Thursday, February 13, 2014

In The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, how are moral values instilled in Waknuk's citizens?

There are three most prominent modes through which moral
values are instilled in the citizens of Waknuk. One starts earliest with the youngest
children. They learn to be terrified of the Blasphemies as threats of the Blasphemies
are used to punish and control the smallest children. The Blasphemies are mutants who
have been exiled to the Fringes, a desolate land beyond the Wild Country. In the
Fringes, mutations occur with alarming proliferation because it received greater nuclear
contamination during the Tribulation. The youngest children are taught that if they are
not good and obedient to the values of Waknuk, they will have to fear the coming of the
Blasphemies who sometimes invade to raid crops and
livestock.


Another mode begins with older children. They
are taught to memorize and recite the "Definition of Man" and portions from the
Repentances and the Bible. These concur with the slogans and mottoes that are hung on
walls as decorations or burned into the wood of houses as reminders of what Waknukians
believe is the right moral and religious path. As David says:



Frequent
references to these texts had made me familiar with the words long before I was able to
read, ... I knew them by heart, ... and a number of others about Offences and
Blasphemies.



The "Definition
of Man," which David recites to help him understand the gravity and import of Sophie's
six toes, reads:


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And each leg shall be jointed twice and shall
have one foot and each foot 5 toes. And any creature that shall seem to be human, but is
not formed thus, is not human. It is a blasphemy against the true image of God, and
hateful in the sight of
God.



The final most prominent
mode used to instill the values of Waknuk in its citizens is the purges of deviations.
When an animal, crop, or human appears in the Waknuk community with a deviation from the
definitions of sacred life forms, like the "Definition of Man," there is a purge. Whole
fields will be burned if there is any sign of deviation in the crop. Animals will be
slaughtered if there is any sign of mutation causing deviation. People are rejected as
nonhuman and exiled, with babies taken away by the time they are one month old. On the
night that David is severely punished for aimlessly suggesting it would be nice to have
a third arm while trying to remove a splinter form his finger, he dreams of his father
burning crops to purge deviations as he often had done with mutated crops--only this
time his father was purging Sophie.

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