Compare and contrast the themes of Beka Lamb and Chrysalides?

The Themes of Beka Lamb and the Chrysalides are very similar especially when you look at the role of women in society and social prejudice. In Beka Lamb women are the ones who are seen as the care givers and the ones to take care of the home. The majority of them do not work and even having an education for the lower class is untold or unheard of. In The Chrysalides women are seen as the same and are given most of the punishment when it comes to producing "deviants" Here you see a similarity because in Beka Lamb Toysie is seen as solely responsible for her pregnancy and has to take the social shame as well as being expelled from school. Women in the Chrysalides are given "penances" for producing deviants The Theme of prejudice is explored in Beka Lamb as racial prejudice as she is black and the society looks down on her to be another statistic as many of the other women in society have become. this theme is explored in The Chrysalides as all deviants are seen as not human enough to be around other "non deviants" and women who produce deviants are also shown prejudice as society looks apon them as being unable to give birth to normal children. This is seen when aunt Hariot commits sucide because of the number of deviant babies she gave birth to society even her husband looked down on her. So the themes of Beka Lamb and The Chrysalides are very closely linked. When comparing the themes of Beka Lamb and the Chrysalides i find that they both deal with the same fact of life. Being the love of friends and family. In both books we find that the main characters lose a friend. In Beka Lamb Beka lost and in the chrysalides David and his telepathic friends lost Anne, a telepath. well Beka Lamb is way different from the c Chrysalides because the Chrysalides deals with people who have super natural powers while Beka Lamb talks about the turning point in a young girls life but they are kind of similar in a way. Because they both talk about seeing through your problem and getting through them Beka Lamb is born into a middle class Belizean family. She lives with her mother, Lilla Lamb, her father, Bill Lamb, her grandmother, Miss Ivy and her brothers, Chuku and Zandy. The Lamb family was one of the few creole families on their street that had much. Beka and her best friend Toycie were the only girls on the street who were presently attending secondary school. Lilla Lamb comments "It's hard to have nice things amongst people that don't." At the start of the novel , Beka is fourteen years old and in the second term of her second attempt at first form at St. Cecelia's Academy. She is the oldest surviving child of Bill and Lilla Lamb of Cashew Street, elder sister to Chuku and Zandy lamb, and granddaughter of Ivy Lamb, Bill's mother. Beka and her parents have a fairly bad relationship, although they have her best interest at heart. She was occasionally beaten as a child for things coming out of her mouth, but more often than not catches her parents off guard with her sense of humor and inquisitiveness. They regard her as somewhat coquettish, but also sensitive. Her best friend is seventeen year old neighbor Toycie Qualo who became pregnant and later loses the child from miscarriage and her own life from a mango tree falling and crushing her skull during a storm.

Both novels protrays the same themes and almost the same issues are highlighted in both texts. In Beka Lamb the issue of religion was very dominant. When Beka best friend Toycie got pregnant she had to left school, because the school was a catholic school and to top it off she even got expelled because of the beliefs of that school. While in Chrysalids religion was very dominant. In this novel David who is the protaganist had alot of this to deal with. His father was seen as one of the main religious man in the novel. David's best friend Sophie was a deviant and was seen as a threat to the community of Waknuk. Even though David knew about Sophie's default he had to keep it as a secret inorder to safe her from the community of Waknuk. In both novels the theme of friendship was also highlighted very strongly. In the Chrysalids, David and Sophie had a strong friendship going on. It was so important to David that he had decides to keep a secret for his best friend that automatically cause conflicts between him and his family. He had to run away from home just to keep this secret fo his friend. While in Beka Lamb, Beka was almost faced with the same situation only that her best friend Toycie was engaged in an intimate relationship with Emilio, which eventually leads to pregnancy. Beka had to keep this as secret so that Toycie's teacher and family didn't know but unfortunately things didn't go as how they would have wanted. well based on my perspective the major theme in both books is change. in beka lamb it shows a young girl developing into a young woman. for chrysalids the title to bigin with signifies change. the word chrysalids came from the word chrysalis meaning change, or to be precise the stages that show the evolution of a caterpillar into a butterfly.. The theme of growing up is brought out in these two novels. In the case of David Strorm in The Chrysalids, the novel highlights all the events which turn him into a stronger and mature persson at an early age. This is mainly highlighted in yhe case of Sophie Wender as a child where he keeps a very dangerous secret knowing the consequences. As a ten-year-old child it is a very mature thing to do. In BeKa Lamb the main theme is growing up where one sees Beka transfomation from a girl to a young lady. This is especially seen in her lying and trying to atone herself after lying about passing first form. Beka Lamb raises the themes; political change ( most importantly) social prejudice (creoles not accepted by the white) madness ( as it relates to toycie) growing up ( beka trys to find herself) death ( toycie dies) social change women in society (they were expected to be submissive) i think the major theme in beka lamb is life situations and consequences.My reason being is because it majorly stresses on the life problems that beka and toycie has to go through,like racism{like how emilio refuses to marry toycie after pregnating her}political problems {the wanted change of no longer wanting to be under colonialism and wanting their own independenc}family problems ,parents always coming down hard and pressuring you its who they are and what they do .it benefits us in the end though because we see where toycie and beka has been warned about getting a baby instead of getting a diploma they've been warned by the school but beka has been warned also by her parents and because of this has the knowledge of how it can affect her life in a very serious way unlike toycie who maybe heard it only once and so has placed this in the back of her head already.so we see where family constantly pressuring you about something can really make you think about it on a very serious note.poverty was another problem caue we see how poor toycie was and the only thing that could have helped her was to get aproper education which she didn't get inthe end.being poor sort of makes people who are 2

