warm response t...
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...ths’ bond of trust, friendship, and love was the source of strength that allowed them to pull through when they were persecuted.
Hence, The Wenders’ determination to protect their daughter in a hostile society, Uncle Axel’s willingness to love and guide his insecure nephew, and the telepaths’ devotion to their closely-knitted group remind us that no matter how corrupt the majority of society becomes, there will always be those who will keep alive the beautiful qualities that make us human. Thus, it is clear that Wyndham purposely incorporated loving relationships in the midst of suffering to keep alive our hope in the human race. Love is an unique quality that can emerge through hardships. The Chrysalids is meant to remind us that the power of this emotion can overcome despair.
Works Cited
Wyndham, John. The Chrysalids. London: Penguin Group, 1955. Print.
...the narrator and all people a way of finding meaning in their pains and joys. The two brothers again can live in brotherhood and harmony.
Within every story of tragic events there is always a visible spark of hope. The novel The Chrysalids by John Wyndham is a story of great despair and tragedy yet with hope prominently noticeable. The protagonist, David as well as his companions face various challenges, which result in double edged swords exhibiting despair throughout; however, nearing the end the desperation breaks apart letting hope shine through.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
In Song of Solomon, through many different types of love, Ruth's incestuous love, Milkman and Hagar's romantic love, and Guitar's love for his race, Toni Morrison demonstrates not only the readiness with which love will turn into a devastating and destructive force, but also the immediacy with which it will do so. Morrison tackles the amorphous and resilient human emotion of love not to glorify the joyous feelings it can effect but to warn readers of love's volatile nature. Simultaneously, however, she gives the reader a clear sense of what love is not. Morrison explicitly states that true love is not destructive. In essence, she illustrates that if "love" is destructive, it is most likely, a mutation of love, something impure, because love is all that is pure and true.
Most women in the novel play the role of bystanders and supporters of their husbands. In Waknuk, the women don't dare to oppose the laws of anti-mutation as they fear the punishment they might receive from God or the society itself. They have to follow the customs of Waknuk, whether they agree with it or not. An example would be Sophie's mother, Mary Wender. Even though her daughter is a deviation and she is supposed to unhappy with the religious laws in Waknuk, she still wears a cross as she is expected to do so within the society. This can be seen from David's first encounter with her, when he noticed the “conventional cross” she had on her clothes. Another example would be during all the times David was hit by his father, his mother, Mary Strorm never once had comforted him. This could probably be because she knew that if she'd helped David, it would've been like going against her husband, which she could not do no matter what as a woman in Waknuk. The women have almost no right to voice ther opinion or raise doubts about Waknuk's religion, even if they find it vey unfair.
Much like Lorraine Hansberry, Madeleine L’Engle believes that “the growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys.” Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Glass Menagerie, and Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias use the idea that even through struggles their characters show that love always endures. Although loving someone, who is not particularly loveable, is one of the most difficult parts of being human, it is possible by remembering that addictions can be reversed, blood is forever, and a ring is more than just an object.
...verse circumstances, but through their self-determination, they are able to triumph over these circumstances, and gain the power they lacked at the beginning of their journeys.
In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, love proves to be a dangerous and destructive force. Upon learning that Sethe killed her daughter, Beloved, Paul D warns Sethe “Your love is too thick” (193). Morrison proved this statement to be true, as Sethe’s intense passion for her children lead to the loss of her grasp on reality. Each word Morrison chose is deliberate, and each sentence is structured with meaning, which is especially evident in Paul D’s warning to Sethe. Morrison’s use of the phrase “too thick”, along with her short yet powerful sentence structure make this sentence the most prevalent and important in her novel. This sentence supports Paul D’s side on the bitter debate between Sethe and he regarding the theme of love. While Sethe asserts that the only way to love is to do so passionately, Paul D cites the danger in slaves loving too much. Morrison uses a metaphor comparing Paul D’s capacity to love to a tobacco tin rusted shut. This metaphor demonstrates how Paul D views love in a descriptive manner, its imagery allowing the reader to visualize and thus understand Paul D’s point of view. In this debate, Paul D proves to be right in that Sethe’s strong love eventually hurts her, yet Paul D ends up unable to survive alone. Thus, Morrison argues that love is necessary to the human condition, yet it is destructive and consuming in nature. She does so through the powerful diction and short syntax in Paul D’s warning, her use of the theme love, and a metaphor for Paul D’s heart.
