Mean Mr Mustard

Pride is said to be the most deadly of the Seven Deadly Sins, the thing that can turn someone from righteous to self righteous. In The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, society follows a warped version of the bible where the biggest sin is not pride, it is being a deformity, or a Deviation. The protagonist's father, Joseph Strorm, is a preacher in the town of Waknuk and follows this belief religiously, giving him much weight in his community. Joseph has many plans to reform Waknuk his own beliefs but they are always sabotaged by the citizens, who do not hold Joseph’s values and ideas as pridefully as he does. The citizens are especially skeptical of his decision making abilities, leadership skills, and religious beliefs.

One instance where Joseph’s self beliefs conflict with the citizens of …show more content…
When Joseph’s son David walks through the door after breaking rules, Joseph picks up the inspector’s whip to punish him; however, the inspector is far from all right with this and has to tell Joseph not to use his whip three times before he “checked his step. With an ill-tempered gesture he threw the whip back on the table. He glared at the inspector”(52). On the first hand, this shows the inspector objects to Joseph’s punishing of David and employs his power to stop that. Joseph, on the other hand, defies him although he is societally ranked lower which demonstrates Joseph’s pride for his decision made in a split-second. Joseph’s tendency to stand by decisions made in the heat of the moment proves to be dangerous when his sister-in-law Harriet comes to ask for assistance in hiding her baby with a Deviation and he turns her away, which ends up killing her. When Harriet points out how wrong this is Joseph has the audacity to dismiss her and call himself a merciful man(72). This shows the unfair pride Joseph holds his own ideas to as he