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Social Critique in the Major Novels of John Wyndham: Civilization's Secrets and Nature's Truths
Mike Green
A Thesis
T h e Department
English
Presented in Porcia1 Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree.of Master of Arts at
Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada
January 2000
C M i k e Green, 2000
National Library Bibliothèque nationale du Cana&
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ABSTRACT
Social Critique in the Major Novels of John Wyndham: Civilization's Secrets and Nature's Truths
Mike Green
J o h n Wyndham' s four major novels : The Dây of the Triffids,
The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, and The Midwich Cuckoos.
Wyndham has been dismissed by many critics as â writer of
"cosy catastrophes", a t e r m coined by Brian Aldiss. This
title is meant to suggest that Wy~dham's works are
critically insignificant, and that, as Nicholas Ruddick
suggests, they do not repay serious critical attention. 1
would argue that not only do Wyndham's works repay critical
attention, but that there is consistent social criticism
inherent in these woxks. In the four novels in question,
Wyndham seems preoccupied with a nurnber of icieas. He
c t ï a c k s the power of Big Business, Government, and the
Mili~ory, and what 1 would characterize as their "Cult of
Secrecy". Wyndham also criticizes irrational faith in any
ideology, particularly in nationalism, Scientisn (or the
power of science to solve hurnanity's problems), and
reliçion. Finally, Wyndham seems specifically concerned
with the fate of humankind in light of Darwinian ideas of
evoiution and survival of the fittest.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Critical Reception of John Wyndham
Page One
Chapter One
Triffids and Cuckoos: Darrrinism or Christian Values?
Page Thirteen
Chapter Two
Kraken and Chrysalids: The Cult of Secxecy
Page Fifty-Seven
C o n c l u s i o n
The G r i m Truth
Page One Hundred and Six
Bibliography, Page One Hundred and Nine
A Chronology of Books (Published and Unpublished)
by John Wyndham
Page One Hundred and S e v e n t e e n
J o h n Wyndham P a r k e s Lucas Beynon Harr is w a s b o r n i n
Knowle, W a r w i c k s h i r e , E n g l a n d , on 1 0 J u l y , 1903~. H e used a
v a r i e t y o f pseudonyms t h r o u g h o u t h i s career ( d i f f e r e n t
v a r i s t i o n s o f h i s r e a l n a m e s ) , b u t h e i s best known by t h e
name h e p u b l i s h e d u n d e r s t a r t i n g i n 1 9 5 0 w i t h "The E t e r n a l
Lve" (f in-azing S t o r i e s ) f o l l o w e d by The Day o f t h e ~ r i f f i d s
(1951) - -John Wyndham. It is by t h i s name t h a t 1 s h a l l r e f e r
t o H a r r i s i n t h e f o l l o w i n g p a g e s . Wyndham s t a r t e d w r i t i n g
s h o r c stories w h i l e s t i l l i n schoo12 a n d b e g a n t o w r i t e
p r o f e s s i o r i a l l y ( i f u n s u c c e s s f u l l y ) i n 1 9 2 5 . Unknown u n t i l
recently, Wyndham p u b l i s h e d h i s f i r s t book, a d e t e c t i v e
n o v e l e n t i t l e d The Curse o f t h e B u r d e n s , i n 1927, a l t h o u g h
h e l a t e r s u p p r e s s e d t h i s i n f e r i o r work (See Ketterer,
" V i v i s e c t i o n " 308-309) . Wÿndham f i n a l l y s u c c e e d e d i n 1531
w i ~ h t-he ( t o h im) more acceptable "Wor lds t o Bar te r , " i n
Wonder S t o r i e s , under t h e name o f J o h n Beynon H a r r i s .
Wyndham c o n t i n u e d p u b l i s h the Amer ican
t h r o u g h t h e t h i r t i e s u n d e r a v a r i e t y of pseudonyms and, o n 2
May 1935, p u b l i s h e d what w e now know t o be h i s s e c o n d n o v e l -
-The S e c r e t People. T h i s w a s f o l l o w e d t h e s a m e y e a r , o n 18
' A p p a r e n t l y , even t h e o r i g i n s o f t h e " i n v i s i b l e man of S c i e n c e F i c t i o n W ( S F ) a r e c l o u d e d i n m y s t e r y . Wyndham's p z r e n t s w e r e l i v i n g i n Birmingham a t t h e t i m e of h i s b i r t h . Why n e w a s d e l i v e r e d a t Knowle, some d i s t a n c e f r o m Birmingham, i s unknown.
"See Ketterer, " ' V i v i s e c t i o n ' : S c h o o l b o y ' J o h n Wyndham's'
F i r s c P u b l i c a t i o n ? "
November, by another detective novel--Fou1 Play Suspected.
His fourth novel, Llanet Plane--a story which presages the
competing space programs of the 1960's and depicts a
nightmarish Martiàn landscape of techno-cannibalism--
followed a year later under the byline: John Beynon. It was
republished as Stowaway To Mars in 1953. The early science
fiction works owe a great deal to the writings of H.G.
Wells, wnom wyndnam üescribed as "che writer wno could mâke
the marvelous seem commonplace, yet hold the reader
enïhralled by his plausible narratives, the reality of his
c n a r a c t e r s . " (Gillings, "The Writer.. ." 10) From August of 1940 to November of 1943, Wyndham served
the Ministry of Information as a postaUtelegraph censor.
In addition to his duties with the Ministry, he also worked
as a fire-watcher with the Home Guard from 1942 until
November of 1943. Ir! 1943, Wyndham was transferred to the
Royal Signal Corps with whom he served as a Lance Corporal
cipher-operator attached to the Guards Armored Brigade from
11 June 1944 until 4 September 1945~. Wyndham's experiences
and service in World War 11 provide a significant subtext to
his post-war works. As a censor, he would have been exposed
to tne highest levels of paranoia and secrecy (àlong with
much tedium and boredom); his experiences as a fire-watcher,
3 ~ e e Ketterer, "'Vivisection1" (Foundation version).
like those of his b r ~ t h e r , ~ would provide horrifying images
of London overwhelmed by disaster. Subsequently, in the
Army, Wyndham would have experienced the military
bureaucracy, something which he frequently portrayed in his
later novels.
After the war, Wyndham found more substantiâl success
with The Day of the Triffids (l951), The Kraken Wakes
(1953), The Chrysalids ( 1 9 5 5 ) , and The Midwich Cuckoos
(1957).' Wyndham continued to publish novels and
collections stories until his death but
the four novels of the fifties, which amount to a
significant development of the Wellsian mode1 of science
fiction, that concern us here.
Wyndham achieved enorrnous success with those novels
which are still in print. The Day of the Triffids, ÜS noted
on the cover of the Penguin paperback, has sold over a
million copies. Both The Day of the Triffids and The
Midwich Cuckoos have made the transition, with varying
degrees of success, to the cinema screen. Strangely,
'See Vivian Harris, "My Brother, John Wyndham" 23. o or the alternative titles see "A Chronology of Books.. .
by John Wyndham". For a fairly exhaustive bibliography, see
P h i l i p Stephensen-Payne, John Wyndham, Creator of the Cosy
Catastophe: A Working Biblioqraphy.
however, there has been a remarkable dearth of critical
interest in his work over the years. Many of those critics
who have taken an interest in his work dismiss it out of
hand, or heap scorn on it. According to Nicholas Ruddick,
The enormous popularity of Wyndham, especially for his
first two post-war novels of disaster, contrasts
sïrikingly with the paucity of critical material on
him. The Index (1988) to the first forty issues of the
British science-fiction review Foundation, since 1972
the most important forum for discussion of British
science fiction, inclüdes no direct reference to any of
Wyndham's works. The evidence leads one to conclude
that they simply do not repay serious critical
analysis, and that if the Wyndham oeuvre is of
significance, it is perhaps to sociologists interested
in the nacure of best-sellerdom râther than to litsrary
critics. (Ruddick, 138)
Ruddick's conclusion here is, perhaps, a bit premature. In
a field as notoriously fickle as literary criticism (and
especially in so cornparatively new a branch as SF criticism)
a lack of criticism is not necessarily a sign of
worthlessness. Fashions and agendas change, and previously
overlooked or underappreciated works are re-examined.
Perhaps some of Ruddick's hastiness may be attributed to his
r e l i a n c e o n t h e work of J o h n S c a r b o r o u g h whom he t w i c e c i tes
(138, 140).
Sca rbo rough , i t seerns, h a s o n l y a p a s s i n g a c q u a i n t a n c e
w i t h Wyndham's work, and it shows i n h i s c r i t ic ism, Fox
example , i n S c a r b o r o u g h ' s r e a d i n g o f T h e Day o f t h e
T r i f f i d s , h e n e g l e c t s t h e h y p o t h e s i s i n t h e n o v e l t h a t t h e
"cornet shower" which c o u s e s w ide - sp r ead blindness is n o t , i n
f a c t , a n a t u r a l phenornenon, b u t r a t h e r t h e r e s u l t of a man-
made o r b i t a l weapon gone awry. F u r t h e r m o r e , he s u g g e s t s t h a t
rhe n a r r a t o r , B i l l , a t t e m p t s t o r e s t o r e o r d e r t o c h a o s and
restore s o c i e t y , " a s much t o t h e way it was b e f o r e a s i s
p o s s i b l e , " ( 2 2 0 ) d e s p i t e t h e f a c t t h a t t h e i d e a l of
r edempr lon i~ t h e n o v e l i s t o p r e v e n t f u t u r e g e n e r a t i o n s
from r e p e a t i n g f o r m e r m i s t a k e s . S c a r b o r o u g h ' s r e â d i n g o f
The Kraken Wakes is e q u a l l y i n a c c u r a t e . H e r e c a l l s
a c r e a t u r e f r om t h e bo t tom o f t h e s e s . I t owes i t s
e x i s t e n c e f a g a i n ) t o f a l l i n g s tars of a s o r t ,
" f i r e b a l l s " t h a t sornehow m u t a t e a somber a n i m a l i n t o a
m a g n i f i c e n t t h r e a t t o l a n d d w e l l e r s and s e a g o i n ç
v e s s e l s . (Wyndham is n o t i n t e r e s t e d i n t h e p a r t i c u l a r s
o f wny such m u t a t i o n s o c c u r , o n l y t h a t t h e y do o c c u r
-- a n d t h a t t n e y cause d i s a s t e r s t h a t d i s r u p t h i s
o r d e r l y p i c t u r e of l i f e . ) (220-21)
S c a r b o r o u g h ' s ( p a r e n t h e t i c a l ) i n t e r j e c t i o n s rnight be more
a s e f u l w e r e h e s u r e r o f h i s m a t e r i a l . The " x e n o b a t h s " , a s
i s made f a i r l y c l e a r i n t h e n o v e l , a r e n o t b a s e d o n any
t e r r e s t r i a l s p e c i e s b u t j o u r n e y t o E a r t h i n t h e " F i r e b a l l s . "
Wyndham's s t y l e i s f a r t o o s u b t l e f o r h im t o s t a t e t h i s
e x p l i c i t l y , b u t i t i s c l e a r enough t h a t t h e x e n o b a t h s a r e n ' t
mctants; t h e y a r e most p r o b a b l y e x t r a t e r r e s t r i a l s who u s e a
s o r t of p r e v i o u s l y unknown b i o - t e c h n o l o g y ( a n i d e a of
Wyndnam's w h i c h , i n SF, was f a r a h e a d of i t s t i m e ) . F i n a l l y , t h e i m p l i c a t i o n t h a t Wyndham is i n t e r e s t e d
p r i r n a r i l y i n t h e s p e c t a c l e o f s e n s e l e s s d i s a s t e r is p a t e n t l y
a b s u r d when a p p l i e d t o The K r a k e n Wakes, w h i c h f o c u s e s
l a r g e l y o n p o i i t i c s and t h e med ia r a t h e r t h a n on s e n s e l e s s
d i s z s t e r . U n s u r p r i s i n g l y , S c z r b o r o u g h ' s r e a d i n g s o f The
C h r y s a l i d s and The Midwich Cuckoos a r e e q u a l l y skewed. I n
c h e c a s e of The C h r y s a l i d s , S c a r b o r o u g h s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e
n o v e l i s set i n N e w Engiand, when i t is e x p r e s s l y set i n
Labrador- -a m i n o r ( i f o b v i o u s ) e r r o r . What i s n o t s o m i n o r ,
nowever, i s h i s r n i s l e a d i n g t h e m a t i c i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f t h e
n o v e l : " t h o s e who a r e d i f f e r e n t must s e e k t h o s e l i k e
t h e r n s e l v e s , a n d must l e a v e t h e Company o f ' t h e Norm'" ( 2 2 1 ) .
T h e c n l ÿ m e m b e r s o f " t h e N o r m " i n t h e n o v e l who a r e
p o r t r a y e d a s s y m p a t h e t i c c h a r a c t e r s a r e t h o s e whose ideas
a r e m G s t i n i m i c a l t o i t . The h e r o e s o f t h e n o v e l b o t
m e r e l y a d i f f e r e n t k i n d o f human, b u t a d i f f e r e n t s p e c i e s
a l c o g e c h e r ) l e a v e human s o c i e t y i n t h e knowledge ( s h a r e d
w i t h t h e r e a d e r ) t h a t i t i s doomed t o p e r i s h . S c a r b o r o u g h
r e a d s t h i s a s a c r y p t o - e n d o r s e m e n t o f a p a r t h e i d ( 2 2 2 ) .
F i n a l l y , t h e O t h e r , i n The Midwich Cuckoos , is n o t f o r c e d t o
l eave s o t h a t "Midwich c a n g o b a c k t o what it w a s b e f o r e t h e
i n c r u s i o n t o o k p lace : a small, c a l m , n c n d e s c r i p t E n g l i s h
v i l l a g e " ( 2 2 2 j . F ia ther , t h e a l i e n c h i l d r e n a r e blown up,
lezving t h e knowledge t h a t t n e human r a c e c a n n e v e r a g a i n
f e e l s e c u r e l y dominan t on the p l a n e t E a r t h .
M e v e r t h e l e s s , S c o r ~ o r o u g h a c t u a l l y seems t o l i k e
Wyndhcm's work, o r at l e a s t h a v e some measure o f r e s p e c t f o r
It ( w h i l e c l e a r l y n o t knowing it v e r y well). Another
c r i t i c , who seems, d e s p i t e some r a t h e r d i s m i s s i v e criticism,
t c a c t u a l l y l i k e Wyndham's work i s B r i a n A l d i s s . A l d i s s
c o r m e n c s p a r t i c u l a r l y on Wyndham's f i r s t two p o s t - w a r
" d i s a s t e r " n o v e l s , a n d on h i s readers, when h e a r g u e s t h a t ,
"Bach n o v e l s w e r e t o t a l l y d e v o i d of ideas b u t read s m o o t h l y ,
a n d t h u s r e a c h e d a maximum a u d i e n c e , who e n j o y e d c o s y
d i s o s t e r s u ( B i l l i o n Year S p r e e 2 9 4 ) . A l d i s s d e s c r i b e s the
mein e l e m e n t s o f t h e " c o s y c a t a s t r o p h e , " as f o l l o w s : " t h e
hero s h o u l d have a p r e t t y good t i m e (a g i r l , free s u i t e s a t
t h e Savoy, a u t o m o b i l e s f o r t h e t a k i n g ) while e v e r y o n e else
i s d y i n g o f f V ( 2 9 4 ) . W h i l e T h e D a y o f t h e T r i f f i d s a n d - T h e
Kraken Wakes may, s u p e r f i c i a l l y , be d e s c r i b e d i n these
terms, T h e C h r y s a l i d s a n d The Midwich Cuckoos do n o t r e a l i y
f a 1 1 w i t h i n t h i s mould a t a l l . To s u g g e s t t h a t any o f t h e s e
f o u r n o v e l s a r e " t o t a l l y d e v o i d o f ideas" i m p l i e s a v s r y
s u p e r f i c i a l r e a d i n g o f them. But , t o r e i t e r a t e , b o t h A l d i s s
and S c a r b o r o u g h (who r e p e a t s A l d i s s ' s c l a i m t h a t Wyndham's
books a r e " t o t a l l y d e v o i d o f ideas" [ 2 1 9 ] ) s e e m t o l i k e
Xyndham's work d e s p i t e t h e s h o r t c o m i n g s t h e y p e r c e i v e .
Rüddick, on t h e o t h e r hand , sees n o t h i n g t o admi r e a n d s e e m s
i n t e n t t o show Wyndharn a t a d i s a d v a n t a g e ; t h i s i n t e n t i s ,
p s r n a p s , p u r s u e d ac t h e e x p e n s e o f c l o s e o r a c c u r a t e
i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s o f t h e works i n q u e s t i o n . Ruddick a r g u e s
The enorrnous p o p u l a r i t y o f Wyndnam s u g g e s t s t h a t a
large r e a d e r s h i p was p r e p a r e d t o c o l l a b o r a t e w i t h h i s
d e s i r e c o e x p r e s s t h e a n x i e t y o f s u p e r c e s s i o n w i t h o u t
f e e l i n g a n y r e s p o n s i b i l i t y t o a n a l y z e the o r i g i n and
n a t u r e o f t h e a n x i e t y . Wyndham's c a t a s t r o p h e s embody
a n x i e t y i n t h e forrn o f a vague e x t e r n a l t h r e a t , o f f e r
c o n s o l a t i o n f o r t h i s a n x i e t y and e v e n t h e hope of
r e c o v e r y i t - - w i t h o u t e v e r r e q u i r i n g r e a d e r s t o c o n f r o n t
i t s n a t u r e , t o a r t i c u l a t e what i s o f f e r e d as
u n s p e a k a b l e . T h i s i s d i s a s t e r f i c t i o n f o r t h o s e who
" p r e f e r n o t t o t h i n k t o o c l o s e l y . " ( 1 4 0 )
i n t h i s l a s t s e n t e n c e , Ruadick q u o t e s Mike Watson ( t h e
n a r r a t o r o f The Kraken Wakes 1 5 ) who i s e x p r e s s i n g h i s
a n x i e t y r e g a r c i i n g t h e f u t u r e p o s s i b i l i t y of a n o t h e r a l i e n
i n v a s i o n . P ih i l e Watson n e v e r e x p l i c i t l y s t a t e s t h i s f e a r ,
the i n f e r e n c e is t h e r e f o r t h e reader t o g a t h e r . T h i s i s a
q u i n ~ e s s e n t i a l example o f a l 1 t h a t Ruddick f i n d s wrong w i t h
Wyndham's work--Wyndham's l i t e r a r y s u b t l e t y s e e m s t o be , i n
R u d d i c k ' s eyes , h i s g r e a t o s t f l a w . T h i s i s c r i t i c i sm for
~ ~ O S S w h ~ prefer n o t t o r e a d t o o c l o s e l y . To b e g i n w i t h ,
Wynanarn 's n o v e l s - - a t l e a s t t h e f o u r major works £rom t h e
f i f r i e s - - a r e n o t a b o u t s u p e r c e s s i o n , a t leas t n c t on t h e
l e v z l t h a t Ruddick i s t a l k i n g a b o u t . Rudd i ck ' s a p p r o a c h is
t o o g e n e r a l , t o o p s y c h o l o g i c a l , a n d he misses t h e t rees,
l o o k i n g a t t h e f o r e s t . I n an a t t e r n p t t o p s y c h o a n a l y z e
Wyndham, o r b e c a u s e o f the t h w a r t e ~ e x p e c t a t i o n + R a t SF
writers o u g h t 7-0 p s y c h o a n a l y z e s o c i e t y , Ruddick i g n o r e s what
Wyndham h a s t o Say.
O n t h e o t h e r hand, s e v e r a l c r i t i c s r e c e n t l y have
e:~arniri-ed Wyndham's work i n a more f a v o u r a b l e l i ç h t . I n t h e
u n f o r t u n a ~ e l y t i t l e d " S k i f f y S t u f f " , Maureen S p e l l e r a r g u e s
t h à t t h e r e i s more t h a n mee t s t h e e y e i n J o h n Wyndham's
" cosy c a t a s t r o p h e s " . She p r o p o s e s t h a t one r e a s o n a w r i t e r
o f Wyndham's s t a t u r e h a s r e c e i v e d c o n p a r a t i v e l y l i t t l e
c r i t i c i s m i s t h a t mos t c r i t i c s w o u l d have r e a d h i s books i n
t h e i r you th a n d , a s a r e s u l t , remember o n l y t h e mos t
superficial details of his work. L.J. Hurst, i n two
articles, compares Wyndham favourably to George Orwell in
têrms of technical sophistication while quoting Brian Aldiss
and David Wingrove's assessrnent of literary style in the
Sixties: "Growing stylistic awareness was, to a great
extenr, kept in check by econornic necessityl' (Trillion Year
Sowee C h 1 2 ) . Hurst adds, with reference to Orwell 2nd - W y n d h a m , that "the difference between those with style who
chose the m e d i u m of their narrative to carry oct part of the
work and those without style was clear twenty years
before"("Remembrance" 17). The underlying rationale of both
Hurst and Speller's argument seems to be, as 1 have
suggested, that Wyndham's poor critical reputâtion is
largely due to critical neglect. Rowland Wymer, in a 1992
article, supports this view of the critical discourse and
questions Aldiss's labelling of Wyndham as the master of the
"cosy catsstrophe" :
Whût is rn i s s ing in al1 this is any attempt to
articulate the consistent vision which runs through al1
his major work and which turns out to be far £rom
"comfortable". Also absent i s any close reading of a
particular novel which would in practice uncover
complexities more likely to stir up controversy than
evade it. ( 2 6 )
Wymer p a y s p a r t i c u l a r a t t e n t i o n t o T h e C h r y s a l i d s ; i n
t h i s t h e s i s 1 i n t e n d t o examine a l 1 four o f Wyndham's m a j o r
works f rom t h e 1 9 5 0 s : The Day o f t h e T r i f f i d s , The Kraken
Wâkes, The C h r y s a l i d s , a n d The Midwich C u c k o o s .