financially equipped think that they can take advantage of you because you may feel like you may never get someone like that again.ie.toycie.Friendship plays a big part in this book also as toycie used to encourage beka in her schhool work and beka in return tries to persuade toycie into not getting serious with emilio but however toycie does not take heed.so i would really say life and its threatening sources are the biggest and most important theme in this book it also talks about how aunt eila was just like toycie in such that she also got pregnant out of wedlock but she didn't lose hope like toycie, she kept her head onthe right track and keot optimistic about the whole situation.beka's parents on the other hand did everything right, education first then pregnancy and so they also want beka to follow and so she will.toycie's family on the other hand is opposit as her aunt eila was just like that and her mother is unstable and isn't around ,so this kind of makes her life really tough and difficult for her.parents experiences has a lot to do with yours but yet still, it is not an excuse to make the same mistakes that they made.you have a mind of your own . Comparison Of Beka Lamb And Chrysalids Beka lamb and the Chrysalids are similar in many ways for instance both societies are greatly influenced by religion in Beka lamb catholicism is the dominant religion but "before time" the protestantism was the main religion among the creoles.The novel shows the ethnic take over of the panias in the social empire of belize where the creoles in the past were of a higher standing than the panias but now that is changing(change is the dominant team in The chrysalids,a chrysalis is a protected stage of development of an insect which signifies a change or rather methamorphosis) this can be seen in the choice of names of the characters in Beka lamb for example Mr Blanco which means white this shows the rise of the pania in social classification also villanueva means new estate. The chrysalids has a strong christain religion in which they believe in a true image of God and that any thing which is not normal(something tha the majority of the society has or has seen)is a blasemy and must be destroyed or exiled(which in n my opinion is rather foolish i wonder if a child with no belly button would be described as a blasemy since neither Adam or Eve had navels) anyway in both novels there are penalities for not obeying the laws of society or religious norms. In the chrysalids this is Death or Exile to the fringes where all hope off a normal life is shattered in Beka lamb Toycie's expulsion can be compared to exile since is forcefully made to lose all hope of getting out of poverty and all her dreams are shattered because of the veiws of society and the catholic school One of the most obvious similarity is the theme of death both Beka and David lost one of there best friends Beka lost toycie while david lost sophie both Toycie and Sophie are similar in that they protected and cared for the main charaters in their respective novels Toycie helped Beka with her school work while Sophie helped David in his escape from Waknut. The role of creole women in Beka Lamb was to be housewives. This meant that they had to wash, cook and clean, which meant that they were not educated. They had little power influencing the society and the only way for creole women to escape this was to get an education. This was not affordable by most creole women as school were privately owned and were very expensive. The role of the high class women was a little bit more different. They used to stay home but they had maids, gardeners, babysitters, etc. (creole women & men). They did not do much because they were rich and so they paid the creole part of society to do it for them. They did not work as only men in the high class would work.

Birth and family Beka Lamb is born into a middle class Belizean family. She lives with her mother, Lilla Lamb, her father, Bill Lamb, her grandmother, Miss Ivy and her brothers, Chuku and Zandy. The Lamb family was one of the few creole families on their street that had much. Beka and her best friend Toycie were the only girls on the street who were presently attending secondary school. Lilla Lamb comments "It's hard to have nice things amongst people that don't." At the start of the novel , Beka is fourteen years old and in the second term of her second attempt at first form at St. Cecelia's Academy. She is the oldest surviving child of Bill and Lilla Lamb of Cashew Street, elder sister to Chuku and Zandy lamb, and granddaughter of Ivy Lamb, Bill's mother. Beka and her parents have a fairly bad relationship, although they have her best interest at heart. She was occasionally beaten as a child for things coming out of her mouth, but more often than not catches her parents off guard with her sense of humor and inquisitiveness. They regard her as somewhat coquettish, but also sensitive. Her best friend is seventeen year old neighbor Toycie Qualo who became pregnant and later loses the child from miscarriage and her own life from a mango tree falling and crushing her skull during a storm Cutting Down the Tree Beka and her father have a rocky relationship from the beginning of the book. On page 19 Beka talks about how her father calling her names, like phoney are sometimes more hurtful than the physical abuse. Her father says that he couldnt understand how a girl with enough food to eat, decent clothes to wear, and a roof over her head could be such a trial. The first instance of lying in front of her father resulted with the whipping her with his belt. She was cut across the face with the belt buckle and the scar is a constant reminder of the pain she experienced as a result of her lying. This lying didnt stop and later in the chapters, Beka informs her parents that she passed the grade at school, even though she had failed four classes. When she confessed to her father that she had lied once again about being passed on to the next grade, she expects that her fait is that of previous terms. Instead, her father tells her You are growing wild like that bougainvilla thats breaking down Miss Boysies fence. All flash and no substance (Page 25). With this Beka pleads to still be allowed to go back to school. With no response, her father cut down that tree that belonged to Beka while she was sleeping. When Beka askes why her father cut down the tree, he responds with It was breaking down the fence, Beka (page 25). The cutting down of Bekas tree is a very symbolic part of Beka coming of age. The tree is symbolic of the growth that Beka has done in her life; the molding and shaping that her father has done to her in order to make her the daughter that he wanted. Like Beka, no matter the love and care put into tending to the tree, it became over grown and started to destroy its surroundings. Bekas lies grew out of control like the tree to the point were small pruning of her actions could not alter her overall demeanor. Her dad made the example my erasing the entire tree in order...