Edward Chiang

Block C

Mr. Yewchuk

The Chrysalids

        The title of John Wyndham’s famous book, The Chrysalids, is somewhat mysterious and ambiguous. The word chrysalid is derived from chrysalis, the stage which the larvae of moths and butterflies pass through before they become adults. It is a stage in which the insect appears dormant and unmoving, but changes are taking place inside which enable it to emerge from the chrysalis as a more advance form of life. John Wyndham chose the title The Chrysalid because of the human life and survival many centuries after the all out nuclear war or “Tribulation” had occurred, which in many ways relates to the butterfly life-cycle. These cycles are the eggs, caterpillar, chrysalis, and the butterfly, and they symbolize a time or characters in the novel. Although at no point in the book was there any reference to a “chrysalid”, but if think thoroughly, the reasons for the naming of the novel can be understood.

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        The first stage of a butterfly’s life-cycle, the egg, represents a new life, the beginning of a cycle. In the novel, “the wonderful world that the Old People had lived in, the one before “God sent before Tribulation” was destroyed by most likely a Nuclear War. The egg symbolizes the reemergence of life on Earth or in Waknuk after the Nuclear War, or “Tribulation”, had occurred. It may also mean the rising of the Waknuk Society, raised by Elias Strorm. The second stage, the caterpillar stage, represents a confined life, as the larvae do not act individually. If the caterpillars ...

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