T r a d i t i o n a l l y , t h e s e f o u r n o v e l s are e x a m i n e d b o t h
c h r o n o l o g i c a l l y a n d ( i n a s h a l l o w way) t o p i c a l l y . The
s t a n d a r d a p p r o a c h is t o l o o k a t t h e t w o " m o n s t e r " / d i s a s t e r
n o v e l s (The Day o f t h e T r i f f i d s a n d T h e K r a k e n Wakes) and
t h e n t h e t x o n o v e l s a b o u t t e l e p a t h i c c h i l d r e n (The
C h r y s a l i d s a n d The Midwich C u c k o o s ) .
While i t i s c e r t z i n l y s i g n i f i c a n t t h a t Wyndham
p u b l i s h e d t h e s e n o v e l s i n p a i r s (as L t w e r e ) , I would a r g u e
c h a t g r o u p i n g them i n t h i s f a s h i o n may c a u s e some
s i g n i f i c a n t t h e m a t i c i s s u e s t o be o b s c u r e d o r i g n o r e d .
W i r h i n t h e s e t h e n a t i c i s s u e s , wh ich compose w n a t Wymer
c h a r a c t e r i z e s a s Wyndham's " c o n s i s t e n t v i s i o n " , 1 would
d i s t i n g u i s h t h r e e i n t e r c o n n e c t e d c a t e g o r i e s . The f i r s t
i h e m e is "Human a s Animal", s u b j e c t t o D a r w i n i a n i d e a s o f
e v o l u t i o n and ( e s p e c i a l l y ) c o r n p e t i t i o n , with "Hurnanity" a s
i t s own w o r s t enemy. T h i s i s t h e theme m o s t o f t e n d i s c u s s e d
i n s e r i o u s c r i t i c i sm o f Wyndham's w o r k a n d t h e theme t h a t
W y m e r e x a m i n e s w i t h r e f e r e n c e t o T h e C h r y s a l i d s .
T h e s e c o n a a n d t h i r d themes are more d i f f i c u l t t o
s e p a r a t e . Hegemony, o r ove rwhe lming a u t h o r i t y o f a n y s o r t ,
seems to be a very serious concern of Wyndham. Whether it's
the Military, Governmenï, or Industry, Wyndham is extremely
suspicious of any sort of hegemonic power, and especially of
che control or subversion of truth (in the form of
propaganda, censcrship, or "brainwashing") whicn results
from sucn power. The last issue is, perhzps mostly, just a
. - mcnrrsstation of the third--blind faith--in anything, büt
pzrticularlÿ in science and in religion. As Wyndam sees it,
tnis blind faith is encouxaged by the ruling powers through
propaganda or brainwashing. It is the greatest danger to
ïhe survival of the hurnan race.
While al1 of these themes or issues are present to a
greater or lesser extenc in sll four of Wyndham's major
novels, 1 snall, in the following pages, break with
convention--examining The Day of the Triffids along with The
Midwich Cuckoos, and The Kraken Wakes with The Chrysalids--
in the hopes of highlighting what W p e r describes as
Wyndham's "consistent vision". My primary approach will be
close comparative reading supplemented occasionally with
historical and biographical details.
TRIFFIDS AND CUCKOOS: DARUINISM OR CHRISTIAN VALUES?
J o h n Wyndham w a s , a b o v e a l l , a n o v e l i s t , n o t a
p h i l o s o p h e r , a n d as s u c h , h e t i e d h i s p h i l o s o p h y - - h i s
c r i t i c a l i d e a s - - t o h i s s t o r i e s . Wyndham w a s n o t , however ,
j u s t a s t o r y t e l l e r , n c t m e r e l y a c rea tor o f " c o s y
c c ï a s t r o p h e s . " I n e v e n t h e mos t f a n t a s t i c o f h i s n o v e l s ,
chere i s , zt l e a s t , t h e r e c o g n i z a b l e shadow o f h i s own
s o c i e t y , and i m p l i c i t i n t h a t shadow, a c r i t i q u e o f t h e
s t a t u s q u o . So, j u s t a s Wyndham i s s u b t l e i n h i s s o c i a l a n d
p o l i t i c a l c r i t i c i s m , s o mus t w e be i n Our r e a d i n g o f h i s
o . A n e x a m i n a t i o n , t h e n , o f t h e s o c i a l a n d p o l i t i c a l
critique i n h e r e n t i n Wyndham's work i s p e r h a p s b e s t
a ~ p r a a c h e d sornewhat o b l i q u e l y .
I n George O r w e l l ' s a t t a c k on H.G. W e l l s , h e a l l u d e s t o
one of t h e main i s s u e s wh ich would l a t e r corne t o p r e o c c u p y
W y n a h m .
H i t l e r is a11 t h e w a r - l o r d s a n d w i t c n - d o c t o r s i n
h i s t o r y r o l l e d i n t o o n e . T h e r e f o r e , a r g u e s W e l l s , h e
i s a n a b s u r d i t y , a g h o s t f rom t h e p s t , a c r e a t u r e
doomod t o d i s a p p e a r a l m o s t i m m e d i a t e l y . But
u n f o r t u n a t e l y t h e e q u a t i o n o f s c i e n c e w i t h corrunon ser?se
d o e s n o t r e a l l y h o l d good. The a e r o p l a n e , wh ich w a s
l o o k e d f o r w a r d t o a s a c i v i l i z i n g i n f l u e n c e but i n
p r a c t i c e h a s h a r d l y been u s e d except f o r d r o p p i n g
Pombs, is t h e syrnbol of t h a t f a c t . Modern Germany i s
f a r more s c i e n t i f i c t h a n Cng land , a n d f a r more
14 barbarous. Much of what Wells has imagined and worked
for is physically there in Nazi Germany. The order,
tne planning, the State encouragement of science, the
steel, the concrete, che aeroplanes, are al1 there, but
al1 in the service of ideas appropriate to the Stone
A g e - Science is fighting on the side of superstition.
( 163-4 1
The question in one form or anotner arises in Xyndharn's
major works--on the side of what ideas is science fighting
now? Or, how do lingering Stone Age Fdeas hold science in
thrall? It was not Hitler aftex al1 who dropped the first
atomic bombs. How is it that, after the defeat of the Axis
powers, military research intensified rather than waned in
boch ïne East and the West? Who did Hitler's scientists go
C O work for after the war? Wyndham is not anti-science, but
certzinly a healthy suspicion of science as a tool in the
hands of industry or the military is apparent in his major
works . Wyndharn rarely, if ever, attacks either the
individual scientist or the individual soldier--it is
neither science, itself, nor the profession of soldiery
which concern him but, rather, the closed and secret circle
of government "planners", working for "the common good". At
issue is the actuàl desirability of what they work for, and
tne ability of Humanity to assirnilate responsibly the
changes that science brings. Wyndham's wartime experiences
15 may v e r y w e l l be a t t h e r o o t o f t h i s p r e o c c u p a t i o n . A s a
c e n s o r , he h i m s e l f would have b e e n a s m a l l p a r t o f t h a t
closed c i r c l e a n d would have s e e n f i r s t - h a n d t h a t t h e
a u t h o r i t i e s w e r e n o t s a i n t e d champions o f t h e commonweal b u t
m e r e l y men ( r a t h e r t h a n women) w i t h a g e n d a s of t h e i r own.
A s a s o l d i e r i n t h e S i g n a l s Corps , h e would have e x p e r i e n c e d
che h i e r a r c h i c a l s t r u c t u r e o f t h e M i l i t a r y which
n e c o s s i t a t e s a v a s t body of men 5eing k e p t i n t h e àark;
ïne i r i n m e d i a t e s u p e r i o r s would h a v e been o n l y s l i g h t l y more
e n l i g h t e n e d , a n d s o o n u p t h e c h a i n o f cornrnand.
T h e h o r r o r s i n The Day o f t h e T r i f f i d s and The Midwich
Cuckoos a p p e a r e i t h e r d i r e c t l y o r i n d i r e c t l y a s a r e s u l t o f
P l i l i t a r y / I n d ~ s t r i a l i n t e r f e r e n c e w i t h s c i e n c e . T h i s o c c u r s
n o ï o n l y i n some r e a l o r imagined d y s t o p i a n d i c t a t o r s h i p b u t
a l s o i n t h e d e m o c r a t i c W e s t . I n The Midwich Cuckoos, D r .
Willers o b s e r v e s t h a t , "One h a s g o t u s e d t o t h e i d e a of
m i l i t â r y i n t e r f e r e n c e w i t h s c i e n c e i n a number o f f i e l d s - - a
l o r of i t t o ~ a l l y u n n e c e s s a r y . . . " ( 1 0 0 ) . A t r u e enough
o b s e r v a t i o n , b u t wny i s t h a t ? Why i s t h e r e no g e n e r a l
r e v o l t d e s p i t e t h e f a c t t h a t , a n o t h e r
Wyndhamls c h a r a c t e r s r e c a i l s ( a f t e r what amounts t o
Armageddon) i n The Day o f t h e T r i f f i d s :
F r o n 6 August 1 9 4 5 , t h e marg in o f s u r v i v a l h a s
nârrowed a p p a l l i n g l y . I n a e e d , two d a y s ago it w a s
na r rower t h a n i t i s a t t h i s moment. I f you needed t o
16
dramatize, you could well take for your material the
years succeeding the year 1945 when the path of safety
started to shrink to a tight-rope along which we had to
walk with our eyes deliberately closed to the depths
beneath us. (115)
Generally speaking, Wyndham, here, is alluding to the
possibility of nuclear war after the examples of Hiroshima
ânà Nagasaki, but his character is referring not oniy to
tnis but also to a host of other elements in the world of
the novel. The "Triffids, " for example, are mobile,
dangerous, and seemingly sentient plants, "the outcome of a
series of ingenious biological meddlings--and very likely
accidenrzâl at that"(27). This last hypothesis (which makes
The Day of the Triffids perhaps the first work of fiction to
treat the now very concemporary topic of genetically
engineered crops) is speculative, but ic functions as a
literûry device; an omniscient, definite account of the
origin of the triffids (who originate on Venus in one
version) would certainly detract both from the air of menace
surrounding them, and from the sense of verisimilitude in
the novel. Later, Wynaham's narrator, who formerly made his
living working with triffids, muses on the
ethFcal/philosophical ramifications of the creation of them:
1 saw them now with a disgust that they had never
17 r o u s e d i n m e b e f o r e . H o r r i b l e a l i e n t h i n g s which some
o f u s h a d somehow c r e a t e d a n d which t h e rest o f u s i n
o u r s e n s e l e s s g r e e d h a d c u l t u r e d a l 1 o v e r t h e w o r l d .
One coulci n o t e v e n b lame n a t u r e f o r thern. Somehow t h e y
had b e e n b r e d - - j u s t a s w e b r e d o u r s e l v e s b e a u t i f u l
f l o w e r s , o r g r o t e s q u e p a r o d i e s o f d o g s . (197)
A s a l i e n as t h e y may s e e m , t h e t r i f f i d s a re n o more s o
than a new b r e e d o f t u l i p o r a F rench poodle--man-made
c r e a t i o n s a l l . T t seems t h a t the n a r r a t o r ' s d i s g u s t is n o t
w i t h t h e t r i f f i d s t h e m s e l v e s b u t , r a t h e r , ( i n t h e triffids
f rom E a r t h s c e n a r i o ) w i t h t h e p e r v e r t e d i n s t i n c t b e h i n d
their c r e a t i o n .
The a p o c a l y p s e i n The Day o f t h e T r i f f i d s is n o t m e r e l y
a r e s u l t of t h e c r e a t i o n o f t h e t r i f f i d s , however . It i s
instead, a s o r t o f compound d i s a s t e r ; t h e t r i f f i d s o n l y g a i n
free r e i g n a f t e r a n o t h e r man-made h o r r o r - - a s a t e l l i t e - - g o e s
awry. The n a r r a t o r d e s c r i b e s t h e a u v e n t o f a s o r t o f
o r b i t a l m i s s i l e ( n o t u t t e r l y u n l i k e a n I C B M ) d e v e l o p e d i n
b o t h t h e E a s t a n d West c a r r y i n g n o t o n l y a t o m i c weapons b u t
a l s o " s u c h t h i n g s a s c r o p d i s e a s e s , c a t t l e d i s e a s e s ,
r a d i o a c t i v e d u s t s , v i r u s e s , a n d i n f e c t i o n s n o t o n l y of
f a m i i i a r k i n d s , b u t brana-new s o r t s r e c e n t l y t h o u g h t up i n
l a b o r a t o r i e s , a l 1 f l o a t i n g a r o u n d up t h e r e " ( 2 8 - 9 ) .
Why a r e s u c h t h i n ç s d e v e l o p e d ? T h i s q u e s t i o n is
18 perhaps most succinctly answered in a passage from The
Midwich Cuckoos explaining why Military Intelligence not
only tolerated but actively encouraged and protected a
population of changelings in Midwich as a bulwark against a
similar population in Russia:
The War Office view being that it did not know quite
what we had here, or what the Russians had there. But
if it should curn out that the Russians had a flock of
potential geniuses, it would be useful for us to have a
similar flock to put up against them? (190)
This subject is still very much alive in SF; if the
word "monster" w e r e substituted for the word "genius" in the
passage cited above, one would have a fairly accurate
surnrr~âry o f the movie ~liens' and its sequels. Why does tnis
Cold War/Arms Race continue uespite the obvious dangers
i nvo lved? Wyndham, 1 think, sees it in terms similar to
those outlined by C.S. Lewis:
I am a democrat because 1 Selieve that no man or group
of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolleu
power over others. And the higher the pretensions of
such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the
rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the
worst of al1 governments .... The inquisitor who
'dir, James Cameron, 20th Century Fox, 1986.
19 m i s t a k e s h i s own c r u e l t y and l u s t o f power and fear f o r
t h e v o i c e o f Heaven w i l l t o r m e n t u s i n f i n i t e l y b e c a u s e
h e t o r m e n t s u s w i t h t h e a p p r o v a l of h i s own c o n s c i e n c e
a n d h i s b e t t e r i m p u l s e s appear t o h im as t e r n p t a t i o n s .
And s i n c e T h e o c r a c y i s t h e w o r s t , t he n e a r e r any
governrnent a p p r o a c h e s t o Theoc racy , t h e worse i t w i l l
be. A m e t a p h y s i c , h e l d by t h e r u l e r s w i t h t h e f o r c e o f
a r e l i g i o n , i s a bau s i g n . I t f o r b i d s them, l i k e t h e
i n q u i s i t o r , t o a d m i t a n y g r a i n o f t r u t h o r good i n
t h e i r o p p o n e n t s , it a b r o g a t e s t h e o r d i n a r y r u i e s o f
m o r a l i t y , a n d i t g i v e s a s e e m i n g l y h i g h , s u p e r - p e r s o n a 1
s a n c ~ i o n t o a l 1 t h e v e r y o r d i n a r y human p a s s i o n s by
which, l i k e o t h e r men, t h e r u l e r s w i l l f r e q u e n t l y b e
a c t u a t e d . I n a word, i t f o r b i d s wholesome d o u b t . ("A
R e p l y . . ." 8 1 )
Whi le i t i s u n l i k e l y t h a t Wyndharn would have s t a t e d i t
i n t h e s e t e r m s , t h i s s e e m s n e v e r t h e l e s s t o b e t h e dynamic h e
p e r c e i v e s i n t h e C o l d Wzr ( w i t h t h e a d d e d p r o v i s o t h a t n o t
e v e n the "dernocrzit" is s a f e £rom t h e " t h e o c r a t i z a t i o n " o f
g o v e r n m e n t ) . Not o n l y t h e p o s t - r e v o l u t i o n a r y government o f
the S o v i e t Union, b u t a l s o the gove rnmen t s o f t h e d e m o c r a t i c
W e s t see t h e m s e l v e s a s m o r a l l y right i n o p p o s i n g the o t h e r .
I n t h e M a c h i a v e l l i a n s e n s e , a n y t h i n g i s j u s t i f i e d i n o r d e r
to t h w a r t t h e " G o d l e s s comrnunists" o r t h e " I m p e r i a l i s t i c
20 West." What Wyndham s e e m s t o s u g g e s t i s t h a t t h e Cold W a r ,
i n L e w i s ' s c e r m s , " f o r b i d s wholesome d o u b t . " If Arnerican
s c i e n t i s t s Q i s c o v e r t h e s e c r e t o f a weapon which c o u l d
d e s t r o y t h e e a r t h , they must p roduce it s i n c e , i n a l l
l i k e l i h o o d , t h e S o v i e t s w i l l . The a v e r a g e p e r s o n ' s h o r r o r
a t t h e i d e a o f p r o d u c i n g a w o r l d - d e s t r o y i n g weapon becomes
i r r e l e v a n t because : (1) s u c c e s s i v e s c i e n t i f i c d i s c o v e r i e s
i rnplemented h a s t i l y and t h o u g h t l e s s l y h a v e weakened h i s / h e r
r e s i s t a n c e t o f u r t h e r d i s c o v e r i e s and, ( 2 ) b e c a u s e h e / s h e
does n o t e v e n n e c e s s a r i l y know a b o u t i t - - s e c r e c y becomes
pa ramount i n an a t t e m p t t o g a i n a n a d v a n t a g e o v e r t h e o t h e r
side. T h i s l a s t p o i n t may have i t s r o o t s i n Wÿndham's
war t i rne s e r v i c e w i t h t h e M i n i s t r y of I n f o r m a t i o n . A s a
p o s t a l / t e l e g r a p h c e n s o r , Wyndham would have been r e s p o n s i b l e
for e n f o r c i n g s e c r e c y - - c e n s o r i n g t o p i c s whose s p e c i f i c
importance was o f t e n e n t i r e l y o b s c u r e t o h i m , b u t which
appeared on " c l a s s i f i e d c o p i c s " l i s t s .
Wyndham h a s a g r e â t d e a l t o Say a b o u t s o c i e t y ' s
r e a c t i o n t h e g a l l o p i n g Pace s c i e n t i f i c advances
t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y , and l i t t l e o f i t is u n c r i t i c a l l y
l â u à a t o r y . One more t h o u g h t f u l , p h i l o s o p h i c ü l
t h e
c h o r a c t e r s (Gordon Z e l l a b y , i n The Midwich Cuckoos) muses on
t n e d i l e m v a of soc i c t l c h a n g e keep ing p a c e w i t h s c i e n t i f i c
change :
21 ' i t i s a t r i f l e demodé even t o p e r c e i v e t h e e x i s t e n c e
o f t h e p r o b l e m . The t r u e f r u i t o f t h i s c e n t u r y h a s
i i t t l e
i n n o v a c
corne a l
big d o e
i n t e r e s t i n corning t o l i v i n g -
i o n s ; i t j u s t g r e e d i l y g r a b s
o n g . O n l y when i t e n c o u n t e r s
s i t become aware o f a s o c i a l
terns w i t h
tbern al1 as
s o m e t h i n g r
p r o b l e m a t
t h e y
, e a l l y
a l i ,
and t h e n , r a t h e r t h a n n a k e c o n c e s s i o n s , it yammers f o r
the i m p o s s i b l y e a s y way c u t , u n i n v e n t i o n , s u p p r e s s i o n - -
a s i n t h e ma t t e r o f The Bomb.'
