The Chrysalids

by John Wyndham

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Student Question

In Chapter 5 of The Chrysalids, what indicates a good season for Waknuk farmers?

Quick answer:

A good season for Waknuk farmers in John Wyndham's The Chrysalids is one where the Purity Record is upheld, meaning few or no deviations are found in their crops. In Chapter 5, the community celebrates a successful season because they experienced minimal deviations, breaking the previous Purity Record. This indicates that fewer crops needed to be destroyed, aligning with their strict standards of purity and stability.

Expert Answers

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In Waknuk, in John Wyndham's novel The Chrysalids, a good growing season among the farmers is one in which the ideal of purity is upheld. After the holocaust that destroyed as it had been, Waknuk became pledged to protecting purity without blemish, deviation or mutation. For example, corn that showed deviation in the alignment of rows of kernels would result in whole corn-bearing fields being burned down to expunge the mutations, blemishes and deviations from Waknuk.

Therefore, a good growing season is one in which the Purity Record is upheld and few or no fields have to be burned down. In Chapter 5, Waknuk was celebrating because the growing season had been relatively free of deviation and, in fact, they had broken the standing Purity Record thus setting a new higher Purity Record to strive to match in future (which will result in a greater proportion of deviation purges).

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