Can you pleace tell me any themes in the book called The Day of the Triffids please For example surival of mankind etc. I really need help on this Thanks sooooo much D?

Answer 1

The Day of the Triffids is a 1951 science-fiction novel by British author John Wyndham. It began with plant seeds arriving from - presumably - somewhere in space, taking root and providing the world with plants which produced wonderfully useful seeds. Soon they were being cultivated everywhere; in the rush to make money from them nobody thought to ask any questions about their origin or impact upon the environment. Then a marvellous green fireworks display, comet debris, said the scientists, went off one night and most of the world's population rushed out to stare at the sky. Next morning they'd all gone blind, and the extensively-cultivated triffids uprooted themselves and walked about eating blind people. There were survivors, but only among those who didn't rush out to see the pretty green lights or somehow managed to evade the hungry triffids. One man, Bill Masen, the main character, had been hospitalized owing to an accident which left him in bed with his eyes bandaged; he wasn't very pleased at missing the show, but woke up next morning to a silent hospital, the only person there who could see. The few staff who'd stuck around were feeling their way through the corridors. The predicament of the patients doesn't bear thinking about. One of the points underlined by Wyndham was the optimism of a young lady who was certain 'the Americans' would arrive to save everyone in Britain. Of course, the Americans - like the rest of the world - were also blind and being eaten by triffids, so were a bit too busy to come and save Britain. Masen met another sighted person, a young woman, and together they are forced to face the fact they and only they can take responsibility for the, now few, blind survivors. Some ruthless vigilantes figure in the novel around this time. So the themes here are multi-layered, dealing with initial greed with no thought of responsibility, progressing to utter helplessness in the face of global disaster and blind (sorry, no pun intended) faith in the concept that the current major world power would turn up with the cavalry and save us all, and following inevitably to the concept that where one or more persons have the ability to assist the helpless, they must do so. To take any other action would leave our two heroes alone to inevitably perish owing to sheer despair. Wyndham didn't fall into the trap of other apocalyptic writers, of having his heroes wander off into the sunset to repopulate the world; it simply couldn't happen, not with just two people. If disease or injury didn't get them, the despair would. I'm not going to tell you the ending in case you haven't yet read that far, but the whole book is a good read, as are Wyndham's other novels.