' . . . L u c k i l y , w e i n t h e W e s t s t i l l r e t a i n t h e s k e l e t o n
o f o u r e t h i c s , b u t t h e r e a r e s i g n s t h a t t h e o l d b o n e s
a re f i n d i n g t h e w e i g h t of new knowledge d i f f i c u l t t o
c a r r y w i t h c o n f i d e n c e , d o n ' t t h i n k ? ' - L C i s Z e l l z b y ' s c o n t e m p l a t i v e a n d c o n s e r v s t i v e n a t u r e
t h a t d e t e r m i n e s t h e c o m p a r a t i v e l y rnild p h r a s i n g o f t h i s
senciment-- " t h e r e a r e s i g n s t h a t t h e o l d b o n e s ûre f i n d i n g
t h e w e i g h t of new knowledge d i f f i c u l t t o c a r r y ...". The
1 9 5 0 s i n p a r t i c u l a r were a s t r a n g e t i m e i n t e r m s of s c i e n c e
and s o c i e t y - - f a m i l i e s c o n t e r n p l a t e d s i t t i n g t h r o u g h t h i r t y
y ê z r s o f n u c l e a r w i f i t e r i n bomb s h e l t e r s , c n i l d r e n w e r e
t a u ç h t t o h i d e u n d e r d e s k s i n case o f n u c l e a r a t t a c k , and
c a r s were d e s i g n e d t o l o o k l i k e s p a c e s h i p s . I n R e l i g i o n ,
P h i l o s o p h y , a n d S c i e n c e ( 1 9 5 7 ) , a t e x t p o p u l a r i z i n g
s c i e n t i f i c p o s i t i v i s m p u b l i s h e d i n t h e same y e a r as The
22 Midwlch Cuckoos, Burnharn P . Peckworth p r o u d l y p roc l a i rned
t h a t , " i n a d v a n c e d s t a t e s , e u g e n i c r e f o r m i s t h e most
p r o m i s i n g o f al1 s c i e n t i f i c methods f o r m a k i n g m e n h e a l t h i e r
a n d h a p p i e z . " (2161 The a u t h o r p r o u d l y b o a s t s t h a t ,
" s c i e n t i s t s c a n h e l p b o t h t o b r e e d a n a t o t r a i n men who
would want t o d o t h i n g s which f e w o r no l i v i n g m e n now want
t o do . " ( 2 1 7 ) The " o l d bones" o f r n o r a l i t y may w e l l f i n d t h e
prospect of e u g e n i c reforrn " d i f f i c u l t t c c a r r y . " I n a l a t e r
n c v e l , The T r o u b l e With L i c h e n , Wyndham g o e s r i g h t t o t h e
p o i n t a b o u t s o c i e t y ' s i n c r e a s i n g a c c e p t a n c e o f s c i e n t i f i c
d i s c o v e r i e s , d e s c r i 8 i n g i t as:
a f e e l i n g t h a t t h e go ings -on o f s c i e n c e had g o t s o f a r
beyond o r d i n û r y human c o n t r o l , and a n y new d i s c o v e r y
now came s o n e a r l y i n t o t h e c a t e g o r y o f Act o f God,
c h a t it w â s s c a r c e l y w o r t h t r o u b l i n g o n e s e l f t o t r y t o
do a n y t h i n g a b o u t them. ( 1 8 5 )
T h i s i d e a of p e r c e i v i n g s c i e n t i f i c d i s c o v e r i e s i n t h e " A c t
of Goc" c a t e g o r y c i e s i n wich L e w i s ' s "Dangers of Theocracy"
i a e a . If new s c i e n t i f i c a d v a n c e s a r e s e e n i n t h e same l i g h t
a s " A c t s o f God" t h e n t h e r e ' s l i t t l e one c a n d o a b o u t them;
there i s no room, o r i m p e t u s e v e n , f o r c o n s i d e r a t i o n as t o
t h e d e s i r a b i l i t y o f the t h i n g ( o r "wholesorne d o u b t " ) . T h i s
i s i n t e r e s t i n g , e s p e c i a l l y when o n e c o n s i d e r s t h a t Lewis i s
n o t s p e a k i n g s p e c i f i c a l l y about t h e Cold W a r wnen h e r e f e r s
23 t o t h e " d a n g e r s o f T h e o c r a c y " b u t , r a t h e r , of t h e likelihood
t h a t , "Under modern c o n d i t i o n s a n y e f f e c t i v e i n v i t a t i o n t o
H e l l w i l l c e r t a i n l y a p p e a r i n t h e g u i s e of s c i e n t i f i c
p l a n n i n g - - a s H i t l e r ' s r e g i m e i n f a c t did" ( 8 0 ) . I f a
g o v e r n n e n t c a n take a l m o s t u n l i m i t e d l i b e r t i e s w i t h s c i e n c e
when u s i n g i t t o c o u n t e r e i t h e r " t h e g o d l e s s comrnunis ts" o r
" t h e d e c a d e n t warmonger s o f ~ h e W e s t , " how far m i g h t it n o t
go? Wyndham s e e m s t o s u g g e s t t h a t i t w o u l d s t o p a t alrnost
n o t h i n g .
C f c o u r s e t h e o t h e r s i de o f t h e " C o l d W a r " c o i n i s
s e c r e c y . C e r t a i n l y , Wyndham seems t o s u g g e s t t h a t t h e
p u b l i c c a n be made t o s w a l l o w p r a c t i c a l l y any d i s c o v e r y ,
s i n c e i t s r e s i s t a n c e t o s u c h d i s c o v e r i e s h a s b e e n s e e m i n g l y
r e d u c e d t o n i l . What, o n the o t h e r hand, i f t h e p u b l i c
n e v e r h e a r s a b o u t i t i n t h e f i r s t p lace? Al1 f o u r o f
Wyndhzm's m a j o r n o v e l s £rom t h e 1 9 5 0 s dea l t o a g r e a t e r o r
lesser e x t e n t w i t h t h e iaea o f p r o p a g a n d a , a n d w i t h o f f i c i a l
a n d u n o f f i c i a l s e c r e c y . O c c a s i o n a l l y , t h i s a p p e a r s i n t h e
fo rm of a c r i t i q u e o f r e l i g i o u s dogrna. Wyndham w a s b y no
means wha t L e w i s wou ld h a v e c h a r a c t e r i z e d a s a "cc-
r e l i ç i o n i s t " , a n d e n t h u s i a s t i c f o l l o w e r s of t h e C h r i s t i a n
C h u r c h o f t e n r e c e i v e e x t r e m e l y s h o r t s h r i f t i n h i s n o v e l s . 2
hile Wyndham a n d h i s wife Grace were t o r e m a i n c h i l d l e s s , Wyndham d i d u n o f f i c i a l l y "adopt" t h e c h i l d r e n o f h i s f r i e n d B i f f B a r k e r a s h i s l i t e r a r y h e i r s . When o n e of
24 Despite this, the syrnpathetic Zellaby in The Midwich
Cuc koos , remar king "our ancestors, " suggests that "they
only had îo suffer religious dogmatisrn, which was not so
dogrnatic as scientific dogmatism" ( 1 0 6 ) . In fact, Wyndham
saves most of his criticism not for religious propaganda, or
dogmatisrn, but rather for official propaganda and secrecy.
In The Midwich Cuckoos, the "weight of new knowledge"
seems to create an atrnospnere of uneasiness and encourages
an almost institutionalized conspiratorial secrecy. The
government either do not want people to know, or think it
Better for them if tney do not know, what is really going
on, wnat the latest development is. Even among its own
depcrtments, the Government seems to maintain a thick cloüd
of secrecy, and uses the Ministry of Information and
Nilitary Intelligence to enforce it. But F t is not only the
Government/Military that practices secrecy--the people of
Midwich become adept producers of disinformation with no
trouble at all. In The Midwich Cuckoos, Wyndham shows us a
society where secrecy, propàgandû, and disinformation are
the xorm.
Perhaps one of the most insidious and least obvious
eucrnples of the acceptance of propaganda or disinformation
in the novel occurs early when Midwich, which had "lived and
these children--Marion Tess Barker--made clear her intention to become a cloistered nun, she was disinherited.
25 drowsed upon its good soi1 in Arcâdian undistinction for a
thousand years1'(12), prepares for bed one night:
Many cottage windows still threw yellow beams into
the mild evening where they glistened in the dampness
of an earlier shower. The occosional surges of voices
and laughter which swept the place were not local; they
originated with a well handled studio-audience miles
away anà several days aqo. . . . (22) What Wyndham seems to be describing here derives from
celevision and radio, but the two most important elernents of
che passage are "not local" and "well-handled." This c m
be looked at as a sort of foreshadowing of the immanent
invasion of Midwich, but more irnportantly, it signifies the
excent to which the town and its inhabitants have üccepted
boch the new medium and its "well-handled" contents.
Midwich, while not exactly cut off from civilization, has
existed in a certain degree of isolation, but it
nevertheless has easily become integrated into the age of
rnass communications. This is more telling when set off, a
few lines later, against the traditional mode of recreation
and information exchange (the local pub)--"The Scythe and
Stone" (whose very name hearkens back to a pre-industrial
3zst). AS Zellaby would have it, no one has "perceive[d]
inë existence of the problem" ( 1 9 ) . The "problem, " in this
26 case, is the supplanting of a traditional mode of
communication (one which involved people speaking directly
to people about matters of common importance and interest),
with a new one which distances people frcm each other and
disseminares carefully "handled," or purposefully
adulterared, information. Some of the consequences of this
becorne apparent when Zellaby explains the success of the
cover-up of tne Chilaren Co his son-in-law, hllan:
They must have heard fairly fully 1 imagine, but they
choose to believe that that is al1 a tale to cover up
something more normal, but disgraceful .... That is
unless it should get into print. On the word of a
newspaper, of course, eighty or ninety percent would
swing to the opposite extreme, and believe anything.
( 8 2 )
The new emphasis on institutionalized dissemination of
information--whether in newspapers, by radio, or cn
television--has replaced (or at least weakened) people's
belief in the spoken word, and first-hand knowledge of the
world. This emphasis on pre-treated news (propaganda)
bccomes an invaluable tool for preserving official secrecy.
An interesting example of the generally accepted
atmosphere of secrecy is "The Grange." The traditional
country manor has been transformed into the research
27 f a c i l i t y o f some unknown governrnent m i n i s t r y 3 . R a t h e r t h a n
becoming a f o c u s o f l o c a l g o s s i p , o r s p e c u l a t i o n , t h e
i n h a b i t a n t s o f Midwich a c c e p t t h e i n t r u s i o n o f " t n e
M i n i s t r y " w i t h l i t t l e o r no q u e s t i o n . When M i d w i c h ' s
h i s t o r y i s n a r r a t e d , the r e a d e r l e a r n s t h a t t h e r e h a s been
no i n d u s t r i a l o r i n s t i t u t i o n a l presence i n t h e v i l l a g e u n t i l
"the M i n i s t r y i n t r u d e d , and t h e r e c o n d i t i o n i n g o f t h e Grange
had l i t t l e efr'ect upon t h e v i l l a g e l i f e " ( 1 2 ) . S l i g h t l y
l a t e r i n t he n o v e l , a s Wyndham d e s c r i b e s a p e r f e c t l y normal
e v e n i n g i n Midwich, t h e r e i s a n o t h e r r e f e r e n c e t o T h e
Grange :
L i g h t s s t i l l b u r n t i n o n e o r two of t h e new
l a b o r a t o r i e s s h o u l d e r e d on t o T h e Grange, b u t t h e r e was
n o t h i n g x n u s u a l i n t h a t ; i t was comrnon f o r o n e o r two
R ê s e a r c h e r s t o conduc t r h e i r m y s t e r i o u s p u r s u i t s l a t e
i n t o t h e n i g h t . ( 1 6 )
I n t h i s p a s s a g e , t h e " R e s e a r c h e r s " aEe viewed a k i n t o young
V i c t o r F r a n k e n s t e i n s . T h e v i l l a g e r s have no idea what is
g o i n q on i n t h e l a b o r a t o r i e s , and n e i t h e r do t h e y s e e m t o
care v e r y much. A l 1 anyone seems t o know a b o u t t h e Grange,
i s c h a i "it is v e r y hush" ( 4 9 ) . When t h i n g s become
3 T h i s seerns t o b e a r e c u r r i n g s i t e o f s u s p i c i o n f o r Wyndham. I n a n e a r l i e r s t o r y , r e rn in i s cen t o f W e l l s ' - The I s l a n d of D o c t o r Moreau, a c o n v e r t e d c o u n t r y manor is used a s a l a b o r a t o r y f o r r e s e a r c h i n t o s p l i c i n g humans a n d ani rnals . See Ketterer, " ' V i v i s e c t i o n ' " .
u n c o m f o r t a b l e a t t h e G r a n g e i t d i s a p p e a r s :
A f i n e b i t of s e r v i c e o r g a n i z a t i o n : t h e r e s e a r c h e r s
f i r s t h e a r d a b o u t i t on Monday, t h e v a n s a r r i v e d o n
Wednesday, and by t h e week-end t h e house a n d t h e
e x p e n s i v e new l a b o r a t o r i e s s t o o t i blank-windowed a n d
empty , l e a v i n g t h e v i l l a g e r s w i t h t h e f e e l i n g t h a t t h e y
had s e e n a b i t o f pantomime m a g i c . . . . ( 1 1 6 )
A s a p p a r e n t l y m y s t e r i o u s as t h e Grange Ls ( i n i t s own
mundane f a s h i o n ) , it d o e s p r o v i d e a p l a u s i b l e e x c u s e f o r
a n o t h e r o f t h e o f f i c i a l b o d i e s o f s t a t e s e c r e c y t o i n t r u d e
o n Midwich a f t e r t h e Dayout ( t h e t w e n t y - f o u r h o u r p e r i o d st
t h e b e g i n n i n g o f t h e n o v e l , w h e r e i n a r n y s t e r i o u s f o r c e
plunges a l 1 of Midwich i n t o a n u n n a t u r a l s l e e p ) . M i l i t a r y
I n ~ e l l i g e n c e i s t h e g o v e r n m e n t ' s way o f k e e p i n g t h i n g s
sec re t , and it a p p e a r s i n t h e fo rm of C o l o n e l B e r n a r d
W e s t c o ~ t , a s s o o n a s the s i t u a t i o n a t Midwich becomes known.
The n a r r a t o r , R i c h a r d G a y f o r d , i s a c q u a i n t e d w i t h W e s t c o t t ,
and i n t h e f o l l o w i n g c o n v e r s a t i o n h e a t t e m p t s t o d i s c o v e r
MI'S s p e c i f i c i n t e r e s t i n Midwich:
' Y e s . The G r a n g e cornes w i t h i n my s c o p e , a n d
n a t u r a l l y a n y t h i n g u n t o w a r d i n i t s n e i g h b o r h o o d
i n t e r e s t s u s . T h i s , o n e m i g h t c a l1 v e r y u n t o w a r d ,
d o n ' t you t h i n k ? '
' U s ' 1 had a l r e a d y g a t h e r e d f r o m h i s se l f -
29 i n t r o d u c t i c n b e f o r e t h e c o n f e r e n c e , could be e i t h e r
M i l i t a r y I n t e l l i g e n c e i n g e n e r a l , o r h i s p a r t i c u l a r
d e p a r t m e n t o f i t .
'1 t h o u g h t , ' 1 s a i d , ' t h a t t h e S p e c i a l Branch
l o o k e d a f t e r t h a t k i n d o f t h i n g . '
' T h e r e are v a r i o u s a n g l e s , ' he s a i d , v a g u e l y , and
cnanged t h e s u b j e c t . ( 3 9 )
I n t h i s e x c h a n g e , W e s t c o t t i s very vague Fndeed, a n d he
g i v s s p r a c t i c a l l y n o t h i n g away. N e v e r t h e l e s s , t h e Grange
seems a l i k e l y enough r e a s o n f o r M I ' S i n t e r e s t i n Midwich.
Afcer t h e Dayout , b o t h t h e M i l i t a r y and M i l i t a r y
I n t e l l i g e n c e c o n d u c t tests of t h e a f f e c t e d a r e a . I n t h e
f o l l o w i n g p a s s a g e t h e n a r r a t o r , Gayford , describes t h e
a c t i v i t i e s o f t h e M i l i t a r y and t h e movements o f h i s f r i e n d ,
C o l o n e l W e s t c o t t .
T h e v i s i b l e f o c u s o f a t t e n t i o n was c l o s e t o t h e Abbey
r u i n s where a g u a r d was p o s t e d t o p r o t e c t a l a r g e d e n t
i n the g r o u n d w h i c h c e r t a i n l y l o o k e d a s i f s o m e t h i n g
m a s s i v e h a d rested t h e r e f o r a w h i l e . E n g i n e e r s h a d
measured t h i s phenornenon, made s k e t c h e s , a n d t a k e n
p h o t o g r a p h s o f i t . T e c h n i c i a n s of v a r i o u s k i n d s h a d
t h e n trarnped back and f o r t h a c r o s s i t , c a r r y i n g mine-
d e t e c t o r s , g e i g e r - c o u n t e r s , and o t h e r s u b t l e g e a r .
Then, a b r u p t l y , t h e M i l i t a r y l o s t a l 1 i n t e r e s t i n i t ,
a n d w i t h d r e w .
I n v e s t i g a t i o n s a t t h e Grange went on a l i t t l e
l o n g e r , a n d among t h o s e o c c u p i e d w i t h them w a s B e r n a r d
W e s t c o t t . H e d r o p p e d i n t o see u s s e v e r a l tirnes, b u t
h e t o l d u s n o t h i n g o f wha t was g o i n g o n . . . . ( 4 7 - 8 )
While t h e Grange r e m a i n s , i t s p r e s e n c e and M I ' S i n t e r e s t i n
i t are enough t o keep most e v i d e n c e o f the Dayout o u t o f t n e
press. F, number of s i g n i f i c a n t t a c i t a c c e p t a n c e s o c c u r
here . To b e g i n w i t h , e v e r y o n e i n Midwich ( o r a l m o s t
eve ryone- -more on t h i s l a t e r ) f i g u r e s t h a t t h e p r e s 2 n c e o f
che G r a n g e was t h e r e a s o n t h e Dayout o c c u r r e d a t Midwich; o n
top of t h i s , everyone--MI, t h e M i l i t a r y i n g e n e r a l , and t h e
v i l l a g e r s - - a c c e p t s t h a t t h e Dayout s h o u l d n o t b e rnent ioned
Fz t n e p r e s s . Why i s t h i s t h e case? I n t h e first i n s t a n c e ,
everyone a s s u m e s t h e p r e s e n c e o f t h e Grange i s the r o o t o f
~ h e Dayouc b e c a u s e , i n G a y f o r d ' s words , "What o t h e r r e a s o n
could there be- - in Midwich?" ( 5 0 ) . The v i l l a g e , i t s e l f , i s
p e r c e i v e d b y i t s i n h a b i t a n t s a s e s s e n t i a l l y i n c o n s e q u e n t i a l -
- i c s o n l y o f f i c i a l l y i m p o r t a n t a s p e c t b e i n g t h e Grznge a ~ d
whatever g o e s on t h e r e . On t h e o t h e r hand, t h e r e a s o n s f o r
keep ing it o u t o f t h e p r e s s a r e t w o f o l d . Z e l l a b y e x p l a i n s :
' B u t for your p r e s e n c e , and t h e c o n s e q u e n t
S e c u r i t y i n t e r e s t , ' h e sa id , ' w e s h o u l d w i t h o u t d o u b t
h a v e s u f f e r e d a v i s i t a t i o n far worse t h a n t h a t o f t h e
31 D a y o u t . Our p r i v a c y w o u l d have b e e n r a v a g e d , Our
s u s c ê p t i b i l i t i e s o u t r a g e d b y the t h r e e m o d e r n F u r i e s ,
c n e a w f u i s i s t e r h o o d o f t h e p r i n t e d word, t h e r e c o r d e d
w o r d , and t h e p i c t u r e . ' (52-3)
While many o f t h e i n h a b i t a n t s o f Midwich a r e p e r f e c t l y
c o m f o r t a b l e w a t c h i n g t e l e v i s i o n , a l m o s t n o n e of them a r e
c o m f o r t a b l e w i t h t h e idea o f becoming f o d d e r f o r i t 2nd t h e
r e s t of t h e mass m e d i a . One m i g h t S a y t h a t t h i s p a r t i c u l a r
i n n o v a t i o n ( t h e mass m e d i a ) b a s d e v e l o p e d £ a s t e r t h a n p e o p l e
c a n a c a p t t o i t . So b e t w e e n t h e M i l i t a r y , and t h e i r
u n q u e s t i o n e d " s e c u r i t y s n g l e W - - t h a t i s t o S a y t h e
v n d e s i r a b i l i t y o f p u b l i c i t y f o r w h a t e v e r h a p p e n s a t t h e
Grange - -and t h e g e n e r a l d i s i n c l i n a t i o n t o become f o d d e r f o r
t h e media, a l 1 c a n a g r e e o n t h e i m p o r t a n c e of d i s i n f o r m i n g
a n d r n u z z l i n g t h e p r e s s . The e f f i c i e n c y w i t h w h i c h t h i s
c a k e s p l a c e , w a r r a n t s a t t e n t i o n i n i t s e l f .
D u r i n g a n d a f t e r t h e D a y o u t , t h e M i l i t a r y a n d M i l i t a r y
I n t e l l i g e n c e t a k e r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r k e e p i n g t h i n g s secret .
I n o n e p a s s a g e , C o l o n e l W e s t c o t t r e a s s u r e s a n o t h e r o f f i c e r
t h a t s t e p s h a v e a l r e a d y b e e n t a k e n t o k e e p t h e p r e s s s i l e n t :
" ' T h a t , a t l e a s t , n e e d n ' t w o r r y you m u c h , ' B e r n a r d t o l d h im.
' T h e r e ' s b e e n a Home O f f i c e advice o n t h i s a l r e a d y " ' ( 3 5 ) .
D u r i n g t h i s p e r i o d , t h a t i s r e a l l y a 1 1 it t a k e s , a n d n o n e of
t h e o f f i c i a 1 b e h a v i o u r is s e e n as i n a n y way p e c u l i a r .
