Complete the following discussion questions in your e-portfolios. Please also include them as a homework response. How do the setting, mood and tone of the novel contribute to the development of the major theme/s in your novel?
Identify the major theme.
Link the setting, mood and tone to major conflict faced by the protagonist in your novel.
How would you describe the world in which the novel unfolds?
How would you describe the personality of the protagonist?
How do these elements combine in a way that helps the author to teach us their lesson about life?
The major theme in my novel, The Chrysalids, is persecution and discrimination, as can be seen throughout the whole book. The setting of the book is crucial for the story to happen. The book is set in a post apocalyptic place, maybe Australia, where the world has suffered a nuclear war and now, because of the radiation, there are mutations everywhere: people, animals and plants. This drives the conflict since the conflict is that the protagonist is a mutant, though in a different way, and he has to then run away. The setting allows for him to be a mutant and also adds to the separation between, the "normal" people and the mutants. The tone is rather serious and straightforward, but also it shows a sense of danger and uncertainty, of being scared. Since the book is written in first person, the tone is that of the protagonist, and throughout the book he is hiding and running away, and so the tone reflects that, except in the end, when he is then safe and there is hope, and the tone then becomes much more joyful and relaxed. The mood of the story can sometimes be a little bit eerie or strange, specially when they go into the Fringes, where everything is different. The mood is also very serious and a little dark, in the beginning of the story, when David is still in Waknuk, giving the sense of the cult and how they are serious about killing deviations, and how they burn the ""blasphemies" and so on. This helps to hive the reader insight into how David feels about all of this, and how he could end up if e was discovered and caught. I would describe the world in which the novel unfolds as being mostly realistic (except of course for the telepathy), and it is a reflection of our own world, where many people also discriminate against others and many people suffer extreme persecution. The protagonist in the novel thinks differently though, he doesn't necessarily see mutants as being all that different, and, since young, when he would play with Sofie, he wasn't as serious about the religion, or at all, and as he grew up and found out he was a mutant himself, and with the strong influence of his Uncle, he thought completely differently from everybody else. All of these things come together in the novel to help show that discrimination hurts everyone, and that it can break families and friendships, and that it has a huge, negative, impact, specially on the lives of those being discriminated against.