The Crysalids

book in the state of two totally different worlds. Wyrndham has based this book on the different views toward blasphemies and how the characters all have a different approach on the subject. The three greatest ranges in different reactions to Blasphemes would come from the characters: Joseph Strorm, Aunt Harriet, and Sophie Wender.

Joseph Strorm is the character in the novel that has the greatest disliking toward Blasphemies. Joseph is the father of David Strorm. He is a strong believer in God and his life is based around his religion: "The Norm is the Image of God." (p.27) In the book the reader gets the idea that Joseph is not a very good father and is very strict: "I'll deal with this. The boy's is lying. Go to your room." (p.51) He is a cruel and inhumane person to anyone who has or is involved with a deviation. The reader would see this attitude when Aunt Harriet visits the Strorms and brings her deviant child with her: "Send her away. Tell her to leave the house - and take that with her." (p.71) Joseph did not show any sympathy at all toward his own sister in law.

Aunt Harriet is the sister of David's mother Mrs. Strorm. She enters the story half way through the book, where she goes to Mrs. Strorm seeking help. Yet the help she is looking for is not something Mrs. Strorm agrees with: "Nothing much! You have the effrontery to bring your monster into my house, and tell me it's nothing much!" (p.70) Aunt Harriet is very loving, strong, and she fights for what she thinks is the right thing: "I shall pray God to send into this hideous world, and sympathy for the weak, and love for the unhappy and unfortunate." (p.73) Aunt Harriet is also the proof of what happens to people who have a deviation or are trying to protect someone with a deviation: "Aunt Harriet's body has been found in a river, no one mentioned a baby?." (p.74) She is a very will hearted woman who is one of the very few people in this time that has the will to speak her mind.

Sophie Wender