32 When t h 2 g e n e r a l p r e g n a n c y is r e a l i z e d however , and
e s p e c i a l l y a f t e r t h e C h i l d r e n a r e b o r n , t h e p r a c t i c e o f
s e c r e c y t o k e s o n a d i f f e r e n t c h a r a c t e r . M i l i t a r y
I n t e l l i g e n c e r e m a i n s , f o r r e a s o n s no o n e c a n fa thom,
i n t e r e s t e d i n t h e s i t u a t i o n , a n d t h e v i l l a g e t a k e s on t h e
t c s K o f p r e s e r v i n g s e c r e c y w i t h r e r n a r k a b l e s k i l l a n d
a l a c r i t y . One p h r a s e t h a t is r e p e a t e d a g a i n and a g a i n i n
t n e n o v e l , i n one forrn o r another, is , Co p a r a p h r a s e , "What
does a l 1 t h i s have t o d o w i t h M i l i t a r y I n t e l l i g e n c e ? " Whi le
t h e Grange r e m a i n s i n Midwich, t h e v i l l a g e r s more o r less
a c c e p t t h e p r e s e n c e ( o r a t least i n t e r e s t ) o f t h e M i l i t a r y
a s n o r m a l . Once t h e l a b o r a t o r i e s a r e e m p t i e d , however,
t h e i r c o n t i n u e d i n t e r e s t becomes more d i f f i c u l t f o r t h e
l o c a l s t o a c c e p t . The v i l l a g e d o c t o r v o i c e s t n i s c o n c e r n :
" I n t h e f i r s t p l a c e , 1 d o n o t see why M . 1. is c o n c e r n e d i n
t h i s a t s l l : i n t h e s e c o n d , t h a t i t s h o u l d b e , a p p a r e n t l y ,
a n e x c l u s i v e c o n c e r n o f t h e i r s is o u t r a g e o u s " ( 1 0 0 ) . D r .
Willers f u r t h e r m e n t i o n s t h a t "One h a s g o t u s e d t o t h e ides
of m i l i t a r y i n t e r f e r e n c e w i t h s c i e n c e i n a number o f
fields . . . b u t t h i s F s r e a l l y p r e p o s t e r o u s ! " ( l O O ) . R e g a r d l e s s
of why M . I . i s i n t e r e s t e a i n t h e C h i l d r e n , t h e y do g o t o
g r e ô t l e n g t h s t o p r e s e r v e t h e i r s e c r e c y - - o r a t l ea s t , t h i s
seerns t o b e t h e case. M . I . r e m a i n s c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y terse
o n t h e s u b j e c t , and w e l e a r n more frorn t h e o t h e r c h a r a c t e r s '
33 speculation than we learn from Westcott. At one point,
Zellaby suggests that "the unperceived official machinations
to keep al1 of this quiet nust have been quite
considerable"(ll1). At one point Westcott does go so far as
to Say of che Children, "my Department doesn't want them
publicizeci" ( 1 3 0 ) . This is, however, the most he ever says
(until his final revelation of the other colonies of
Children around the world),
T h e r e are numercus meritions in the novel of Westcott's
professional reticence. Westcott takes Gayford along with
him to Fnvestigate the Dayout but never actually reveals his
roasons for doing so or his interest in the situation
generally. Gayford describes the situation to his wife
later by saying, "He seemed to have second thoughts and
become more reserved altogether once we actually got close
cc i t W ( 4 O ) . Westcott maintains a fairly steadfast silence
on his interest in the Children throughout the novel, but
even after he reveals the existence of the other colonies,
he quickly reverts to official secrecy. When questioned on
his, or his department's, plans for the Children, his reply
is, "If I had any Fdeâs I suppose they'd have to be official
secrets" ( 1 9 2 ) .
What is, perhaps, more remarkable than M.I.'s efforts
to keep Midwich's Children a secret, is Midwich's own
3 4 efforts in t h a t direction. Once D r . Willers and Zellaby
realize the pregnancy situation, they swiftly and
effectively adopt a strategy of secrecy and propaganda to
prevent the spread of this n e w s . They cal1 a general
mesting of wornen in Midwich, and Mrs. Zellaby presents a
warning speech:
. . . I warn you thac if this should becorne generally
known it will be argued i n every club and pub, w i t h a
great many nasty insinuations--unless then, we want to
be exposed to that, and then to the very r e a l
possibility that o u r babies will be taken away f r o m us
on one excuse or another by doctors and scientists, we
must, every one of us, resolve not t o mention, or even
hint oucside the village, at the present state of
a f f a i r s . . . . I f p e o p l e i n T r a y n e , o r elsewhere, are
inquisitive, or strangers corne here as king questions,
we nust, for our babies' sakes, and our own, tell them
nothing. But we must not simply be silent and
secretive, as if we were concealing something. We must
m a k e it seem that there i s nothing unusual i n Midwich
a t all. (71 -2 )
In this passage, we can see the fundamental dynamic of t h e
novel taking place. The fear, or discornfort, with the idea
35 of becoming the target of the mass media couples with a
fundamental distrust of the scientific establishment to form
the will to secrecy. While the desire for privacy may be an
archetypally English trait, the dispatch with wnich tne
villagers successfully mount a propaganda campaign would be
grossly exaggerated if it were merely for the effect of
verisimilitude.
Ironically enouah, it would be far better for tne
villagers if the babies were taken away by scientists and
doctors, and better for the human race if the newspapers did
gst wind of the story--it is the atmosphere of secrecy that
allows the Children tirne to safely develop cheir powers.
Lote in the novel, some of the characters are discussing the
confrontational situation that has arisen, and Zellaby makes
the point that
it has come earlier than the Children themselves would
wish, too. They know they are not ready to face it.
That is why they want to get awaÿ tc some place where
they can reach maturity unmolested. (207-8)
The only reason the Children have been able to develop t h u s
f a r is because of the aura of secrecy surrounding them.
Once that secrecy is removed--even partially--the Children
realize that Midwich is no longer safe for them, and the
need to move somewhere else (presumably somewhere secret)
36 becomes apparent.
Another instance of the danger of secrecy with regards
to the Children appears when Westcott reveals the
simultaneous arriva1 of other groups of Children:
There may have been other places we didn't hear of.
It's pretty certain it happened in some places in South
,%rnerica and in Africa, too, but it's difficult to
check. The inhabitants tend to Be secretive. It's
even possible that an isolated village would miss a day
ând not know it -- in which caso the babies would be
even more of a puzzle. In rnost of the cases we do know
of, the babies were regarded as freaks, and were
killed, but we suspect that in some they may have been
hidden away. (189-90)
This example is somewhst problematic, in tnat the aura of
secrecy seems unrelated to anxiety regsrding technology or
cne media, but can be resolved when one considers that what
the bebies were "hidden away" from was the scrutiny of
IrnperiaListic powers (purveyors of anxiety-generating and
culture-disrupting technology). Aside £rom this problem,
however, the passage does suggest (1) that the Children
stand the best chance of fully developing their powers when
cloaked Dy secrecy, anci (2) that what may seem--to Brian
Aldiss at least--to be a "cosy disaster" (the appearance of
3 7 the C h i l d r e n i n Midwich, and t h e i r t i d y d e s t r u c t i o n ) , i s
s u b s t a n t i a l l y less c o s y when one r e o l i z e s t h a t s i m i l a r
ç r o u p s l i k e l y e x i s t u n c h a l l e n g e d , s a f e l y secreted away. The
g e n e r a l a t m o s p h e r e o f s e c r e c y , which h a s become e c c e p t e d
alrnosc a s rihe n o r n , v e r y n e a r l y s p e l l s ( o r may y e t s p e l l )
t h e e n d o f the human race.
T h i s state o f s e c r e c y i s d e s c r i b e d c l e a r l y b y C o l o n e l
L a t c h e r d c r i n g t h e Dayout, a n d can b e a p p l i e u b o t n t o
M i l i t a r y t e c h n o l o g y i n g e n e r a l and t o t h e C h i l d r e n i n
~ a r t i c u l a r :
T r o u b l e i s , f o r a l 1 w e know i t may b e some l i t t l e t r i c k
o f o u r own gone wrong. So much damned s e c r e c y nowadays
c h a t nobody knows a n y t h i n g . Don ' t know what t h e o t h e r
chap h a s ; d o n ' t even know what you may h a v e t o u s e
y o u r s e l f . A l 1 t h e s e s c i e n t i s t f e l l e r s i n b a c k rooms
r u i n i n g t h e p r o f e s s i o n . C a n ' t keep up w i t n wnat you
d o n ' t know. S o l d i e r i n g ' l l soon b e n o t h i n g b u t w i z a r d s
a n d w i r e s . ( 3 5 )
P a r t o f t h e p rob l em o u t l i n e d by t h e C o l o n e l i s n o t knowing
"what t h e o t h e r c h a p has . . . . " I n t h i s case, " t h e o t h e r
chap" refers mos t l i k e l y t o t h e S o v i e t Union, a s a n o t h e r
o f f i c e r l a t e r m e n t i o n s , "Never know what t h e s e I v a n s are u p
t o " ( 3 8 ) . E s s e n t i a l l y , t n e r a t i o n a l e r u n s l i k e t h i s - - s i n c e
we d o n ' t know what t h e R u s s i a n s have ( i n t e r m s o f
38 technology), we had better not let anyone know what we have.
In this kind of situation everything becomes secret--
everything becomes strategically important. Near the end of
the novel, Westcott reveals that the reason Midwich's
Children ore kept a secret is because the Russians
apparently have a batcn of their own:
The War Office view being that it did not know quite
what we had here, or what the Russians hod there. But
if it should turn out that the Russians had a flock of - potential geniuses, it woula be useful for us to have a
similar flock ro put up against them? (190)
Once the danger presented by the existence of the Children
becones generally known in Midwich, Military Intelligence
(which h2retofore had been sort of mysteriously helpful in
keeping Midwich's secret), becomes villainized and is seen
as responsible for tne rise of the Children. As Mrs.
Zellaby puts it, wnen arguing against going to t r y and stop
the villagers from burning down the Grange:
Colonel Westcott, you would do more harm than good.
You are identified witn the Children's interest. (160)
But the rise of the Children is not, strictly speaking,
MiliCary Intelligence's fault. This relates to t h e second
point brought up by Colonel Latcher, essentially that, you
"don ' t even know what you moy have to use yourself" ( 3 5 ) .
39 In a certain sense, what Latcher says applies directiy
to r h e way the authorities handle the Midwich problem. An
excellent example of this occurs early in the novel, when "a
desiccated-looking couple called Freemanw(ll6) arrive in
Midwicn to study the Children. The ironically named
Freemans are portrayed as spies. They spend their time
" 1 u r k i r . g ond peering" and, "insinuating themselves" ( 1 1 6 ) .
While they are apparently employed by "an unspecified
official bodyn(116), Westcott and Military Intellige~ce seem
to know almost nothing about them. When Gayford inquires
afcer them, Westcott replies that "they were nothing to do
wiih his department, but that their appointment was
o u t n e n t i c " ( 1 1 7 ) . This sort of atrnosphere, where you "don' t
even know what you may have to use yourselfft' is reflected
repeatedly in the novel. Above all, it qenerates (and is
qenerated Dy) an anxiety about the role of science and
technological innovation in society (undoubtedly a sentiment
intensified in the atomic age), especially a society in
which "One has got usêd to the idea of military interference
with science in a nurnber of fieldsU(100). Zellaby comments
on che problems inherent in living in an age dominated by
science, when discussing the phenomenon of the Children:
But if the type is unknown, the phenomenon is not-
-Our ancestors, wno did not have Willer's blind faith
4 0 i n t h e a r t i c l e s o f s c i e n c e - + a d a word f o r i t : t h e y
ca l l ed s u c h b e i n g s c h a n g e l i n g s . None of t h i s b u s i n e s s
w o u l d have seemed a s s t r a n g e t o them a s it d o e s t o u s
b e c a u s e t h e y h a d o n l y t o s u f f e r r e l i g i o u s dogmat i sm,
w h i c h w a s n o t s o d o g m a t i c as s c i e n t i f i c dogmat i sm.
M e v e r t h e l e s s , c lear t h a t this " s c i e n t i f i c dogmat i sm"
is the o r d e r o f t h e day, and e v e n t h o u g h many may b e
s u s p i c i o u s i t , s e c u r e l y d o m i n a n t . T h i s a t t a c k
" s c i e n t i f i c dogmat i sm, " o r " s c i e n t i s m " l i n k s Wyndham w i t h
C.S. L e w i s who c r i t i c i z e d Wells t h i s r e s p e c t . One
s x â m p l e o f t h i s c r i t i c i sm a p p e a r s i n L e w i s ' s T h a r H i d e o u s
S t r e n g t h ( 1 9 8 9 ) , w h e r e i n h e mode l s t h e c h a r a c t e r H o r a c e
J u l e s on Wells:
( s i n c e ) a n y s c i e n c e h e knew was t h a t t a u g h t h im a t t h e
U n i v e r s i t y o f London o v e r f i f t y y e a r s a g o , a n d a n y
p h i l o s o p h y h e knew h a d beon a c q u i r e d f r o m writers l i k e
H a e c k e l a n d J o s e p h McCabe a n d Winwood Reade, i t w s s
f a c t , p o s s i b l e t a l k him a b o u t m o s t t h e
t h i n g s t h e I n s t i t u t e w a s r e a l l y d o i n g . (The C o s m i c
L e w i s s u g g e s t s t h a t J u l e s ' ( a n d Wells') f a i t h i n s c i e n c e is
j u s t t h a t , F a i t h - - b a s e d o n u n r e a s o n e d i d e a s . I n t h i s same
vein, Wyndham woüld a r g u e t h a t t h e M i l i t a r y t s u s e o f
4 1 t e c h n o l o g y o r s c i e n c e i s s i m i l a r l y u n r e a s o n e d .
C o l c n e l L a t c h e r ( a n opponent o f s c i e n t i f i c dogniat ism,
i n s o f a r a s it a f f e c t s t h e p r o f e s s i o n o f s o l d i e r i n g ) e x h i b i t s
r n i s f e a r of s c i e n c e , when h e s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e Dayout "may
be sorne l i t t l e t r i c k o f Our own g o n e w r o n g W ( 3 5 ) . I n t h i s
a t m o s p h e r e , n o t even t h e Military know what t e c h n o l o g y t n e y
have a t t h e i r d i s p o s a l , b u t t h e y a r e s u s p i c i o u s enough o f i t
C O s p e c u l a t e on t h e p o s s i b i l i t y of something g o i n g wrong.
W e s t c o t t echoes t h i s s e n t i m e n t a few pages l a t e r , when
argui~g w i t h Gayford a b o u t what may have happened d u r i n g t h e
Dayout.
'No v i s i b l e e f f e c t , ' h e r e p e a t e d . 'Tha t means
r a t h e r l i t t l e doesn ' t i t ? You f o r
i n s t a n c e , have q u i t e a s e r i o u s d o s e o f ,Y-rays, gamma-
r a y s , and o t h e r s , w i t h o u t i m m e d i a t e v i s i b l e effect. '
(50)
"Nowadays," t h e r e seem t o b e a l 1 sorts o f " s c i e n t i f i c
h o r r o r s " o u t t h e r e , p e r h a p s t o t h e e x t e n t t h a t t h e a r r i v a 1
o f thê C h i l d r e n i s n o t h i n g more t h a n 2 m a n i f e s t a t i o n o f t h e
developing t r e n d . I f i t had n o t b e e n t h e C h i l d r e n , c o u l d i t
n o t j u s ï a s e a s i l y have been sornethkng e l s e - - t h e Atom Bornb,
gamma-rays, g e n e t i c a l l y e n g i n e e r e d v i r u s e s , o r s o m e t h i n g w e
hâve y e t t o h e a r o f ?
How i s i t t h a t normal p e o p l e c a n go a b o u t t h e d a i l y
b u s i n e s s o f l i v i n g w i t h t h e e v e r p r e s e n t t h r e a t o f
e x t i n c t i o n hang ing ove r t h e i r heads? Ln The Day o f t h e
4 T r l f f i d s , Wyndham's n a r r a t o r , Wi l l i am Masen, c o n s i d e r s , a t
o n e p o i n t , t h e e x r e n t t o which peop le a re r e c o n c i l e d t o
t h e i r r o u t i n e and are i g n o r a n t o f t h e d a n g e r s t h a t s u r r o u n d
them:
the m o u n t w e did n o t know and d i d n o t c a r e t o know
â b o ~ t OUT d a i l y l i v e s i s n o t o n l y a s t o n i s h i n g but
somehow a b i t shock ing . 1 knew p r a c t i c a l l y n o t h i n g ,
f o r i n s t a n c e , of s u c h o r d i n a r y t h i n g s as how my f o o d
r e a c h e d m e , where t h e f r e s h wate r c a m e from, how t h e
c l o t h e s 1 wore were woven and made, how t h e d r a i n a g e o f
c i r i e s k e p t them h e a l t h y . Our l i f e had becorne a
c o m p l e x i t y c f s p e c i a l i s t s , a l 1 a t t e n d i n g t o t h e i r
own j o b s w i t h more o r less e f f i c i e n c y and e x p e c t i n g
o t h e r s t o do t h e same. ( 1 6 )
Even I n t h e l i g h t o f t h i s "complex i ty o f s p e c i a l i s t s " ,
'1t s h o u l d be noted t h a t t h e n a r r a f o r s o f Wyndham's f i r s t t w o rnajor works o f t h e 1950s--The Day o f t h e T r i f f i d s a n d The Kraken Wakes--William Masen a n d Mike Watson, have the s a m e i n i t i a l s r e v e r s e d ; "W" and " M W are t h e f i r s t and l a s t l e t t e r s o f t h e narne John H a r r i s assumed when he began t o w r i t e "a rnodi f ied f o r m of what i s u n h a p p i l y known as s c i e n c e f i c t i o n . " T h i s s o r t o f c r y p t i c , o r c r y p t o g r a p h i c , s e l f - r e f e r e n c e p e r h a p s c w e s something t o Wyndham's s e r v i c e i n t h e Royal Cozps o f S i g n a l s du r ing t h e war . Ketterer s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e "-onw s u f f i x i n t h e names of numerous Wyndham c h a r a c t e r s - - P l a y t o n , Watson, Dixon, Weston, e tc . --was Wyndham' s way of showing a f f e c t i o n f o r h i s f r i e n d (and l a t e r , w i f e ) , Grace N i l s o n , and o f drawing a t t e n t i o n t o their bond v i a t h e names
however, Wyndham s e e m s t o a r g u e t h a t n o t eve ryone is
e n t i r e l y c o m f o r t a b l e l i v i n g i n t h e t e c h n o l o g i c a l age.
S p e c i f i c a l l y , h e s e e m s t o s u g g e s t z parctdox--that h u m a n i t y ' s
" a n i m a l i n s t i n c t s " rernain a p a r t of us--submerged, p e r h a p s ,
t o a g r e a t e r o r lesser e x t e n t , b u t p r e s e n t n o n e t h e l e s s ,
d e s p i ~ e o u r technological/scientific ach ievernen ts and
seerning removal f rom t h e r ea lm o f Darwin ian s t r u g g l e .
I n T h e Day o f t h e T r i f f i d s , Wyndham a l l u d e s r e p e a t e d l y
t o t h e p e r s i s t e n c e o f h u m a n i t y ' s a n i m a l i n s t i n c t s , o r t o t h e
esse with which w e r e c o v e r them. When B i l l Masen, w i t h e y e s
bandaged , awakes i n t h e h o s p i t a l t o t h e r e a l i z a t i o n t h a t
somezhing i s n o t r i g h t , t h e s e " e l e m e n t a l f e a r s " r e t u x n .
A nascy , ernptÿ f e e l i n g began t o c r awl up i n s i d e
m e . I t w a s t h e same s e n s a t i o n 1 u s e d t o have somet imes
a s a c h i l d when 1 g o t t o f a n c y i n g t h a t h o r r o r s w e r e
l u r k i n g i n t h e snadowy c o r n e r s o f t h e bedroom. . . . 1 had
t o f i g h t down t h e feeling, j u s t a s 1 had had t o when 1
wss a k i d i n t h e dark. And i t was no e a s i e r . I t ' s
s u r p r i s i n g how much you d o n ' t grow o u t of when i t cornes
t o t h e t e s t . The e l e m e n t a l fears w e r e s t i l l rnarching
a l o n g w i t h m e , w a i t i n ç t h e i r c h a n c e , and p r e t t y n e a r l y
g e t t i n g i t - - j u s t b e c a u s e m y e y e s w e r e bandaged, a n d t h e
t r a f f i c had s t o p p e d .... (9-10) T h e c h i l d i s h f e a r of t h e d a r k , t o which Wyndham a l l u d e s
aêynon - and Wilson. - See Viv ian Beynon Harris 14.
4 4 here, is one that most people "grow out of" as they get
older and more reasonable. As he suggests here, however,
the veneer of reason that eventualiy covers this sort of
fear may be very thin indeed. Masen is presented as a
reasonable man, no more given over to morbid imaginings than
the average person, yet it seems to take comparatively
lictle encouragement for his "elemental fears" to resurface.
