by Veranda

Created on: November 08, 2007

One of the best Science Fiction books is The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, it not only incorporates science fiction but how it results to obstacles many people in today's society face often. The story is set in the future after the Tribulation which could be seen as a nuclear war due to it's setting and written at the time of the 1950's where World War Two had just ended and the rise of the Cold War and what had happened possibly after it. Where there are issues of differences in physical appearances of people who do not resemble and are the Image of God. Just as how today there is discrimination of certain minority groups whether it is racism or religion that creates false barriers of difference. Wyndham has written that it is just human nature and their judgment just passes down to other people and in turn their are all influenced into the idea of all requiring the be the Image of God. In his novel, the people who are exterminated or prosecuted are mutants or basically people who have been mutated into having just an extra toe could possibly put one's life in danger. The connection show back how nuclear war can not only have short term but long term effects from the radiation in the human body. Knowing form past Canadian history when World War Two had ended, Hiroshima and Nagasaki who had been hit by the atomic bomb, suffered in both the attack itself and the other effects later on in the years as the radiation caused many birth defects in addition to the increase of deaths from diseases resulting from the radiation changing the cells of the human body. The Chrysalids is a book that can relate the real controversy and conflicts that humanity that doesn't manage to take away the Science fiction away from it. In the end it shows the lack of human judgment and influences to meet society's expectations can cause infliction and punishment to the innocent. When people fail to learn that co-operation is the key to survival and become foes of one another for misunderstandings or influences that one does not think through before believing it themselves, thus repeating the cycle of discrimination numerously. How those who fail to learn from history, really are destined to repeat it!

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