The Chrysalids (1955)
John Wyndham (1903-1969)
200 pagesAre we nearing such moral and social disorder that frightened parents will run back to Mother Church and beg her to discipline their children, at whatever cost to intellectual liberty?It seems almost axiomatic that intellectual liberty declines--- sometimes significantly --- in times of societal stress. Though it’s not always a turn to “Mother Church,” populations can react to violent events or even only perceived threats by all too willingly sacrificing their freedom of expression and opinion in exchange for the apparent security of authoritarian regimes. A kind of mob rule can in fact occur in support of government restrictions, with a fearful majority actively and aggressively intimidating and coercing anyone venturing outside the norms, characterizing such people as dangerous, a risk that must be expunged at any cost.
The Lessons of History, 96, Will and Ariel Durant
John Wyndham’s novel The Chrysalids presents perhaps the extreme case for a civilization under stress: the desperately slow recovery after a world-wide nuclear war. Set in a distant future, in which much of the planet and its population have been destroyed, the descendants of those who survived have passed through a long, dark period of chaos and uncertainty, and are only gradually rebuilding the structures of civilization.Wyndham centers his story around David, a boy whose family lives in a farming village on the border of a growing federation of such communities in current day Labrador. Though that place name has remained, the region itself has changed dramatically in this future, having become warm enough to support extensive agriculture, which forms the basis of life and the economy for the slowly coalescing society.
The members of this federation know little about the world of the distant past, other than that some sort of cataclysmic event occurred, referred to as the “Tribulations,” which ended the civilization of those they call the “Old People.” Legends abound of seemingly impossible technological capabilities possessed by the Old People but lost in the Tribulations; the one clear legacy the survivors regularly confront is a propensity for babies, animals and plants to appear with mutations. The growth of the federation is in fact dictated by the frequency of deformities seen in areas beyond its borders, called the “Wilds”: over generations, as fewer deformities are seen among the plants and animals in the Wilds, people expand out into them to found new settlements.
The appearance of mutations has thus, since far back into the long dark period after the Tribulations, played a central role in the lives and concerns people of the federation. With no understanding about what causes these deformities, however, the reasons why they appear more frequently in some years than others and in some family’s crops or animals or children but not others remains a mystery. This vacuum of knowledge about the causes of the deformities, and their implicit association with the ancient destruction, has not surprisingly engendered deep-seated fear and superstition.
To assuage their uncertainties the survivors have placed their faith in the one book that has survived from the Old People: the Bible. In particular, they hew tightly to an extension, entitled “Repentances,” written in the dark period following the Tribulations. The text of Repentances describes how God wrought the Tribulations on the Old People as punishment for some unrevealed behavior. In order to repent for those sins, it demands that the survivors root out and destroy any abnormality, whether in a plant, animal or person.
To accomplish this, the government and church instituted a merciless set of religious strictures, which have over time became harshly enforced cultural mandates, with children taught to fear any deformity.
There was only one true trail [back to grace] …. But so faint was the trail, so set with traps and deceits, that every step must be taken with caution, and it was too dangerous for a man to rely on his own judgement. Only the authorities, ecclesiastical and lay, were in a position to judge whether the next step was a rediscovery, and so, safe to take; or whether it deviated from the true re-ascent, and so was sinful. (40)Able to count on the almost fanatical support of the majority, the government of the federation actively pursues the rooting out of any mutations that appear, through purity officers assigned to every village.
However, as the occurrence of deformities has gradually but visibly declined --- at least in the gradually expanding lands of the federation --- and as ships exploring far beyond the Labrador’s natural borders have brought back reports of people in distant lands whose appearance would seem to violate the word of the Repentances, but who otherwise seemed normal and happy, doubts are beginning to arise among some members of the community about the draconian measures, and about what truly constitutes a dangerous deformity.
For David and some of his friends this question becomes deeply and dangerously personal. They have discovered within themselves an ability that, though not directly visible, puts them at risk from the extremists in their society if discovered. To survive they conceal this ability --- but the risk remains ever present, and weighs ever heavier on them as they grow up. When events finally conspire to reveal their secret, the friends must rally to each other’s support, to confront and defend themselves against the impassioned wrath of their erstwhile families, friends and landsmen.
The story's title is based on a variation of the word chrysalis, which, according to Merriam-Webster, means ‘a sheltered state or stage of being or growth’ (such as for a butterfly), a definition that aptly describes the growing federation of villages in this novel. In the aftermath of the horrific events of the past, a hard shell of dogmatism has protected this slowly expanding population of survivors for untold generations. Gradually, however, a growing segment of the community look to a more rational basis for life, wanting to free themselves from the stifling rules that have constrained their society. The religious mainstream of the community, however, remain deeply fearful of any weakening in the resolve of the people to re-earn God’s grace, and will not yield without a fight.
As Christopher Priest points out in his Introduction, although The Chrysalids has a post-apocalyptic setting, Wyndham has presented a timeless examination of the debilitating effect that extremism can have when it takes hold of a society. Despite whatever basis may have originally existed for such it to develop, such extremism inevitably leads to constraints on behavior and thought that stunt a society’s growth and development. Wyndham’s cautionary tale, however, ultimately offers a combination of a glimmer of hope and call to arms: rational people can and must push back against the darkness.
Other reviews / information:
The Introduction to The Chrysalids was written by Christopher Priest, another science fiction writer whose novel Inverted World, also published by NYRB; my review here.
This another wonderful selection in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) Classics collection.
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
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