This r a i s e s the question, to wnat extent is "reason"
responsible for overcoming "elemental fears," and to what
exrent is "reason's" ability to do this predicated on
circumstances? Masen's fears don't arise merely because of
the darkness but, rather, because the accustomed sounds of
civilization had ceased. Later in the novel, after
"civilization" as such is only a memory, Masen again
experiences a fear of the dark:
The sun was low, and half the square was thrown into
shadow. Socn 1 would have to go in. While tnere was
light 1 could sustain myself; in the dark, things could
stedl quietly upon me. Already 1 was on my way back to
the primitive. Before long, perhaps, I should be
spending the hours of darkness in fear as my remote
ancestors must have done, watching, ever distrustfully,
the night outside their cave. (158)
In essence, Wyndham s~ggests here that it is not so much
4 5 reason as it is the trappings of civilization that free us
from the fear of the dark. When Masen says, "things could
steal quietlÿ upon me", his terminology implies not a
reasoned f ear tri£ fids, bandits, wild but
rather an irrational fear of unknown "thinqs," and it is not
reascn which fiees us of this fear, but electric lights--the
fragile frui~s of science.
Tne resurgence of passive emotions, such as fear, is
not the only evidence of humanity's lingering animal
instincts, however. There is ample evidence in The Day of
the Triffids that more active beh'avior is affected as well,
once the trappings of civilization begin to Wear thin. When
Masen leaves his hospital room to look into his situation,
he notes that, "1 stepped out cautiously--why coutiously? I
don't know, There was sornething that induced it1'(17).
Again, this is not a reasonable measure--at least noc a
consciously reasoned one--but rather an instinctive
behaviour. When he later encounters a mob of blind patients
fighting to escape from the hospital, he notes that,
"Fighting with my civilized urge to be of some help to these
people was an instinct that told me to keep clear"(63).
Finally, Masen finds himself Eighting his instincts in order
to scick to a carefully reasoned course of action. He
States that his impulse is to
4 6 sneak silently on foot, seeking safety in cunning, like
a beast in the jungle. It needsd al1 my will power to
keep myself steady and hold to my plan. (152)
Clearly, the regression to animal instincts in the absence
of civilization is not wholesale; Masen remains â thinking,
reasoning creature, but this does nothing to undermine the
fzct thât these instincts are present and nave the power to
assert themselves.
It is, perhaps, lucky for Masen that his animal
instinct for cautior? remains because there are a number of
examples of more aggressive "instinctive" behavior in the
novel. One early and comparatively benign example of
11 animal Fnstinct" appears when Masen encounters a number of
Dlind people in the street startled by à scream:
All along the street they stooà still, turning their
neads this way and that, apprehensively trying to guess
what was happening. The alarm coming on top of their
distress and nervous tension started a number of the
women whimpering: the men's nerves weren't in any too
qood a scate, either; they showed it mostly in short
curses at being startled. (63)
The "whimpering" and "short curses" the people emit seem
rather more like animal vocâlizations than communication--
variations on the fight/flight instinct. Instead of
4 7
following a reasonable course of action and listening for
further information, the people resort to these
vocalizations to release tension. Further, as the people
turn "their heads this way and that, apprehensively txying
to guess what was happening," they resernble nothing so much
as ~riffids navigating by sound. Later, when attacked by a
triffid, Masen himself reverts to a serni-savage state:
One's mind can move like Iightning at sucn a moment:
nevertheless, it was more instinct than reason which
sent me leaping at it before it nad time to strike
again. I collided with it, overturning it, and even as
I went down with it rny hands were on the upper part of
its stem, trying to pull off the cup and the sting.
Triffid stems do not snap--but they can be mangled.
This one was mangled thoroughly before 1 stood up.
( 7 3 - 0 )
As this passage shows, it is Masen's remaining animal
instincts which help him survive once the shelter of
civiiizâtion is rernoved. Another exûmple of the advantage
of animal or "prirnitive/savage" instincts appears in The
Midwich Cuckoos when Westcott explains how various groups
dealt wirh the appearance of the Children:
'There was another Dayout at an Eskirno settlement
on Victoria Island, north of Canada. The inhabitants
4 8 are cagey about what happened there, but it is believed
chat they were so outraged, or perhaps alarmed, at the
arriva1 of babies so unlike their own kind that they
expcsed them almost at once. At any rate, none
survived. ' (189)
While it may not be animal instinct, as such, the relative
lack of what would be deerned "civilization" in more
industrialized regions seems to be precisely what saves the
"Eskimos1' frorn being dominated by the Children as the people
of Midwich are. Westcott goes on CO describe how another
"uncivilized" group deals with the appearance of a colony of
tne Children:
'One of them was in the Irkutsk region, near the border
of Outer Mongolia--a very grim affair. It was assumed
chat the women nad been lying with aevils, and they
perished as well as the Children. ' (189)
The Mongolians, like the "Eskimos, " lack "civiiization, " yet
while their method of dealing witn the Children may be "a
very grim sffair," it is still less grim than the prospect
of the extinction of the human race. Yet while John
Scarborough, for one, accuses Wyndharn of being anti-science,
or anti-intellectual (mistakenly, as 1 would argue), a
critic would be f a i r l y hard-pressed to characterize him as
anti-civilization. Wyndharn's protagonists are not atavistic
4 9 chugs, Luddites bent on saving hurnanity from the decadence
of civilization. They are reasonable people--intellectual
ro a greater or lesser extent and interested in redeeming
the best of civilization. The Eskimos and Mongolians are
saved not only by their "savagery" but also by the fact that
they eren't circumscribed by a scientifically driven
Military-Industrial complex which seizes any potential
advzn~age to use against its enemies. Sigourney Weaver's
character, "Ridleyrl' manages to Save herself £rom repeated
alien menaces in the ~liens' films (1986+) through her own
cunning and by fighting savagely, yet were it not for the
avarice and deviousness of "the corporation" trying to
capture aliens for use in its "biological-weapons division,"
she would nardly have been in danger at all. This theme or
dynarnic is played out repeatedly, not j u s t in the Alien
films but in a host of other SE' films such as Leviathan
(1989), Screamers (1995), and John Carpenter's The Villoge
of the Damned (1955) . The last of these is, in f a c t , the
second film based on Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos, although
as Daphne Kutzer notes, it differs from the original on
several points6.
5 Aliens, dir. James Cameron, 20th Century Fox, 1986. %s Kutzer points out, the Children in Carpenter's film,
unlike those in Wyndham's novel, are not emotionless and coldly rational, but are rather, spiteful and smug. The action takes place in a town in Southern California that is
50 It is not, finally, a reversion to savagery which saves
the protagonists of The Midwich Cuckoos or The Day of the
Triffids, quite the opposite in fact. In The Midwich
Cuckoos there are those who revert to savagery in attempts
to strike at the Children, but these attempts invariably
fail miserably. When the men of the village march on the
Grange in a mob to burn the Children out, the results are
h o r r i f ying:
One wornan and three men dead. Eight men and five women
in hospital. Two of the men and one woman in a pretty
bad way. (162)
Their gathering is not deliberateiy organized; it is not "a
matter of reason, it's more primitive" ( 1 5 5 ) . Similarly,
when the Chief Constable of Winshire loses his temper and,
inscead of speaking rationally with one of the Children,
begins ïo bully him, he winds up "lying slackly now,
seemingly unconscious, drawing long, greedy breaths, shaken
occasionally by a violent tremorW(184). In a similar
- - -- - -- -
anomalously homogenous (raciâlly and social1y)--unlike Wyndhamls fairly representative English village, Carpenter's setting stands out. There are few if any citizens vho are not w h i t e and middle-classed, which suggests that there are d i f f e r e n t tensions at play here than there are in the novel (or earlier film version). Finally, Kutzer suggests that Kirscie Alley ' s character (the evil and scheming government scientist) takes focus away from the original Darwinist focus of the novel and (1 wouid add) provides an individual, rather than a systemic, villain--however Wyndham rarely (as I have rnentioneci before) attacks individual scientists or soldiers, but rather focuses his criticism on the Military-
51 display of the Children's celepathic power, when a local boy
begins shooting at the Children in revenge for the slaying
of his brother, he is forced to turn the gun on himself.
This attempt at revenge is condemned by Zellaby, as not
justice but as mere "feuding"(l57).
Eventually it is Zellaby, himself, who destroys the
Children in an act of self-sacrifice. One way to look at
this would be to see Zellaby's act as the symbolic need to
p u r q e Our hurnanity, Our better (or civilized) instincts, in
order to survive in a Darwinian world. Zellaby, perhaps
more than any other character in The Midwich Cuckoos,
reprosents civilization, liberal humanism, and
intellectualisrn, and he must destroy himself in order to
Save, whot amounts to, hurnanity. But it would be a mistake,
I think, to perceive his act in these terms, despite the
fact that Zellaby's self-written epitaph is an ironic
revisior! of the Latin epigram, "Si fueris Romae, Romani
vivito more, " to "If you want CO keep alive in the jungle,
you must iive as the jungle does . . . " ( 2 1 9 ) . Earlier in the
novel Zellaby remarks that it is "odd that 1 should have to
live to my present age before appreciating the underlying
soündness of fire-worship" (44). Nevertheless, he shows no
signs of reverting to such atavistic practices. Zellaby's
argument here is perhaps somewhat frivolous, but it does
Industrial/Scientific community.
52 asmonstrate the point that Zellaby is a great fancier of
idess, that he can eppreciate ideas without necessarily
naving to change his life to suit them. One factor, which
undermines the idea of Zellaby's sacrifice as a syrnbolic
representation of the necessity to renounce "civilization",
is ihe revelation that he is suffering from a serious neart
condition. As he writes in a letter to his wife, "doctor
wi11 tell you, a matter of a few weeks, or months, at best.
So 20 bitterness, my own love" ( 2 1 9 ) .
In fâct it is tne Children, themselves, who reveal the
reason for the necessity of Zellaby's sacrifice. In
response to Westcott's observation that the Children "don't
appear to think very highly of Our institutions," the
Children reply, "As a securely dominant species you could
afford to lose touch with reaiity, and amuse yourselves with
zbstractions"(l99). It is not "humour and compassion," the
"most important of human inventions" (200) , whicn Zellaby
reprêsents, that make humanity vulnerable: it is our worse
selves, as reflected in Our institutions: avarice,
suspicion, deviousness, and abject toadying; or whât C.S.
Lewis chcracterizes as "that passion for the inner ring
which I think at least as corrupting as avarice" ("A Reply"
8 2 ) . Zellaby explains tnat
'On the one hznd, it is Our duty to our race and
5 3 c u l t u r e t o l i q u i d a t e t h e C h i l d r e n , f o r i t i s clear t h a t
i f w e d o n o t w e s h a l l , a t b e s t , b e c o m p l e t e l y d o m i n a t e d
by them, a n d t h e i r c u l t u r e , w h a t e v e r i t may t u r n o u t t o
be , w i l l e x t i n g u i s h o u r s .
' O n t h e o t h e r hand, i t is o u r c u l t u r e t h a t g i v e s
u s s c r u p l e s a b o u t the r u t h l e s s l i q u i d a t i o n o f unarmed
m i n o r i t i e s , n o t t o men t i on t h e p r a c t i c â l o b s t a c l e s t o
such a s o l u t i o n .
' . . . ~ h e C h i l d r e n o u g h t t o be e l i m i n a t e d a t t h e
l e a s t p o s s i b l e c o s t , w i t h t h e l eas t p o s s i b l e d e l a y . 1
a m s o r r y t o a r r i v e a t t h a t c o n c l u s i o n . I n n i n e y e a r s 1
have grown r a t h e r fond o f thern . . . . 'It is t h e r i g h t s t e p , ' h e r e p e a t e d . 'Bu t , o f
c o u r s e , o u r a u t h o r i t i e s w i l l n o t be a b l e t o b r i n g
~ h e r n s e l v e s t o c a k e i t - - f o r which 1 a m p e r s o n a l l y
t h a ~ k f u l b e c a u s e I can see no p r a c c i c a l c o u r s e open t o
therr, which would n o t i n v o l v e t h e d e s t r u c t i o n of a l 1 o f
u s i n t h e v i l l a g e , a s w e l l . ' ( 2 0 8 - 9 )
I n t h i s l i g h t , Z e l l a b y ' s final act o f s e l f - s a c r i f i c e i s n o t
on a b n e g a t i o n of c i v i l i z a t i o n i n f a v o u r o f n a t u r a l
b r u t a l i t y ; n e i t h e r i s i t t h e " r u t h l e s s l i q u i d a t i o n o f " a n
"unarmed" m i n o r i c y . The C h i l d r e n a r e f a r £rom unarmed, and
Z e l l a b y d e s t r o y s them w i t h r e g r e t r a t h e r t h a n w i t h r a n c o r .
Ratner, i t i s e s s e n t i a l l y t h e a r c h e t y p a l a c t of t h e Judeo-
5 4 Christian hero: the sacrifice of self for the benefit of the
commünity. As 1 have maintained, Wyndham was no crypto-
Cnriscian, but these are the easiest terms for describing
ZellaBy1s final selfless act. He gives his l i f e (however
lic~le remaining) in o r d e r to redeem, not man's corrupt
institutions but, rather, those values of humour and
compassion--"the most important of human inventions"(200)--
that ne hords so dear.
At the end of The Day of the Triffids, something
ccnceptually similar takes place. While it is the triffids
( t h e twisted fruit of man's misguided scientific labour)
which finally necessitate Bill cnd company's flight from
Shirning, it is the encroachment of Humanity's baser nature
which provides the direct catalyst for ilight. When the
ruthless Torrance and his militaristic band of thugs appear
ana offer Bill the title to "a kind of--feuda1
seigneury"(266), he is repulsed. L a t e r Denis (the blind
oxner of the farm where Bill stays) makes the point that
.what is surprising ne now is that I'm suddenly feeling
quite kindly towards the triffids. Without their
intervention 1 suppose there would have been a whole
lot more of this kind of thing by now. If they are the
ona factor that can stop serfdom coming back, then good
luck totem. ' (269 )
Yet B i l l d o e s n o t even t a k e t h e e x p e d i e n t t a c t i c o f
p o i s o n i n g T o r r a n c e ' s band, o r some th ing l i k e t h a t . I n s t e a d
h e m e r e l y u s e s h i s w i t s t o hoodwink and e s c a p e from them t o
a p l a c e where h e and o t h e r s c a n b u i l d a new world--one n o t
ba sed on t h e o l d i d e a s . E a r i i e r i n t h e n o v e l t h e r e is a
f o r e s h a d o w i n g o f Wyndham's o p i n i o n o f T o r r a n c e and h i s i l k .
I t was a t t h e e n d o f t h e f o u r t h y e a r t h a t 1 made
rny l a s t t r i p , and found t h a t t h e r e w e r e now r i s k s wh ich
1 was n o t j u s t i f i e d i n t a k i n g . The f i r s t i n t i m a t i o n o f
t h a t w a s a t h u n d e r o u s c r a s h b e h i n d m e somewhere i n t h e
i n n e r s u b u r b s . 1 s t o p p e d t h e t r u c k and l o o k e d back t o
see t h e d u s t r i s i n g £rom a heap o f r u b b l e which l a y
a c r o s s t h e road . E v i d e n t l y rny r u m b l i n g p a s s a g e nad
g i v e n t h e l a s t shake t o a t o t t e r i n g h o u s e f r o n t . 1
~ r o u g h t no more b u i l d i n g s down t h a t d a y , b u t 1 s p e n t it
i n a p p r e h e n s i o n o f a d e s c e n d i n g t o r r e n t o f b r i c k s
and m o r t a r . T h e r e a f t e r 1 c o n f i n e d m y a t t e n t i o n t o
s m a l l e r towns, and u s u a l l y went a b o u t them on f o o t .
B r i g h t o n , which s h o u l d have b e e n o u r l a r g e s t
c o n v e n i e n t s o u r c e o f s u p p l i e s , 1 let a l o n û . (Ernphasis
mine; 2 3 2 )
The c r u m b l i n g t o m s which become d a n g e r o u s f o r Eill t o
s cavenge are, i n e f f e c t , syrnbols f o r t h e o l d i d e o l o g i e s a n d
s c c i e t a l modes, which p r o v e d e q u a l l y d a n g e r o u s t o p e o p l e ,
56 and which c o n t a i n e d w i t h i n them t h e seeds of t h e i r own
d e s t r u c t i o n , and which r e m a i n a t h r e a t t o t h o s e who would
r e r u r n t o p l u n d e r them. I r o n i c a l l y , o r p e r h a p s f i t t i n g l y ,
"Br igh ton" i s o n e such town which happens t o b e o c c u p i e d by
T o r r a z c e ( o r t o r r e n t s , maybe?) and h i s g a n g . T h e d a n g e r s
posed by r e r u r n i n g t o o l d i d e a s ( f e u d o l i s m , m i l i t a r i s m ,
t e r r i c o r i a l i t y o r n a t i o n a l i s m ) a r e r e f l e c t e d i n t h e d a n g e r
poseü by t h e t o r r e n r r s o f cru-mbling b r i c k a n d rno r t a r i n t h e
o l d c i t y .
A r e The Day o f t h e T r i f f i d s and The Midwich Cuckoos
" cosy d i s a s c e r s " ? 1 would argue t h a t N i c h o l a s Rudd ick f s
c s s e r t i o n t h a t " t h e y s i m p l y d o n o t r e p a y s e r i o u s c r i t i c a l
a n a l y s i s W ( 1 3 8 ) is f a l s e . T h e r e a r e s i g n i f i c a n t i d e a s which
lie at t h e h e a r t of t h e s e n o v e l s , r e c ü r r i n g i d e a s t h a t a re
deeply and d e l i b e r a t e l y e x p l o r e d . S i n c e t h e b r e a k u p of t h e
S o v i e t Union a n d t h e d i s p e r s i o n of i t s r n i l i t a r y a s s e t s ;
since the a d v e n t o f t e c h n o - ï e r r o r i s r n and t h e s u c c e s s f u l
r - a l i z a t i o n o f gene t h e r a p y and g e n e t i c m a n i p u l a t i o n t h a t
Wyndham p r e d i c t e d f o r t y y e a r s ago, n i s n o v e l s seem less and
less c o s y e v e r y minu t e .
KRAKEN AND CHRYSALIDS: THE CULT OF SECRECY
In Timothy Findley's Headhunter, Olivia Price makes the
point that
the past, in fact, had been a dreadful time--when
everyone was lied to--much as they were lied to now,
but then, for different reasons. In the past, you were
lied to for your own good. Now, you were lied to for
the good of others. Whoever these others might be.
John Wyndharn makes a similar point in The Kraken Wakes:
"Therre are always cliques and factions anxious to keep the
public in the dark for its own good--a good that is seldom
far from the interests of the faction advocating itN(97).
How far back, one might wonder, is Olivia Price looking for
the Golden Age when we were deceived for our own good?
Forty years? Fifty? One of the dangers of yearning for the
past, is that we forget that the inhabitants of that past
were also yearning. In The Kraken Wakes and in - The
Chrysalids, as in many of his other novels and short
stories, Wyndharn seems obsessed with the nature of the
truth--how it is hidden £rom us by Big Business and the
Military (or government) through censorship, media
manipulation, or the cult of secrecy, by means of mental
conditioning (cultural, religious or otherwise) . The truth,
most importantly, includes the harder Darwinian truths to
which we have been blinded. What is it in human nature that
58 permits (or demands) a "Cold Warn? How has science "got so
far beyond ordinary human control," that, "any new discovery
now came so nearly into the category of A c t of God, that it
was scarcely worth troubling oneself to t ry to do anything
about them?"(Wyndham, The Trouble With Lichen 185).
In The Kraken Wakes the reader is offered an inside
look (or as "inside" as Wyndham ever offers) at how
propaganda is created and at what forces mould its message.
Curiously enough, despite the fact that Wyndham served in
Britain's Ministry of Information as a censor and in the
Royal Corps of Signals during World War Two, he allows us
precious f e w glirnpses through the veil of milita- secrecy' .
The narrator and protagonist of The Kraken Wakes (and h i s
wife) are radio journalists, but it is not through their
official stories that the reader discovers the events of the
novel--these turn out, more often than not, to be
deliberately tailored towards some particular end. Instead,
it is the "behind the scenes" actions and interactions of
Mike and Phyllis Watson that tell the real story, and a
rnulti-tentacled beast of a story it turns out to be. One of
the main tentacles of the story is stated qyite baldly by
Phyllis near the end of the novel:
'at times 1 get sick of putting up with al1 the shams
'One possible reason fox t h i s may be that Wyndham, as an employee of the Ministry of Information, and especially as a censor, was required to take an oath of secrecy.
5 9 and the humbug, and pretending that the lies arenlt
lies, and the propaganda isn't propaganda, and the dirt
isnlt dirt .... Donlt you sometimes wish you had been born into the A g e of Reason, instead of into the Age of
the Ostensible Reason?' (161)
This Fs £rom the mouth of a journalist who, at times, shows
considerable pleasure and enthusiasm for her work. This
passage spells out, in striking terms, one of the major
themes of the novel: the media, far £rom being the objective
voice of truth, or criticism, is rather the mouthpiece of
business interests (sponsors), government, and the military.
Even when these factors are discounted, economic concerns--
selling papers, catching a bigger audience--determines what
is news and what is not.
An early passage in the novel suggests it is the
profit motive or irnperative that determines what is
newsworthy. After various countries begin to attack the
fireballs that fa11 from the sky, there is a brief flare of
interest, but little or no information is offered to the
public :
None of the newspapers ran it because, in editorial
opinion, the whole thing was suspect in being too
similar to the flying-saucer business, and their
readers would prefer more novelty in their sensations.
