Chrysalids (1955) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

• David Strom: narrator of the story. David is one of a small group of youngsters who can communicate with each other via telepathy. However, their community's theological prejudice against anyone who is abnormal means he and the others must keep their abilities carefully hidden.
• Sophie Wender: a young girl born with six toes on each foot. Sophie lives with her parents in an isolated cottage, her deviation from the "norm" keeping her from associating with other children.
• Joseph Strom: the father of David and Petra. He is deeply religious and unyielding on the subject of mutations and blasphemy, punishing David severely for an unintentionally blasphemous remark about "needing an extra hand" to apply a bandage
• Uncle Axel: a widely traveled former sailor, is open minded and willing to question conventional religious precepts. Upon discovering David's telepathy, he counsels reticence and extracts a promise that David take great care not to allow others to learn of his mutation
• Petra Strom: the youngest of the Strorm children and the group of telepaths discovers her ability is extraordinarily strong and difficult to resist, placing the group at greater risk of discovery.
• Rosalind Morton: the daughter of David and Petra's half-Uncle Angus (who owns the neighbouring farm). Rosalind is David's closest friend among the group of telepaths.
• Nathan Nguyen: Add a description of this character.
• Anne
• Harriet: Davids Aunt that wants to keep a deviated baby.
• Alan Ervin
• Rachel
• Katherine
• Sally
• Angus Morton
• Mark
• John Wender
• Mary

Quotes edit see section history

• “The essential quality of life is living; the essential quality of living is change; change is evolution: and we are a part of it. The static, the enemy of change, is the enemy of life, and therefore our implacable enemy.”

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• ' It is not pleasant to kill any creature,' she agreed, ' but to pretend that one can live without doing so is self-deception.

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• 'The essential quality of life is living; the essential quality of living is change; change is evolution: and we are part of it.

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• soon they will attain the stability they strive for, in the only form it is granted -- a place among the fossils. . . .'

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• ' The static, the enemy of change, is the enemy of life, and therefore our implacable enemy.

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• Neither his kind, nor his kind of thinking will survive long. They are the crown of creation, they are ambition fulfilled -- they have nowhere more to go. But life is change, that is how it differs from the rocks, change is its very nature.

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• 'souls are just counters for churches to collect, all the same value, like nails. 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, and the better they are, the more they mean.

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• 'The living form defies evolution at its peril; if it does not adapt, it will be broken. The idea of completed man is the supreme vanity: the finished image is a sacrilegious myth.

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• 'When my father was a young man a woman who bore a child that wasn't in the image was whipped for it. If she bore three out of the image she was uncertified, outlawed, and sold.

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• When the minds have learnt to mingle, when no thought is wholly one's own, and each has taken too much of the other ever to be entirely himself alone; when one has reached the beginning of seeing with a single eye, loving with a single heart, enjoying with a single joy; when there can be moments of identity and nothing is separate save bodies that long for one another. . . . When there is that, where is the word? There is only the inadequacy of the word that exists.

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• 'Whether harsh intolerance and bitter rectitude are the armour worn over fear and disappointment, or whether they are the festival-dress of the sadist, they cover an enemy of the life-force.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

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• Badlands: Area beyond the Fringes
• Rigo: The seat of the government.
• Sea
• Kentak
• Waknuk: District of Waknuk, "an orderly, law-abiding, God-respecting community of some hundred scattered holdings, large and small".
• Fringes: Area after Wild Country
• Wild Country: Uninhabited zone bordering the frontier regions of a district
• Labrador
• Sealand

First Sentence edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. John Wyndham (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. David Harrower (Adapter) - Playwriter

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813

Notes for Parents edit see section history

minor language

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Science Fiction
• Books › Literature & Fiction

More Books Like This edit see section history