Theme Of Self Awareness In The Chrysalids

David Strorm’s Journey To Self-Awareness Self-awareness is knowing one’s desires, feelings and what makes one a unique individual. This is one of the most powerful qualities that one can obtain. In John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, self-awareness is a fundamental topic that is shown through the growth of characters, especially David. David achieves self-awareness through his relationships with others. The characters that help David come to terms with who he is and prove that being himself is beneficial to himself are Uncle Axel, the Sealand Lady and Sophie. Uncle Axel helps David achieve self-awareness through his genuineness and his impartiality. When Uncle Axel was explaining how David and Rosalind may easily be closer

Now, we can’t do that - but you and Rosalind can. Just think that over Davie. You two may be nearer to the image than we are” (64). David has always been doubtful about his thought-shaping powers because of the Waknuk community’s stance on mutants and deviations. When someone like Uncle Axel says that he believes David is closer to the image than norms are, David feels more confident in himself and his place in Waknuk’s twisted society. Uncle Axel is a fatherly figure and role model to David, so David confides in Uncle Axel and trusts his instincts and his knowledge. Therefore, David is getting closer to accepting himself as a unique individual, with the help of Uncle Axel’s suggestions. In addition, Uncle Axel clarifies what makes a man, man. David thought it was their soul but Uncle Axel states: “Well, then, what makes a man a man is something inside him… No, what makes man man is mind. It’s not a thing, it’s a quality, and minds aren’t all the same value; they’re better or worse” (79,80). Uncle Axel is a firm believer that the Definition of Man is nonsense and now he expresses his beliefs to David. David is conflicted between Waknuk’s

When David was complaining about how sometimes his thought-shaping hurts, Sophie reminded him that she is experiencing hurt too: “To be any kind of deviant is to be hurt - always” (167). Sophie may not be going through physical pain like David does occasionally but she does go through emotional pain, like all deviants do. David is now aware that no matter what type of deviant one is, one will be shunned even by the people closest to them, unless they are deviants themselves. In connection to his self-awareness, David is really close to Sophie and he respects her thoughts so, when she states this, this made him think more deeply about who he is and where he fits in the twisted communities he belongs to. When David was talking to Sophie about how amazing the Old People are said to be, Sophie provides him with her very different perspective. “‘My father says that if one-quarter of the things they say about the Old People are true, they must have been magicians not real people, at all,’ Sophie countered” (24). Sophie and the other Wenders do not believe that the Old People are they are made out to be. They are skeptical, unlike the Strorms. The Strorms believe strictly in The Repentances and the Bible. These books survived the Tribulation and therefore, they are supposedly very fundamental to the Waknukians’ existence. Before Sophie, David had