(19)
60 The first point raised by this passage is that "editorial
opinion" is not really responding to public desires but
rather determining them. The most basic element of
censorship lies not in cutting or adding details, or "spin,"
to a particular story but in deciding what stories to
publish or, more radically, what is a çtory. The second
point ties in with this: because the "fireballsn are
unknown, or novel, they are not "news" as such but rather
"sensationn. They are regarded as mere frivolity and
treated lightly or ignored. Mike and Phyllis only become
interested in them because they personally witness an
instance of this phenornenon, and even their interest is
initially a rnere hobby.
Later in the novel, a f t e r the vfireballsw have
transformed into the perceived threat of "the Deeps," there
is another, broader example of economic concerns molding the
I1news." Phyllis obtains secret information from a Military
contact; she explains to Mike why it has been kept secret:
It's only because they donlt want people unsettled that
it's not been published in the newspapers--that, and
the fact that the newspapers agree. The last
hullabaloo sent the sales-graphs dipping everywhere,
and the advertisers didn't like it. (58)
In this passage, the newspapers are not only picking the
news on the basis of how many papers it will sel1 but also
61 seem to be in active collusion with Business in deciding
what's "ooodU for the public. In fact whatls "good" for the
public seems to be what's good for Business. Obviously this
opens a whole vein of poli-economic theory but boils down to
whether people, or society as a whole, should be manipulated
or advised/informed. This is a point on which Wyndham seems
to have some specific ideas (to which 1 shall return later).
In any case, Wyndham certainly suggests that people are
being manipulated and that, more often than not, economics
rather than objectivity determines media policy.
Perhaps the most telling allusion to the influence of
Business on the media appears halfway through the novel when
Mike is discussing with a friend the influence of the media
on trade :
'We've not been doing world-trade a lot of harm
lately,' 1 told him. 'Welve not had the chance. 1
donlt Say we haven't got a few scripts up our sleeves
against the day when truth shall be more important than
world-trade, but for the last few months now not a word
about those things down there has gone out from any of
our transmitters; the sponsors donlt like it--'
'Good for them,' interrupted Harold.
'--any more than the advertisers liked mention of
Hitler when we were on the brink of World War II,' 1
concluded. (87)
6 2 What the sponsors donft like, the media suppress. Mikels
allusion to Hitler is timely--the xenobaths (the alien
menace of the Deeps), at this point in the novel, are
enforcing a "naval blockade" of Britain (and every other
country in the world with sea access) similar in kind to
that threatened by U-boats in the Second World War. Wyndham
seems to suggest that the media's silence on Hitler
parallels the political policy of appeasement which gave
Hitler the latitude he needed to bring the full force of his
military to bear on Britain. The catch here is that while
Hitler's motivations were rnegalomaniacal and psychotic, they
were at least technically human. The motives of the
xenobaths are not, and this changes the whole nature of the
blockade--what might have been only a difference in degree
becomes a difference in kind. The allusion to Hitler is
also, perhaps, reminiscent of Orwell's critique of K.G.
Wells's assessment of Hitler: just as Hitler was under
estimated, so is the threat of the Deeps downplayed.
The Military, as an active force in creating
propaganda, appears suspiciously low key as compared to the
influence of Big Business and economics in The Kraken Wakes.
Where Military and Government influence in the media become
most readily apparent is the degree to which Mike and
Phyllis (and journalists in general) have been CO-opted, and
the degree to which the existence of (if not the necessity
63 for) official secrecy is uriquestioned. The a priori
acceptance of officia1 security is also reflected, not only
in what Mike and Phyllis are not allowed to report but very
often in how they learn the things they are not allowed to
report.
One of Mikels first encounters with the Military in the
novel is with an airforce pilot who contacts him
uriofficially to relate a persona1 experience with the
ufireballs.u Before telling his tale, however, the
lieutenant (whose real n a m e is never mentioned) qualifies
his story:
'Itls a bit tricky, you seeI1 he said. 'At the
moment 1 am considered to have suffered some kind of
hallucination, but if enough evidence turns up to show
that it was not an hallucination, then theylre almost
certain to make it an official secret. . . . '
'Still, ' he went on, 'the thing worries me, and if
youlre collecting evidence, I'd like you to have it--
though maybe not to make direct use of it , 1 mean, I
donlt want to find myself on the carpet. 1 donut
suppose therels a regulation to stop a fellow
discussing his hallucinations, but you can never be
sure. ' (17)
The Air Force, it seems, shares with the newspapers an
attitude towards the unknown--a tendency to suppress or
64 ignore it. The implication of the lieutenant's fears,
however, is that the militaryls blanket of official secrecy
extends even to what it perceives (or officially classifies)
as fantasy or hallucination: even thouçh it never happened,
keep it quiet ... in case it did. The last sentence of this
passage goes even further to suggest that even the rules of
secrecy are secret, or at least very rnysterious--"you can
never be sure." The lieutenant doesnlt even offer the
information for publication but merely for Mike1s
m collection of evidence,I1 whatever that means. This
suggests that , f inding no interest or encouragement f rom
official sources, the lieutenant was forced to turn to a
couple of journalists nominally outside the hegemony of the
military. As to why he chose Mike, that question is best
answered by the fact that he is interested (as well as his
being outside off icial channels) . The amorphous, invisible
web of secrecy becomes even more inscrutable when the
lieutenant, in response to Mikels surprise that he would
have been on patrol in the south Pacific, says, "There are a
number of things that donlt get publicity, though theylre
not particularly secwetv(17). Thus more threads appear in
the web--officia1 secrets, secrets which might be official,
and unofficial secrets. Al1 of this recalls Westcottls
pronouncernent in The Midwich Cuckoos that, "If 1 had any
ideas 1 suppose theyld have to be official secretsM(192).
In The Kraken Wakes, however, this atmosphere of
uncertainty, of official and merely quasi-official secrecy,
evokes nothing so much as the xenobaths, themselves. The
unknown force that depopulates the island of Saphira and
April Island, in the night, leaving only scanty inscrutable
traces--the sea tanks, "like military tanksM(130), and the
"pseudo-coelenterataI1 which draw in their prey and then
disappear. The main difficulty in countering the threat of
the Deeps is a lack of information. Mike relates an analogy
offered by one of the "boffinsn:
One of them had remarked to me: 'If you were going to
make a ghost-trap, how would you set about it?--
particularly if you had not even a small ghost to
practice on. (159)'
How do you fight, or even resist something, when you don1t
even really k n o w what - it is? Ultimately, no one ever
discovers the nature of the xenobaths, and when the novel
ends, they seem to be destroyed but not understood. This
insidiousness which likens rnilitary secrecy to the xenobaths
becomes more apparent as Mike is drawn further into the
off icial web:
ït was a Captain Winters who welcomed me there,
explaining that while what 1 should be shown was not
exactly an official secret, it was preferred that 1
2 This seems to be another of Wyndhamls repeated themes.
should not make public use of it yet. When 1 had
agreed to that, he started to bring out maps and
charts. (23)
To begin with, Mike is not an astronomer, nor an
oceanographer, nor a meteorologist, nor a scientist of any
kind; nor is he connected with Military Intelligence or the
Ministry of Information. Mike is a journalist, so why is he
shown documents which are "net exactly an officia1 secretn
(notice the various shades and tints of secrecy again!), but
are nevertheless not intended for public consumption?
Perhaps, since he has showri an interest in a "not exactly
secretH phenomenon, it is better for the military to bring
hirn into the fold, than to try to shut him out. While no
contracts are drawn up, and though Mike signs no papers, he
nevertheless seerns to enter into some sort of (again)
uunofficial~ pact with the Military. During the same
meeting, Mike uses language that would sound either
positively craven or rabidly defensive were it not phrased
so matter-of-factly. After studying the ~unofficially
secretn maps, Mike asks the Captain, "Have you any idea at
al1 what this means--or wouldnlt you tell me if you
had?" (24). Mike seems, perhaps out of professional
journalistic savvy, perfectly cornfortable with the
rubric/decorum of Military reticence. After discussing the
See John Beynon Harris, "Invisible MonsterN.
67 implications of the "not exactly" secret maps with the
Captain, Mike asks, "Are you doing anything about it? Or
shouldnl t 1 ask?" (26) . Again Mike proves that he is the
perfect man to enter into an uunofficialM relationship with
the Military, and is rewarded with a spot on an expedition
which "Just at the moment is not considered to be a matter
for a direct broadcast, or even for publicationU(26). While
the military never, at this stage, manifests as crude or
overbearing, it remains almost ornnipresent, more Brave New
World than 1984. There are no scenes of printing presses
being srnashed, or of outspoken critics disappearing. The
censorship is more casual, more of the wink and a handshake
variety. Which is not to Say that the threat of more savage
tactics does not exist in The Kraken Wakes, as the outspoken
scientist Bocker says: "In most countries I 1 d be under
arrest by nowu (199) . On the other hand, such measures are
largely unnecessary because of economic influences, or as
Bocker also says, "No earthly good your coming here . . . .
There isnlt a sponsor thatld touch me with a forty-foot
pole" (199) . Whils Mike and Phyllis may not be happy with the status
quo of endemic secrecy, they seem to have adapted to it-
When the need for secrecy is gone--the xenobaths have no
actual spies, after all--Mike and Phyllis reflect on the
degree to which the Military loosens security:
6 8 'Even the Services use cornmon sense sometirnes,'
she said pointedly, and then added, on second thought:
'Though there are probably several things he didnlt
tell me. "
'Probably, ' 1 agreed again. (58)
Despite the fact that the ostensible usual reason for
secrecy--the danger of the ever present Russians-4s gone,
Mike and Phyllis naturally assume that the Military will be
unable to break the compulsive habit of secrecy, and so act
accordingly. Another exarnple of their adaptation to the
atmosphere of constant secxecy is evident in their methods
of obtaining information--wheedling, trickery, and charm.
Phyllis is especially adept in this department. After a
private dinner with their military contact, Captain Winters,
Phyllis reveals what she has been able to charm out of the
Capta in . Mikels congratulations spoof the language of spy
novels and films when he says, "Thatls the stuff, darling.
The real Mata Hari touch. Have you got the drawings?" ( 5 8 ) .
Phyllis upbraids Mike for being overly dramatic (goofy), but
his assessment is not so far off the mark. In fact, earlier
in the novel, Mike seems to suggest that Phyllis and he have
a particular tactic for manipulating conversations to their
benef it :
1 come off the sidelines just enough to show sociable,
but not enough to interfere with hex plan of campaign.
69 The rest of the time 1 watch and admire. It is
something like a combination of skilled juggling with
expert chess, and her recoveries from an unexpected
move are a delight to follow. She seldom loses. (44)
This revelation is occasioned by a dinner conversation
Detween Mike, Phyllis, and two other journalists, not
military or intelligence officers. The fact that Phyllis
applies this manipulative approach to comparatively informal
conversation suggests the degree to which the principle of
secrecy and disinformation are entrencked in the world of
The Kraken Wakes. What would Phyllis and Mike have to lose
by being open and frank? What would the other two
journalists have to lose? Later, we see how Phyllis
recovers £rom an unexpected move, when one of the other
journalists introduces the previously unknown name "Bockertl
into the conversation.
The introduction of this Bocker element set me al1
at sea, and Phyllis, too, though it would have been
hard to guess it from the way she said:
'Surely the Bocker line can't be altogether
dismissed?' frowning a little as she spoke.
It worked. In a little time we were adequately
briefed on the Bocker view, and without either of them
guessing that as far as we were concerned he had come
into it for the first time. (45-6)
7 0 In an atmosphere where everything, sooner or later, becomes
an official (or unofficial) secret (despite the fact that it
is not especially the case that ltloose lips sink shipsw),
table talk apparently turns into "psy-~ps~~ interrogation and
counter-intelligence action.
Eventually, despite al1 the secrecy and economic
censorship, becomes impossible downpl ay the xenobath
menace ctnymore- When the British cruise ship, Queen -e,
is lost at sea, the situation changes, and the media use
their collective influence spin the truth dif ferent
direction. The language used by Mike's editor is
significant when he tells Mike to "Makelem really believe
there is something down there" (90). The fact of the matter
is that there is something down there, whether anyone
believes it or not; the reason for the sudden revelation of
the IftruthN is not for its own sake, but to counteract a
merely political gaff. The following passage also
illustrates some of the main forces involved in determining
what is news, and how (and why) the truth is manipulated:
'Itls like this. There's a rumour running wild
here that the Russians did it. Somebody launched that
one off within a few minutes of the news corning through
on the tape. Why the hell anybodyld think they would
want to start anything that way, heaven knows, but you
know how it is when people are emotionally worked up;
71
theylll swallow anything for a bit. M y own guess is
that it is the let's-have-a-showdown-now school of
thought seizing the opportunity, the darnn fools.
Anyway, itls got to be stopped. If it isn't, there
might be enough pressure worked up to force the
government out, or make it send an ultimatum, or
something. So stopped it's damned well going to be.
Metal-fatigue isnlt good enough this time, so the line
is to be your deep-sea menace. To-morrow's papers are
using it, the Admirality is willing to play, we've got
several big scientific names already . . . . So if you want
to put in your own pennporth towards stopping the atom
bombs falling, get cracking right away . . . .
1 suggest the line: Here is a menace more serious
and more quickly developed than we had expected. A
blow that has found us as unprepared as the Americans
were at Pearl Harbour, but men of science are
mobilizing already to give us the means to hit back, et
cetera. ' (90-1)
There are two especially iriteresting points in this passage
(as it relates to news media) , and a host of others. To
begin with, there is the fact that Mike's editor doesnlt
even seem interested in whether the "deep-sea menacew is
true or not- What is important is that it sounds like a
more credible excuse than "metal-fatigue," and so (in
7 2 extrernity) is more expedient. The question of "expediency"
is curious because it both absolves and dams Mike's editor
(and by extension, the media in genera1)--it absolves him of
being the active tool of Big Business/the Military, since he
does not seem primarily to be motivated by their interests,
and yet neither does he seem interested (even remotely) in
the truth. What does seem to interest him is using the
media as a tool to form public opinion, to preserve the
government, and to avert a nuclear shcwdown. The media, in
The Kraken Wakes, is not a service provided to the public
(in the normal sense) but, rather, â whip or goad to use on
them. As B i l l says in The Day of the Triffids, " Y o u canlt
drive a flock of sheep to market in a dead straight line,
but there are ways of getting them therew(179). The fact
that not only the EBC (the English Broadcasting Corporation
for which Mike works), but also the BBC, the newspapers, and
"the big American networks," al1 follow the same line
suggests not, perhaps, an active conspiracy, but rather that
the forces that motivate Mikets editor are universal in the
West. Unlike Orwell, in 1984, Wyndharn isnlt interested in
showing how people can be forced to toe the party line;
after all, you can drive a flock of sheep to market in a
dead straight line if the straight line is more important
than the lives of individual sheep. Neither does he follow
Huxleyfs approach in Brave New World, wherein people are
73
drugged into subrnission and coerced before theylre
conceived. Rather, Wyndham looks at his own society as it
is, with an even-handed, less elaborate satirical front.
Of course the two other subjects this passage raises
are the Cold War and the prevalent, almost unquestioned,
faith in Science as saviour. The two, Wyndham sqgests (and
I will argue) are comected in a number of different ways.
The most obvious connection between the two is that both
have immense power: not only influence over the media, but
also in directly shaping the way people perceive reality.
The Cold War, of course, is the main or ostensible
reason for the penrasiveness of secrecy in the world of the
novel--and in Wyndhamls real world too. Considering the
significance of secrecy that we have observed, not only in
The Kraken Wakes but also in Wyndhamls other novels, this is
no small thing. An interesting allusion to the Cold War in
the novel occurs early--it is because of the political state
of world affairs that the "fireballs" are first mentioned in
the news :
The reason that this particular flight [of
"fireballsu] got on the front pages when others had
been ignored was not simply that this time there had
been a series of observations which plotted its track;
it lay more in the implications of the line that had
been drawn. However, in spite of innuendo and direct
74 suggestion, there was silence to the east. Ever since
their hurried and unconvincinq explanation which
followed the first atomic explosion in Russia, her
leaders had found it convenient to feign at least
ternporary deafness to questions on such matters. (19)
The reasons that earlier flights of "fireballsU had not
received media attention were economic--it was felt that
"fireballs" were too much like UFOs to really be sensational
enough to sel1 any papers. As soon as the "fireballsU seem
to come from Russia, on the other hand, they rise in status
from unsatisfactory NsensationN to hard news. People still
have no idea what they are, but if they corne £rom the east,
tney must have some sort of nefarious purpose. Not only do
political considerations over-ride economic ones, they also
change a mysterious phenomenon £rom fluff to hard news.
Interesting, too, is the fact that because of the Cold War
paranoia, Russia does not even deny allegations of
responsibility, much less try to help figure out what the
"fireballs" really are. Because of this silence on the part
of Russia, the West is equally incurious as to the real
nature of the "fireballs." Mike reports that, "For most
people such a policy of masterly silence pointed only one
way, and they began to regard the responsibility as good as
provedu (21). Once the west believes the Soviets are
responsible, they give up their efforts at investigation
7 5
(such as they are) ar?d seem largely content merely to blow
them up when they get the chance. Eventually investigations
do recommence, but al1 through the novel, the Soviets, the
British, and the Americans remain standoffish to varying
degrees, even after a very real threat has been discovered.
This Cold War mentality is equally confusing when the
Soviets do speak, since al1 their announcernents must be de-
constructed and analyzed, When the Kremlin finally
announces that "its own weapons, recently developed by
Russian scientists for the defense of Peace, had now
destroyed more than twenty of these craft [fireballsl over
Soviet territory" (21 -2) , many axe confused:
The non-Russian world was, by and large, divided
sharply into two classes--those who believed every
Russian pronouncement, and those who believed none.
For the first class no question arose; their faith was
f irm. For the second, interpretation was less easy.
Was one to deduce, for instance, that the whole thing
was a lie? Or merely that, when the Russians claimed
to have accounted for twenty fireballs, they had only,
in fact, exploded five or so? (22)
As we have seen previously, Mike and Phyllis are accustomed
to subjecting not only their own governmentls
pronouncements, but even simple conversations, to a similar
level of critical scrutiny. Of course the last place one
7 6 should look for unadulterated truth is in the communiques of
one's enemy, but in The Kraken Wakes, one canlt even expect
it f rom one l s own government (or even acquaintances) .
One of the people who seems to believe that "the whole
thing 3s a lie," is an acquaintance of Mike and Phyllis1s--
Tuny (or Petunia) . Tuny is, or associates with people,
perceptive enough to see through the wofficial" excuses and
misinformation about the lost ships, but she refuses to
believe in the very real threat of the xenobaths because of
her Cold Wax paranoia:
'The Government doesn't want to admit that it's the
Russians, because then there would be a dernand that
they should take action, and they can't afford to ao
that with al1 the Red influence there is. But if they
officially pretend to think itfs these Bocker things,
well, theyld have to pretend, too, that they were doing
something about that, - and thatfd make them look pretty
silly later when it is al1 exploded. So this is their
way out, and as itls only a Japanese ship it's al1
right--for the moment. But it wonlt last long. We
can't afford to have the Russians getting away with
this kind of thing. People are starting to demand
a strong line, and no more appeasement.' (85)
Tunyls hawk politics blind her just as surely as a shower of
green radioactive cornets. While this passage suggests the
77 degree to which Tuny is blinded to the world around her by
Cold War paranoia, there is a br ief glimpse of ber later
which is even more telling. Mike describes how Tuny xeads
the newspaper reports on "metal-fatigue" as the reason for
the sinking of a Japanese ship, al1 the while displaying,
"the smile of a cognoscentau(86). What C.S. Lewis would
characterize as "that passion for the imer ringn ( " A Replyn
821 , W y n d h a m attributes to Tuny and her "srnile of a
cognoscenta." The Cold War provides the ideal opportunity
for those who, like Tuny, want to be "in the know." It is
not ideological fervor wnich fuels her mistrust of the "Red
influence[dJM government, but rather the desire to seem
wiser and better connected than those around her. Tuny
disbelieves the "metal-fatigueu gambit, not because she sees
through it, but merely because she automatically disbelieves
any official statement. She is, essentially, no different
than the Soviets whose rhetoric argues that "any Soviet
misadvent~re must be attributable in some way to capitalist
jackals or reactionary fascist hyenasn ( 4 2 ) . Neither the
Soviets, nor Tuny (and her kind) , can accept that the real
danger isnlt the other side, until itfs too late. While
Wyndham was scarcely a cornrnunist (communism, like any
ideology, demancis a sort of blind faith which was quite
outside Wyndharngs personality), he may, as a result of his
wiEels leftist leanings (and her persona1 experience of
7 8 visiting the Soviet Union while reading English at Oxford
University) have been less susceptible to the demonizing
Cold War rhetoric of the time.
Despite the fact that Tuny sees through the scientific
mumbo-jumbo of the "metal-fatigueN excuse, she still seems
constrained by the belief in the inexorable power of science
since she provides her own counter in clairning "these new
midget submarinesw (85) are responsible for the swik ships.