Gaitskill’s “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” focuses on the father and his downward spiral of feeling further disconnected with his family, especially his lesbian daughter, whose article on father-daughter relationships stands as the catalyst for the father’s realization that he’d wronged his daughter and destroyed their relationship. Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” focuses on Mel and his attempt to define, compare, and contrast romantic love, while leaving him drunk and confused as he was before. While both of my stories explore how afflicted love traumatizes the psyche and seem to agree that love poses the greatest dilemma in life, and at the same time that it’s the most valued prospect of life, the two stories differ in that frustrated familial love causes Gaitskill's protagonist to become understandable and consequently evokes sympathy from the reader, but on the other hand frustrated romantic love does nothing for Carver's Protagonist, except keep him disconnected from his wife and leaving him unchanged, remaining static as a character and overall unlikable. In comparing “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, together they suggest that familial love is more important than romantic love, which we relentlessly strive to achieve often forgetting that we’ll forever feel alone without familial love, arguably the origin of love itself.
There exists no power as inexplicable as that of love. Love cannot be described in a traditional fashion; it is something that must be experienced in order for one to truly grasp its full enormity. It is the one emotion that can lead human beings to perform acts they are not usually capable of and to make sacrifices with no thought of the outcome or repercussions. Though love is full of unanswered questions and indescribable emotions, one of the most mystifying aspects of love is its timeless nature. Love is the one emotion, unlike superficial sentiments such as lust or jealousy, which can survive for years, or even generations. In the novel The Gargoyle, the author, Andrew Davidson, explores the idea of eternal love between two people, a union that spans over centuries spent both together and apart. Davidson, through the use of flashbacks, intricate plot development and foreshadowing, and dynamic characterization, creates a story that challenges the reader’s preconceived notions regarding whether eternal love can survive even when time’s inevitable grasp separates the individuals in question.
Some may say love is just an emotion while others may say it is a living and breathing creature. Songs and poems have been written about love for hundreds and thousands of years. Love has been around since the beginning of time, whether someone believes in the Big Bang or Adam and Eve. Without love, there wouldn’t be a world like it is known today. But with love, comes pain with it. Both William Shakespeare and Max Martin know and knew this. Both ingenious poets wrote love songs of pain and suffering as well as blossoming, newfound love. The eccentric ideal is both writers were born centuries apart. How could both know that love and pain work hand in hand when they were born 407 years apart? Love must never change then. Love survives and stays its original self through the hundreds and thousands of years it has been thriving. Though centuries apart, William Shakespeare and Max Martin share the same view on love whether i...
In this essay I would like to emphasize different ideas of how love is understood and discussed in literature. This topic has been immortal. One can notice that throughout the whole history writers have always been returning to this subject no matter what century people lived in or what their nationality was.
In the gothic novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the author hides motifs within the story.The novel contains two major love stories;The wild love of Catherine, and Heathcliff juxtaposing the serene love of Cathy,and Hareton. Catherine’s and Heathcliff's love is the center of Emily Bronte’s novel ,which readers still to this day seem to remember.The characters passion, and obsession for each other seems to not have been enough ,since their love didn't get to thrive. Hareton and Cathy’s love is what got to develop. Hareton’s and Cathy’s love got to workout ,because both characters contained a characteristic that both characters from the first generation lacked: The ability to change .Bronte employs literary devices such as antithesis of ideas, and the motif of repetition to reveal the destructiveness of wild love versus a domestic love.
Through the duration of this course there have been many themes influenced through the works of literature that have been read and analyzed. One major theme that has been discussed is that of love. Whether the love being romantic, fantasized, or familial as a class we have seen it all. The focus of this essay will be on the familial type of love. Familial love, an overwhelming theme in some of these stories, strikes a serious type of thought in the mind of any reader. The three main stories that will be focused on are “Fences,” Oedipus the King, and “My Papa”s Waltz.” These three stories are unique and each explains a completely different type of familial love. Familial love that will make the heart warm, the head strong, and the stomach churn.
Victor Hugo once said, “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” Whether in Shakespeare’s tragic play about lovers doomed by fate, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s sonnet describing love, “Sonnet 116”, or O. Henry’s age old The Gift of the Magi, love motivates the characters and authors to make decisions that have a weighty impact on their lives. Throughout these works of literature, authors use love’s power to drive the plot forward to create good events within the characters’ lives. Love is a force for good because it makes people willing to forgive each other, it brings the best out of people in bad situations, and it