'Til all my sleeves are stained red
From all the truth that I've said
Come by it honestly I swear
Thought you saw me wink, no
I've been on the brink, so
Tell me what you want to hear
Something that were like those years
I'm sick of all the insincere
So I'm gonna give all my secrets away
We dance round in a ring and
suppose, but the secret sits
in the middle and knows.
- Robert Frost
What are the dangers of
secrets being kept, on a
small or large scale?
The Chrysalids
Chapter 9 Seminar
Setting
Chapter 9 takes place in Waknuk, more
specifically in the East Pasture
 It is six years after the death of Harriet
 David is harvesting

Plot Summary

David is working out in the fields and is suddenly “struck” with mental
pain

He runs to the river until he finds his younger sister, Petra, who is about
to drown

Rosalind arrives and announces that she, too, has felt the cries, which
are stronger than anything the other nine telepaths are capable of

David and Rosalind are interrogated by people around them as to how
they could have known what was happening to Petra

They simply claim that they do not understand how others could not have
heard her

David has nightmares that night of a purging ceremony, during which
Petra is at the hands of her father because of her deviation
Plot Summary Continued

He is deeply disturbed by this dream, which is the main reason for his
avoiding openly telling Petra about her abilities

It seems she was only able to communicate with him through telepathy
because she was in intense danger

David thinks back to a conversation that he had with Old Jacob, a
villager who has lived through many trials

Jacob attributes the extremely high level of deviations, as of late, to
corruption in government and carelessness of the youth

To him, these represent the beginnings of a new age of Tribulation

David feels an even more intense need to be secretive about his
deviation, since people will be more intently on the look-out for deviations
Character development

David
Shows increasing maturity and
responsibility
 “All of us knew that it was not easy to keep
on watching each word all the time, even
when you’ve had to practise it for years. We
decided to postpone telling Petra…” (85)


Uncle Axel


His role as a confidant and advisor to David
is enhanced through their conversation
Petra

The importance of her telepathy is
foreshadowed through David’s conversation
with Uncle Axel
Literary devices

Simile
“Then there was pain, a demand pulling like a
fish-hook embedded in my mind.” (83)
 The intensity of the pain is depicted
effectively through the image of a fish-hook


Suspense
“I kept on running, I did not know why, except
that it was urgent; across half the twelve-acre,
into the lane, over the fence, down the slope of
the East Pasture towards the river…”
 The build-up of David’s descent to Petra
causes the reader to rush through the
passage, just as David rushes to her


Suspense
“Next year’s going to b ea bad one, too. People
will listen to them more then. They’ll have a
sharp eye for scaegoats…” (90)
 Uncle Axel’s warning to David creates
suspense and foreshadowing


Find another example of a literary device
used in Chapter 9
Thematic development

Secrecy and fear – what new
secrets must be kept in this
chapter?
Petra’s telepathy
 The pressure to keep this
deviation a secret intensifies as
David recalls his conversation with
Old Jacob

Thematic development
Religious extremism
 Old Jacob represents the extreme “right
wing” of Waknuk religion

What exactly does he believe in?
 He believes that mutants should not be
cleansed; they must be driven to the
Fringes

Key quotation

“The other kind is the worst,” [Old Jacob]
snapped, “it is the Devil mocking the true
image. Of course they should be burnt like
they used to be. But what happened? The
sentimentalists in Rigo who never had to deal
with them themselves said: ‘Even though they
aren’t human, they look nearly human,
therefore extermination looks like murder, or
execution, and that troubles people’s minds…”
(88)
Key passage

“The stupidest norm was happier; he
could feel that he belonged.” (86)


Discuss with your partner what this
quotation means
David and the others feel that their
telepathy is more a curse than a blessing
– it would be easier to be normal, though
simple

“Better a diamond with a flaw than a
pebble without.”


Confucius
“It is better to be a human being
dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to
be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool
satisfied.”

John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism

The Chrysalid is a term taken from biology


The state through which a larva must pass before
becoming an insect
The larva is wrapped in a hard case or shell,
takes no food and is totally inactive
 Joseph Strorm and his kind are trying to
maintain and force this very state on humanity





Are we guessing what life is all about?
Frost suggests that those who are ignorant do
not really know and are guessing
The ‘secret’ represents something that is to be
known, the centre of true knowledge
Human beings will, at some point in life, stop
dancing endlessly and move closer to the allknowing secret
Only then will they be freed from a vicious
cycle of suppositions and gain true knowledge