After the first bomb is dropped into the deeps, one of the
journalists with whom Mike and Phyllis dine poses the
question, "suppose that some violently destructive agency
were to descend from space upon one of our cities. What
should we do?" H i s answer to this, though aimed at
predicting the response from the deeps for the bombing, goes
a long way to describing the real-world reactions of the
participants in the Second World War:
'We could turn the backroom boys on to it. And if
it happened a few times more, we should soon be giving
the backroom boys full priorities.' (50)
The "backroom boysu mentioned here are, in effect,
scientists--scientists who devise weapons. At the beginning
of World War II, bi-planes were still in use by the British
airforce; before the end of the war jet planes were used,
and rocket-propelled, guided missiles were cornmon. After
the war, however, the arms race intensified rather than
7 9 stopped. In The Kraken Wakes, as in Wyndhamls other novels,
the general belief in the powers of science to Save humanity
is examined and put to the test. While W y n d h a m does concede
a point at the end of the novel by offering a scientific
weapon which seems to destroy the xenobaths, we still know
next to nothing about them. Indeed, people's faith in
science is reinforced if anything. However, the ending
seems to be a mere sop thrown to the reader, since
throughout the rest of the novel, Wyndham casts a fairly
critical eye on the role of science in his society.
Moreover, an analysis of the ending of the novel becomes
significantly more complex when one poses the question:
which ending?
In the John Wyndham Archive at the University of
Liverpool, there are manuscripts containing two different
endings for The Kraken Wakes. One, which appears in a
typescript of the novel, appears to have been the mode1 for
the ending of the American release of the novel under the
title, Out of the Deeps. This ending is essentially the
same as that published in England--the main difference being
the level of optirnisrn. Instead of a radio message frorn
Bocker delivered second-hand, Bocker (in a Government
helicopter) visits Mike and Phyllis in person. Despite the
fact that, in this version, it is "the Japs," "A very
80 ingenious pe0ple"(376)~, and not the English who devise the
scientific wonder which saves the world, the general tone is
alrnost sentimentally optimistic. At one point in the
typescript, Bocker actually says:
This isntt Noah's world, you know. The twentieth
century isnlt a thing to be pushed over quite as easily
as al1 that. The patient is still in a grave
condition, hels been very, very sick indeed, and he has
lost a tragic lot of blood--but he's going to recover.
Oh, yes, hels going to recover al1 right, youlll see.
(362)
This is not the Bocker the reader is familiar with through
the British version of the published text. Both the faith
in the twentieth century and the gloating optimism regarding
the survival of humanity ring an extremely dissonant note.
1 suspect that Wyndharnls editors at Ballantine felt that a
more uplifting ending would better suit an American
audience. Wyndham apparently complied. The British edition
is considerably less optimistic. Another version of the
novel, which appears in holograph form in the Wyndham
Archive, is far less optimistic. Mike and Phillis, the
reader discovers, have seemingly been killed by a damaged
sea-tank which has become stranded on shore. In this
3 John Wyndham, typescript of The Kraken Wakes, The John Wyndham Archive, Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool.
81 version, "xenobathetic activity" has ceased mysteriously for
no obvious reason. Bocker (much more kindred in tone to his
counterpart in the published British edition) muses on some
of the possibilities:
At the time of writing the cause of the decline in
xenobathetic activity which was then setting in is
still obscure. It is, however, significant that the
failure of direction which stranded innumerable sea-
tanks became in a few weeks world-wide, and tnat the
dimunition of al1 other submarine activities associated
with them took place over the same period. This rnay be
due to failure to adapt, to breed, to resist disease,
or any of the other causes to which it is popularly
ascribed, and we rnay, in consequence be able to
continue the work of reconstruction without further
troubles £ r o m the Deeps. Nevertheless, there are
dangers in easy optimism. It must be pointed out that
we still know little or nothing of the natures of these
xenobathetic entities, and it would be unwise to
overlook the possibility that they rnay £rom time to
time require periods of regeneration analogous with Our
own need for sleep, or that of other types of creatures
for hibernation. This could well be such a period of
quiescence. (293 -4 ) '
' ~ o h n Wyndham, holograph manuscript of The Kraken Wakes,
In the British edition of The Kraken Wakes, the sense of
menace lies in the tact that no one ever knows about the
xenobaths--they were apparently destroyed with the help of
science, but remained very much outside the reach of human
understanding. In the holograph passage above, if one
discounts the Wellsian/Darwinian allusion to the death of
the xenobaths through stagnation, or "failure to resist
disease," one is left with an intensified version of the
same sense of menace--the xenobaths disappear for reasons
that remain a mystery to humans (and science). Unless the
Wyndham file kept by the publisher Michael Joseph supplies
the answer, why Wyndham discarded this version is a mystery.
Perhaps he felt that the deaths of the sympathetic Watsons
would be too much for a mainstream audience; maybe he was
unhappy with the Wellsian approach to the destruction of the
xenobaths and wanted something more original. What Wyndham
lost, when he opted for the rnoderate ending, was the irony
of Bocker, the scientist, ültimately rnystified.
One of the more casual allusions to the question of
science appears at the opening of the novel as Mike prefaces
what is to follow. Re says that, "The specialists know more
about their particular bits, of course, but, between us, we
ought to be able to put together quite a picturev (7). While
a certain amount of specialization is unavoidable in modern
The John Wyndham Archive, University of Liverpool.
8 3 society, Mikels mention of the "specialists" here recalls
The Day of the Triffids' "complexity of specialistsu (16)
and the dangers inherent in a situation in which no one
knows what anyone else is doing. More specifically, Mike
foreshadows the ascendency of the "boffins"(l59), "backroorn
boysr1 ( 5 0 ) , and "assorted 'ographers "' (101) who appear as a
sort of latter day priesthood in the rest of the novel. The
term, llnackroorn boys," itself rnerits some examination in
this respect. Why are they in the "backroorn?" To begin
with, very often in Wyndham's novels, whatever scientists
are working on is either a Military or Business secret, and
so is kept out of sight in the "backroom," On the other
hand, even when their work is not particularly secret,
scientistsr ideas and terminology are often so abstruse as
to be utterly inscrutable to even a reasonably educated
person. Thus the scientist becomes a sort of custodian of
the scientific holy of holies: science the new religion, and
scientists the new priests. This is not to Say that Wyndham
yearns for the golden age of Catholic hegemony, but, as
previously noted, he does go so far as to Say in The Midwich
Cuckoos that nreligious dogrna," was not so l1dogmatic as
scientific dogrnau(106). The problem this leads to is that
lay people corne to revere or fear science as something
mysterious and unapproachable, and that scientists are drawn
into a closed circle, needing no popular sanction for their
84 activities.
An example of the popular reverence for science appears
in the authoritiesl use of the "metal-fatiguew excuse to
explain why the Japanese cruise ship, Yatsushiro, sinks.
When Mike reads the newspaper stories on this, he comments
on "the blinding light of science" (79) . Because "metal-
fatigue" sounds scientific, people by and large seem
perfectly willing to believe it, or anything as long as it's
"something that could be--if only just." The terminology
used in the actual report is especially suggestive:
Certain new alloys recently developed in Japanese
laboratories had, it seemed, been used, for the first
time on any considerable scale, in the construction of
the Yatsushiro. Metallurgical experts conceded it as
not impossible that some, or one, of these alloys
might, if the shipfs engines were to produce vibrations
of a certain periodicity, become fatigued, and
therefore brittle. A fracture of one member so
affected would throw on others a sudden strain which,
in their weakened state, they might be unable to
take.. . . ( 7 9 )
The presentation of ideas here, in an official news report,
sounds like a reference to Wyndham's 1933 story "The Third
Vibrationt1 by "John Beynon Harrisf1. The difference is that
in the novel, this is meant to be taken much more
85 realistically. The extremely conditional phrasing of, for
exarnple, "conceded it as not impossible," if worded
differently would amount to, "practically impossible."
Nevertheless, the weight of authority behind news media and
"experts" is such that most people accept this nonsense, at
least initially. Tuny and her Red-baiting friends refuse to
believe the Nmetal-fatigue" story, but as 1 have already
mentioned, they simply corne up with their own pseudo-
scientific bogey--"these new midget subrnarinesH(85). They
are just as blinded by scientific rnumbo-judo as anyone
When the umetal-fatigueu theory becomes untenable, the
media simply turn to another scientific-sounding excuse
(never mind that it also happens to be the truth), and
prepare it the way they would any other piece of propaganda-
-using the authority of the Military and "several big
scientific namesn(90) to back it up. When hawk politics, or
Cold War paranoia, explode public acceptance of the metal-
fatigue excuse, the best way to quel1 fears is with another
scientific sop. Mike ls jaded editor suggests the line thac
"men of science are mobilizing already to give us the means
to hit backn (91) . Phyllis, herself, makes the point that
people's faith in science is not an intellectual or
5 reasonable one. She suggests that the story "doesnlt have
5 But neither is Cold War paranoia: as the editor says,
86 to be intellectual--in fact it mustn1tn(91). If the popular
belief in the power of science (which is essentially based
on reason) is unreasoned, or emotional, it begins to
approach religion/superstition. If religion/superstition
can (and has) pushed people into wars and Inquisitions, what
rnight science, accepted on the same basis (emotion) , do with
the power of the atom (and who knows what e l se? ) .
When Mike and Phyllis prepare the story , they approach
it as just another piece of propaganda, despite the fact
that they know itls the truth- Mike reiterates his editor's
scientific line in order to allay public fears, hinting at
"the brains of the world getting together and turning the
full force of modern science and technique on the job of
avenging the lossM (92) . Phyllis expresses her confusion
with this, saying, "you start off as if truth is going to be
the first casualty, as usual, and thec end up like that.
It's kind of bewilderingu(92). This is one of the problerns
that arises when science is used by the media as a sort of
conceptu
semant ic
In£ ormat
when the
beliefs
.1 universal panacea. It suggests the dangers of a
or conceptual corruption. When the Ministry of
on is in charge of disinformation or, as in Orwel
Ministry of Peace is in charge of war, people's
and reality itself) become warped. By accepting
and promoting the idea of science and technology as the
- -
"when people are emotionally worked up, theytll swaliow
87 solution to any problem, Mike and Phyllis are as culpable as
the media in general of this sort of warping.
The ideas both of the media as whip and of science as
panacea appear again when Mike describes the work that he
and his wife do over the next few days:
Phyllis and I did oux best during the next few
days to play our part in putting across the idea of
firm hands steady on the wheel, and of the backroom
boys who had produced radar, asdic, and other marvels
nodding confidently, and saying in effect:'Sure, Just
give us a few days to think, and we'll knock together
something that will settle this lot!' (105)
The language in this passage, while intending to be
reassuring, is sornewhat artificially so. Mike, Phyllis, and
the media in general are above al1 concerned with preventing
a general panic. There are several ways panic may show
itself (at least in Wyndharn'ç novels) . Some of the more
common ways are rioting and overthrowing the government,
looting and pillaging, and a return to a savage "kill or be
killedu society. The way these ideas tend to play
themselves out in Wyndham's novels does not suggest an
especially nigh opinion of human nature. In practice, the
only thing that prevents societies under pressure £ r o m
disintegrating is the resort to either the emotional power
anything for a bitu(90).
88 of science as saviour, or something like Cold War paranoia,
or both.
Later in the novel the scientist Bocker, describes the
negative effects of the emotional belief in science:
This is a scientific age--in the more educated strata.
It will therefore almost fa11 over backwardç in
disregarding the abnormal, and it has developed a deep
suspicion of its own senses. Vast quantities of
evidence are required before a theory based on scanty
knowledge can be dislodged. Very reluctantly the
existence of something in the Deeps was belatedly
conceded. There has been an equal reluctance to admit
al1 the succeeding manifestations until they couldn't
be dodged. Ana now here we are again, balking at the
newest hurdle. (200-1)
In this passage, Bocker points to the blinding effects of
science, to the fact that people have disregarded one of the
key elements of science--empiricisrn--in favour of a belief
in science which approaches blind faith, something that
religion, not science, demands. It is passages like this
(and characters like Bocker) that suggest that Wyndham isn't
against science, per se, but rather against blind faith
directed at any creed or ideology.
It is certainly blind faith which leads "the more
classically-minded citizensH of Santander, Spain, to the
idea that,
since the advancing objects were no known form of
machine, their origin was likely diabolic, and they
aroused their priests. The visitants were conjured in
Latin to return to their Captain, the Father of Lies,
in the Pit whence they had corne. (169)
The Spaniardsl faith is unavailing, and "The sea-tanks had
continued their slow advance, driving the exorcising priests
before themU(169), The response to the threat of the Deeps
in the more industrialized "scientific" parts of the worla
is only nominally different--the new priests, scientists,
are aroused and set to work "conjuring" the "visitants."
Only Delatedly do they achieve any sort of success.
It is this blind faith in science that has lead the
peoples of the world blithely into the nuclear age. In the
early pages of the novel, Mike alludes to the situation when
he suggests that "Recognition and prevention don1t
necessarily go hand in hand. We recognized the potential
dangers of atomic fission quickly enough--yet we could do
little about themn(15). Obviously the dangers of nuclear
fission were not realized quickly enough to prevent the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, something that Wyndham
seems to allude to when he describes the xenobathls attacks
on "Hokkaido and Honshu"(l60). The Allies in World War II
decided that science offered a better means of winning the
90
war in the Pacific than conventional warfare. Wyndham seems
again to allude to this when he describes the sinking of the
Yatsushiro and the horror involved : harmless men,
and children peacef ully asleep, . . . w i p e d out
secondsu(80). The fact that the Yatsushiro is "bound from
NagasakiW(74), one of the cities targeted by the Allies with
the atom bomb, may be a coincidence, but not likely. If one
doubts Wyndhamts attitude towards the A-bomb, one need only
examine the language in Mikets description of the explosion
of one. He describes the mushroom cloud as it "writhed and
convolved upon itself in a fashion that was somehow obscene
as it climbed monstrously up the skyw (44) . "ObsceneN and
"rnonstrouslyn leave little doubt as to the nature of the
thing and echo Bill's eventual disgust with the triffids--
another of the twisted fruits of science (197).
Of course, in the world of The Kraken Wakes, the Atom
bomb is taken somewhat for granted, seen as a necessary evil
in the Cold War. The Cold War is, of course, one of the
great blinders--as when the Soviets back out of an
international conference because they cannot see through
their own communist rhetoric even in the face of an obvious
threat to Humanity. But equally, even the least rabid Cold
War paranoiac rernains caught up in the fear of science, as
with Tuny and her "midget submarines."
The Cold War and science's roie in it--including the
91
quasi-religious light in which science is regarded in the
twentieth century--do not seem to be the problem, or at
least not the root of the problem. The reporter Mallarby
says of Bocker, "He has never grasped that the average mind
when it encounters something new is scared, and says:
'Better smash it or suppress it, quick' (49) . The
preponderance of this sort of attitude, the "smash itM
mentality, and the fact that societies in Wyndharnrs novels
disintegrate at the drop of a hat, suggest something about
his perception of human nature. When this is combined with
the frequency of Darwinian themes in his work, as manifested
by the triffids, the Children of Midwich, the xenobaths (and
now many of these biological threats arise because of human
folly) , suggestions begin to solidify. What does Wyridham
see as the essential nature of the human mind? Can science
help man overcome his bestial/savage instincts, despite the
evidence of, Say, "The aeroplane, which was looked forward
to as a civilizing influence but in practice has hardly been
used except for dropping b~mbs?'~(Orwell 163). - The
Chrysalids is an extremely interesting novel in this and in
many other respects.
To begin with, The Chrysalids, unlike the other novels
discussed in this thesis, takes place in a world unlike our
own--in which the historical existence of our own world may
only be inferred. Unlike the other novels under
consideration,
taken place in
material break
foreshadow The
92 the disaster in The Chrysalids seems to have
the distant past, and there is a very
with that past. However, Wyndharn does
- - Chrysalids in The Day of the Triffids when
Bill speculates that "A tradition of a vanished golden age
and ancestors who were magicians would be a most damning
thing" (245) .
In The Chrysalids, the threat which hangs over many of
Wyndhamls other novels--nuclear war, Armageddon--has
already, in fact long ago, been carried out. The
inhabitants of the world of the novel do not see it in these
terms, however. To them it is the "Tribulation," the most
recent in the line of Godls punishments of Humanity. The
survivors of this catastrophe, or their descendants, have
built a religious sect out of the myth of the "Tribulation,"
a sort of hybrid of fundamentalist Christianity and post-
apocalyptic myth. The mutations, human or otherwise, that
result £rom the radioactive fallout are seen as warnings
from God. The narrator, David Strorm, has an uncle who was
formerly a sailor who describes some of the less favoured
parts of the wowld he has seen:
The whole seaboard is ernpty--black and harsh and
empty. The land behind looks like a huge desert of
charcoal. Where there are cliffs they are sharp-edged,
with nothing to soften them. There are no fish in the
93 sea there, no weeds either, not even slime, and when a
ship has sailed there the barnacles and the fouling on
her bottom drop off, and leave her hull clean. You
don't see any birds. Nothing moves at all, except the
waves breaking on the black beaches. (60)
Despite the fact that nuclear war is never explicitly
referred to in the novel, the impression of a post-nuclear
wasteland that this description conveys is ail but complete,
especially when David's uncle Axe1 goes further to quote the
journals of another traveler, which tell how %orne regions
are known to glow dimly on a dark nightu (61) . The threat
implicit in the Cold War paranoia of The Kraken Wakes or The
Midwich Cuckoos, and the one narrowly averted by a different
sort of disaster in The Day of the Triffids, has come to
pass in The Chrysalids. Later in the novel, the woman from
"SealandN (New Zealand) gives her impression of the
devastation when she describes "going over the rim of the
world, into the outskirts of helln, and comments, "There was
the power of gods in the hands of children, we know: but
were they - mad children, al1 of them quite rnad?" (179). The
subtext of The Crysalids is that Humanity was unable to curb
its self-destructive tendencies and that science, rather
than helping to civilize, has merely served to make that
self -destruction more horrible.
The central problem of The Chrysalids, however, is not
94 that this nuclear holocaust has happened, but that the
people of Waknuk (Wakuak?), in Labrador--the human society
which the reader most readily identifies as "normal" human
society--have not made good on the promise inherent in their
ancestors' survival. In The Day of the Triffids, Josella
muses on the horror of what has befallen them, and the
necessity to build a better society after Bill suggests that
the disaster has been largely a r e s u l t of hurnanityfs folly:
1 suppose in a way, that should be more horrible than
the idea of nature striking blindly at us. And yet 1
donlt think it is. It makes me feel less hopeless
about things because it makes them at least
cornprehensible. If it - was like that, then it is at
least a thing that can be prevented £rom happening
again--just one more of the mistakes Our very
great-grandchildren are going to have to avoid. And,
oh dear, there were so many, many mistakes ! But we can
warn them. (248)
The hope that appears at the end of Triffids, or The Kraken
Wakes, is that a new and better society can be built on the
ruins of the old one--it is this hope that has perhaps lead
Aldiss to label Wyndham as the writer of "cosy
disa~ters.~(Billion Year Spree 294). The people of Waknuk,
however, so far £rom building a better society, have built a
religious sect around the idea of rebuilding the old society
95 as exactly as possible.
When David describes the "Ethicsn classes in which he
and other children are enrolled, we see that they have
nothing, really, to do with ethics at all, but are rather a
form of indoctrination:
According to Ethics, mankind--that was us, in
civilized parts--was in the process of climbing back
into grace; we were following a faint and difficult
trail which lead up to the peaks £rom which we had
fallen . . . . T h e r e was only one true trail, and by
following it we should, with Godfs help and in His own
good time, regain al1 that had been lost. But so
faint was the trail, so set with traps and deceits,
that every step must be taken with caution, and it was
too dangerous for a man to rely on his own judgement.
Only the authorities, ecclesiastical and lay, were in a
position to judge whether the next step was a
rediscovery, and so, safe to take; or whether it
deviated £rom the true re-ascent, and so was sinful.
The penance of Tribulation that had been put upon
the world must be worked out, the long climb faithfully
retraced, and, at last, if the temptations by the way
were resisted, there would be the reward of
forgiveness--the restoration of the Golden Age. ( 4 0 )
The "Golden Agem that David's society aspires to is
96 essentially the society that apparently destroyed itself in
a nuclear holocaust. Interesting, too, is the fact that the
steps to rebuilding society must be "faithfully retraced,"
leaving no room for correction or rethinking. But perhaps
most interesting of al1 is the emphasis on authority.
In Wyndhamls other novels, we also see this emphasis,
but it focuses on the authority of scientists rather than
churchmen--in fact Wyndham tends to describe belief in
science in religious terms. Here, however, society has
fallen into a semi-barbaric state, and science (at least
genetics) is the province of religion. In fact, Wyndham
seems to have deliberately excised references to science in
The Chrysalids- In the ur-text of the novel in the Wyndham
Archive, there are several quasi-scientific references which
6 do not appear in the published edition. In an unpaginated
holograph note, Wyndham refers to the "Mendelian Bureaun--a
governrnent office which determines who is allowed to have
children. This reference, somewhat reminiscent of Huxley's
"Malthusian BeltsIf1 is obviously an allusion to Gregor
Mendel, one of the founders of the field of genetics.
Another note refers to:
Notice boards A - (radio-active) mark off badlands far south. Further north little pop. so no notices.
