Villains are important to every story because they create conflict with one or more
other characters, arousing interest and concern in the reader.  In The Chrysalids,
David's father Joseph Strorm is the villain.  For the purpose of this essay, villain means,
"a wicked or evil person" (Nelson Canadian Dictionary, 1513).  Joseph is a villain
because he is misguided and spiteful.

Joseph is a misguided man.  "My [David's] father's faith was bred into his bones, his
principles were his sinews, and both responded to a mind richly stored with examples
from the Bible, and from Nicholson's Repentances.  In faith father and son were at
one; the difference between them was only in approach; the evangelical flash did not
appear in my father's eye; his virtue was more legalistic (16,17)".  This quotation
shows Joseph's ignorance in more than one perspective.  The first is that his...