I have this huge unit on this book The Chrysalids to do and I totally don’t get it. I can’t find much on it. Can u tell me what the background/setting is? It looks old fashioned but my teacher said it is the future.

Hey Mike, I actually read John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids in grade ten (I won’t say when though!) and I have taught it more than a few times. Actually it was the first book I read from cover to cover. I didn’t discover the magic of literature until college so guess that says something about the book. Anyhow, the setting is the future. There is no particular date mentioned. It is a post-apocalyptic dystopian-like society. This means that the world has undergone some sort of calamity and an oppressive sort of civilization has developed (kind of like the popular novel, (“The Hunger Games”). In the book David calls this calamity the “tribulation”. The author hints at some sort of radiation- like destruction. The setting begins in an agricultural district of Waknuk. It does look like something out of the past because they practice a sort of subsistence agricultural economy. David lives in a giant house where his family runs the largest farm in the area. The village is insulated from the “Fringes” where apparently all sorts of nasty mutations live.