6~ohn Wyndham, The Chrysal ids . Unpublished, typescript draft and holograph notes. John Wyndham Archive, Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool.
97 Travel is best when rain lays dust. Keep always to old
growth for saf ety [ . 1
This note is interesting in two respects. To begin with,
there is the reference to notice boards which warn of radio-
activity. This suggests both a far more organized and
scientific society than that which appears in the published
text; furthermore, this note suggests that the novel is set
in " t h e south." Later in the holograph manuscript, at the
beginning of chapter two, there are references to
"Charleston (capital)," and "Chesapeake Bay." This, in
combination with the other references I have noted, paints a
very different picture of society in The Chrysalids than the
one Wyndham eventually published. The nuclear devastation
was likely less complete in the ur-text (which is set as far
sou th as Charleston, rather than in Labrador) , and the
people are far more scientifically rninded. These dramatic
changes suggest that Wyndham took pains to ensure that the
final text was specifically concerned with blind adherence
to religion, rather than to science, and that he wanted to
offer a more imposing view of the effects of nuclear war.
What this difference amounts to, is the suggestion that,
generally speaking, Wyndham is not reflecting on either
Religion or science, but on blind, unthinking devotion to
any system of belief, for that matter. In this novel,
Wyndham contradicts the later statement in The Midwich
98 Cuckoos that "religious dogmatism" is "net so dogmatic as
scientific dogrnatisrn"(106), and the emphasis seems to be on
the corrupting effects of religious dogma.
The basic tenets of the "Right Wing Church Party" are
stated in terms far more absolute than any scientific
theory. David has been brainwashed by the sayings from
Nicholsonls Repentances (a sort of post-nuclear book of
Apocrypha) : "ONLY THE IMAGE OF GOD IS MAN," "KEEP PURE THE
STOCK O F THE LORD," "THE NORM IS THE WILL OF GOD," and "THE
DEVIL IS THE FATHER OF DEVIATION" (18) . David notes that
"Lrequent references to these texts had made me familiar
with the words long before 1 was able to read .... 1 knew
them by heartN(18). Later, there is further evidence of how
rigorously this dogma iç upheld. When David, having trouble
with tying a bandage, says, "1 could have managed it al1
right by myself if I1d had another hand," he is forced to
pray for forgiveness (for "calling upon the Devil to give
[him] another handn) and is beaten as punishment(26). How
absolute must the dogma be, if to Say - if, to merely
hypothetically speculate on an alternative, is subject to
corporal punishment?
The irony of this, is that the people of Labrador are
so ignorant and circumscribed by their religion that they
cannot distinguish between monkeys and "a race of Deviations
that had dwindled to two feet high, grown fur and a tail,
99 and taken to living in trees," and they perceive the black
inhabitants of the West Indies as "men and women [whoj would
be passed as true images if it weren't that sorne strange
deviation had turned them al1 completely blackn(62).
Stories like these sound like traveler's tales from the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Wyndham seems to
suggest that those who forget history are doomed to repeat
Ft. Perhaps the most interesting example of human
chauvinism is described by David's uncle Axe1 when he talks
about the various races of wdeviations" encountered:
They al1 have pretty much the same legends of the Old
People as we have--how they could fly, how they used to
build cities that floated on the sea, how any one of
them could speak to any other, even hundreds of miles
away, and so on. But whatls more worrying is that most
of them--whether they have seven fingers, or four arms,
or hair al1 over, or six breasts, or whatever is wrong
with them--think that their cype is the true pattern of
the O l d People, and that anything different is a
Deviation. (62-3)
This passage suggests that the chauvinism of the people of
Labrador, or at least of the "Right Wing Church Party," is
universal among human societies. While the various other
types may not practice the same sort of genetic purification
techniques, they nevertheless have both the idea of a "true
100 image," and the belief that they are it. Of course, even in
Waknuk, the purity laws get bent on occasion. Both the
weight of authority and the power of vested interests that
we have seen in Wyndhamls other novels are present here too.
When David's Uncle Angus brings a pair of unnaturally large
"great horses" (which also figure in the holograph chapters)
back to Waknuk, there is some controversy. David's father
argues that, "God never made horses the size of these. The
Government can ' t have approved themu (36) . The enormous
horses are officially approved, however, suggesting that the
"purity lawsw are somewhat flexible where there is a profit
to be had. One of the "fringes people" (the mutant outcasts
who live on the borders of "civilized" society) who captures
David, comments on the horses while ranting about the
futility of the "purity lawsm:
'Theylre pig-headedly determined to keep to the Old
People's standards--but do they? Can they? How do
they know that their crops and their fruit and their
vegetables are just the same? Aren't there disputes?
~ n d doesn't it nearly always t u r n out that the breed
with the higher yield is accepted in the end? Aren't
cattle cross-bred to get hardiness, or milk-yield, or
meat? Sure, they can wipe out the obvious deviations,
but are you sure that the Old People would recognize
any of the present breeds at all? I 1 m not, by any
101 rneans. You can't stop it, you see. You can be
obstructive and destructive, and you can slow it al1 up
and distort it for your own ends, but somehow it keeps
on happening, Just look at those horses. (154)
One would expect the "fringes peoplev--disenfranchized as
they are--to point out any possible hypocrisy in the beliefs
and practices of their oppressors, but they are not the only
ones to question or bend the party line out of disaffection
or avarice. David's uncle Axe1 offers some extremely
subversive ideas (though he lives within NcivilizedN
society) when he suggests that emulation of the Old People
may not be such a noble goal, after all:
even if the O l d People were the same kind as I am and
they are, what of it? Oh, 1 k n o w people tell tales
about how wonderful they were and how wonderful their
world was, and how one day welll get back again al1 the
things they had. There's a lot of nonsense mixed up in
what they Say about them, but even if there1s a lot of
truth, too, what's the good of trying so hard to keep
in their tracks? Where are they and their wonderful
world now? (78)
.Axel, here, gets to the heart of what the contemporary
reader already believes--that it was no uTribulation,u sent
by an angry God, that destroyed civilization, but rather
nuclear war. The danger in followino in the footsteps of
102 the Old People is the danger of following too closely and
having the same catastrophe repeat itself. In The Day of
rhe Triffids, Wyndharn had already suggested this
possibility, and he presents it again here. Maybe the very
idea of a "Golden Agen is a dangerous thing.
Uncle Axel, however, has ideas far more radical than
this. He goes further, to suggest that the Right Wing
Church Party1 s Il IN PURITY OUR SALVATION" (18) , is
essentially flawed, and that there is no real evidence as to
what the "true imageu is. He argues that "the Bible doesnlt
Say anything to contradict the people of that time being
like us, but on the other hand it doesn't give any
definition of man either" (63). Axel also suggests that the
Right Wing Church Party's merely physical description of
Man--"each leg shall be jointed twice and have one foot, and
each foot five toes, and each toe shall end with a flat
nail" and that "any creature that shall seem to be human,
but is not formed thus is not human" (13) --is inaccurate or
incomplete. The quality that Axe1 sees the orthodox
description lacking, is mind:
'what makes man man is mind; itls not a thing, itls a
quality, and minds arenl t al1 the sarne value; theylre
better or worse, and the better they are, the more they
'Man got his physical shape--the true image, they cal1
103 it--before he even knew he was man at all. Itls what
happened inside, after that, that made him human. He
discovered he had what nothing else had, mind. That
put him on a different level. Like a lot of the
animals he was physically pretty nearly as good as he
needed to be; but he had this new quality, mind, which
was only in its early stages, and he developed that.
That was the only thing he could usefully develop; itls
the only way open to him--to develop new qualities of
mind. ' (79-80)
However, the implications that Axe1 draws £rom this idea
are, understandably, perhaps a bit flawed. He seems to
suggest--indeed he does suggest--that David and Rosalind and
the rest of the empaths are merely the next phase of
humanity. The proDlem is, the quality of mind which sets
David and the rest apart is so different in degree, that it
has become a different kind: they have become a different
kind. According to Axells definition, the "fringes people,"
who are reviled because of their merely physical
abnormalities, are far more tfhumann than David.
The fact that, according to any standard definition,
David (the character the reader sympathizes most with in the
novel) and the rest are not, strictly speaking, human, is
one of Wyndhamls most challenging ideas7. Obviously, David
'Coincidentally [ ? ] , a similar quandry is presented in
104 and Rosalind are substantially more human than the Children
of The Midwich Cuckoos. They possess "humour and
compassionw - - those most important human qualities (Midwich
the Cuckoo Chi ldren lack. Further , t hey feel
biological irnperative to destroy, or dominate the regular
humans. Nevertheless, there are very serious Darwinian
i s s u e s at stake- A t the end of the novel, a party of
telepaths from New Zealand casually exterminates dozens of
"normal humans" and Fringes People in an effort to extricate
David and his friends.
In response to David's shock at the callousness of the
New Zealanders towards the "normals," the leader of the New
Zealanders replies as follows:
'In loyalty to their kind, they cannot tolerate
our rise; in loyalty to Our kind, we camot tolerate
their obstruction.'
'If the process shocks you, it is because you have
not been able to stand off and, knowing what you are,
see what a dif ference in kind must m2an. Your minds
are confused by your ties and your upbringing: you are
still half-thinking of them as the same kind as
yourselves. That is why you are shocked. And that is
why they have you at a disadvantage, for they are not
confused. They are alert, corporately aware of danger
. . . .
William Golding's The Inheritors, published in 1955--the same
The
105 to their species. They can see quite well that if it
is to survive they have not only to preserve it from
deterioration, but they must protect it from the even
more serious threat of the superior variant. ' (196)
process shocks too. in William Golding ' s The - Inheritors, the characters we have been cheering on are the
other, and their oppressors are us. Wyndham does not go so
far as to suggest that this new variant is what the hurnan
race ought to aspire t o . His criticism of religious belief
in science, of the Cold War, of secrecy, is not intended to
lead us to forsake the idea of science as salvation in
favour of the idea of evolution as salvation. The "Sealand"
woman admits that the empaths are just another step on the
evolutionary chain, and that what cornes to replace them may
not be even vaguely human. She likens her kind to the
humans and "fringes people" of Waknuk, and imagines the
arriva1 of the next superior variant: "We shall force it to
prove itself, and when it does, we shall go; as, by the same
process, tnese are going" (196) .
year as The Chrysalids.
CONCLUSION: T?lB GR= TRüTH
What Wyndham warns us against is our atavistic, warlike
tendencies which, unchecked, may destroy us prematurely.
Cercainly his faith in human nature is slim at best. When
one considers the number of roving gangs of thugs, looters,
and rioters encountered in Wyndharnls novels--the blind mobs
at the beginning of The Day of The Triffids, Torrance's gang
(in the same novel) , the various, isolated bands of
survivalists at the end of The Kraken Wakes, the Fringes
people in The Chrysalids, and the mob that sets out to
destroy the Children in The Midwich Cuckoos--and the
propensity of society to crumble at the drop of a hat, one
would almost characterize him as a disciple of Thomas Hobbes
rather than of H.G. Wells. For Wyndham, even life under the
social contract proves, more often than not, to be nasty,
brutish and short--or obscure, rnysterious, and constrained.
The sheeplike tendency to follow the flock seems to be one
of the principal dangers he warns against--above all, the
tendency to be lulled into false belief (or blind faith) in
science, religion, or any other ideology which takes as its
basic premise that Humans are the true, unchallenged
inheritors of the earth.
Indeed, ucosyu ideas are the most dangerous in the
107 woxld of Wyridhamf s novels. Itls a remarkably comforting
idea to believe that science can be depended upon to cure
al1 the problems of humanity, remarkably cosy to believe
that the Government and the Military keep secrets £ r o m us
for Our own good. What Wyndham does, in four smooth-
reading, well-written novels (and to varying degrees in the
rest of his works), is systematically challenge these ideas
and suggest that there are dangerous t r u t h s that we are
ignoring. Nicholas Ruddick unfairly condemns Wyndham as
"shrewdU for not marketing his works as science
fiction(l38), implying that this makes Wyndham some sort of
traitor to the genre, a sellout. To coin a phrase, "A
triffid, by any other name, would smell as sweet." But
perhaps Wyndhamls major flaw is related to the fact that his
novels were deliberately not marketed as science fiction.
That flaw may very well be the high quality of his writing,
the fact that his books do "read smoothly, and thus achieve
a maximum audience." A maximum audience is not the kind of
audience to pick through a novel to look for the social and
political message behind it. As Maureen Speller suggests,
perhaps Wyndhamls novels, eagerly devoured for their great
stories and fantastic monsters, only yield their true
meaning to deeper reading. Hopefully, this thesis will
contribute to the growing body of criticism that encourages
a deeper reading of the "invisible man of British science
fiction..
*AS a final note, 1 would like to mention that further research leading to such criticism is now possible thanks to m o n e y £ r o m the U . K r s National Lottery Heritage Fund which enabled Liverpool University to acquire the John Wyndham Archive. Certain aspects of this thesis were it not f o r the availability of copies of primary resources from the Archive.
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Wyndham, John. The Chrysalids. London: Penguin Books, 1958.
- - - - - - - - - . The Day of the Triffids. London: Penguin Books,
- - - - - - - - - . ufnvisible Monster." Wonder Stories December
1 9 3 3 , [as by John Beynon Harris] .
- - - - - - - - - . The Kraken Wakes. London: Penguin Books, 1955.
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[as by John Beynon Harris] . - - - - - - - - - . Trouble With Lichen. London: Penguin Books,
1963.
A CHRONOLOGY OF BOOKS (PUBLISHED AND UNPmLISHED) BY JOHN WYNDHAM
Al1 titles are by "John W y n d h a m " unless unless another
authorial name is indicated.
The Curse of the Burdens. By John B. Harris. Aldine
Mystery Novels No. 17. Pulp paper cover coloured
illustration by Bert Wardle. London: The Aldine
Publishing Company, Ltd., 1927. 62 unpaginated pages
(approx. 660 words per paoe). Newly attributed by
David Ketterer on the basis of interna1 evidence.
Wyndham deliberately suppressed this title.
The Secret People. By John Beynon. London: George Newnes
Ltd., 2 May 1935. Revised: New York: Lancer, 1964.
London: Coronet, April 1972 (By John Wyndham writing as
John Beynon); New York: Fawcett, 1973; London: Michael
Joseph, March 1974 (by John Wyndham writing as John
Beynon) ; London: New English Library, Aug., 1987.
Fou1 Play Suspected. Detective novel by John Beynon.
London: George Newnes Ltd., 18 November 1935.
MJXDER MEANS MURDER. Unpublished Detective Novel. Composed
Oct. 8--Dec. 1, 1935. Also titled MURDER BREEDS MLTRDER
and BURN THAT BODY. John Wyndharn Archive, Sydney Jones
Library, University of Liverpool.
Planet Plane. By John Beynon. London: George Newnes
Ltd., 1936. Abridged (by John Carnell?) as Stowaway To
118
Mars, by John Beynon (London: Nova SF Novels, 1953 ) .
St. Louis: Coronet, April 1972; New York: Fawcett Gold
Medal, December 1972; London: Michael Joseph, March
1974; London: New English Library, August 1987; London:
Severn House, May 1989.
DEATH UPON DEATH. Unpublished Detective Novel. 21 November
1936. John Wyndham Archive, Sydney Jones Library,
University of Li
PROJECT FOR PISTOLS. Unpublished Thriller. 1946. Revised
1948. John Wyndham Archive, Sydney Jones Library,
University of Liverpool.
PTTAN FOR CHAOS/FURY OF CREATION. Unpublished SF Novel by
John ~eynon/John Lucas. 1947/48. John Wyndham
Archive, Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool.
The Day of the Triffids. Triffids from Venus: "The Revolt
of the Triff ids, " Colliers (6 January-3 February 1951) :
42--44; 28-29, 50, 52--54, 56. Triffids from Russia:
New York: Doubleday, 1951 (abridged) ; London: Michael
Joseph, August 1951. Kent: Popular Library, March 1952
(as Revolt of the Triffids). First published by
Penguin (London) January 1954. Toronto : Nelson
Foster&Scott, 1959. Kent: Hutcheson Unicorn, May 1960
(slightly abridged) . New York: Doubleday Dolphin,
1961. Sydney: Horowitz, 1961. New York: Fawcett
119
Crest, June 1962. London: Longman School Imprint
Books, March 1972. Glasgow: Hutcheson Educational (as
The Triffids), February 1973 (adapted by Patrick - Nobes) . Bath: Chivers, June 1983 (large print) . New
York: Del Rey, January 1986. San Marino: Easton Press
June 1989.
The Kraken Wakes. London: Michael Joseph, July 1953. In
Canada by Colli~s) . Ballantine, November 1953 (as - Out
of the Deeps with alternate ending). London: United
Kingdom Science Fiction Book Club, March 1955. First
published by Penguin, August 1955. London: Longman's,
November 1959 (shortened and sirnplified by G.C.
Thorn1ey);London: Longman's, August 1961 (abridged by
S. S .Moody) . Bath: Chivers, June 1983 (large print) .
Jizzle. Fifteen Short Stories. London: Denis Dobson Ltd-,
1954. London: United Kingdom Science Fiction Book
Club, October 1961. New York: Four Square, October
1962. London: New English Library, May 1973.
The Chrysalids. New York: Ballantine, June 1955 (as y Re-
Birth) . London: Michael Joseph, September 1955. First
published by Penguin, August 1958. As Re-Birth in A - Treasury of Great Scienc Fiction, Vol. 1, ed. Anthony
Boucher (New York: Doubleday, 1959) . Sydney: Horowitz,
1961. Kent: Hutcheson Unicorn, February 1964. London:
Walker, 1970 (as Re-Birth) . Leicester: Ulverscroft,
July 1983 (large print) .
The Seeds of Time. Ten Short Stories. London: Michael
Joseph, October 1956. First published by Penguin July
1959. Sydney: Horowitz, 1961. Stafford: Wheaton,
November 1976 (in "Literature for Lifem Series) . Tales of Goosflesh and Lauqhter. Twelve Short Stories; six
overlap with Jizzle, two with Seeds of Time, New York:
Ballantine, Deceriber 1956.
The Midwich Cuckoos. London: Michael Joseph, 1957. New
York: Ballantine, 1958, 1959; 1960 (as The village of
the Damned) . First publiçhed by Penguin 1960. London:
Longmans, November 1964 (abridged by L. ~uller) ;
Longmants, 1971 (simplified by M. West); Longman's,
1975 (abridged by J. Levine) . London: Walker, 1969.
Bath: Chivers, June 1983 (large print).
The Oütward Urqe. Four or five linked stories by John
W y n d h a m and Lucas Parkes. four stories: London:
Michael Joseph, February 1959; New York: Ballantine,
1959. Fifth story added: London: United Kingdom
Science Fiction Book Club, 1961. First published by
Penguin, 1962.
The Trouble With Lichen. London: Michael Joseph, 1960. New
York: Ballantine, December 1960. London: United
Kingdom Science Fiction ~ o o k Club, February 1962.
First published by Penguin 1963. Kent: Hutcheson
Unicorn, November 1966. Toronto : Dent, 1968 (Canadian
School Edition: Notes and Questions by Laura H. West).
London: Walker, 1969; Walker, 1970 (large print).
Consider Her Ways and Others. Novella and five short
stories. London: Michael Joseph, October 1961. First
published by Penguin 1965. Bath: Chivers, July 1983
(large print) .
The Infinite Moment. Six stories, four of which, including
"Consider Her Ways , " overlap with Consider Her Ways and
Others. New York: Ballantine, 1961.
The John WFdharn Omnibus. Collects The Day of the Triffids,
The Kraken Wakes, and The Chrysalids. London: Michael
Joseph, 1964. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966.
Chocky. New York: Ballantine, 1968. London: Michael
Joseph, London : United Kingdom Science Fiction
Book Club, 1968. First p-xblished by Penguin, 1970.
Oxford: Pergamon, 1970. Bath: Chivers, 1984 (large
print) . London : Puffin Plus,
Sleepers of Mars. Five stories by "John Wyndham writing as
John Reynon [Harris] . II London: Coronet, March 1973. London: Severn House, 1980. London: New English
Wanderers of Tirne- Five stories by "John Wyndham writing as
John Beynon [Harri~].~ London: Coronet, March 1973.
London: Severn House: April 1980. London: New English
Library, August 1987.
The Best of John Wyndham. Twelve stories. London: Sphere,
1973. As The Man f r o m Beyond and Other Stories
(London: Michael Joseph, 1975) . Reissued as The Best
of John Wyndham: 1932-1949, the first 6 stories plus
two others (London: Sphere, 1975) , and as The Best of
John Wyndham: 1951-1960, the second six stories plus
two othsrs (London: Sphere, 1977). Al1 ed. Angus
Wells.
Exiles on Asperus. Three stories by "John Wyndharn writing
John Beynon. London : Coronet, March London :
Severn House, October 1979.
Web . London: Michael Joseph, 1979. London: United Kingdom
Science Fiction Book Club, 1979. First published by
Penguin 1980.
John Wyndham. Collects The Triffids (adaptation by P a t r i c k
Nobes), The Kraken Wakes, Re-Birth, The Seeds of Time,
The Trouble With Lichen, and The Midwich Cuckoos. -
London: Heinemann/Octopus, 1980-