The day of the Triffids door John Wyndham

Book: The Day Of The Triffids

Book: The Day Of The Triffids
Author: John Wyndham
First published:1951
Pages: 272

Summary:

Bill Masen is a biologist who works with triffids. Triffids are genetically engineered plants who feed on human flesh. Triffids can walk and they have a stem that can lash out at you and discharging enough poison to kill you, if it strikes at your unprotectet skin. When he works with them he has to wear protecting clothes and glasses, but one time the glasses broke and the poison of the triffid came in his eyes. He has to go to the hospital.
This is were the stories begins. It’s about eight o’clock and he is sitting in his hospital room in London. When nobody shows up to wash or to feet him he’s getting worried. Because he has bandages over his hat, he can not see anything and tho only thing he can do is wait. He gets even more worried because he doesn’t here any voices from the street. It is completely still. After a while, he decides to get rid of the bandages....he can see.
When he’s walking through the hospital he sees everyone is blind. When he goes outside the hospital, there’s nobody on the streets. But after a while he comes accros seceral people, all blind. He thinks it’s maybe the result of the strange green lights coming out of space everybody was talking the day before.
On a certain moment he finds someone else who is able to see, Josella. Together they walk through the city and at the end of the day they go to a hotel and choose a room to stay for the night. When it’s dark they see a light, the next day they go explore where the light was coming from. It was coming from the university building, where the “Michael Beadley gang” was. They are going to work together, but that night the alarm goes off and when he wakes up, he is tied up. He is kidnapped and he has to help another group. He must go whith two other blind people to find supplies. But everything goes wrong. Someone with a gun fired at them and he escapes. Now he on his own again.
He decides to go look for Josella. Together with Coker, the man who kidnapped him, he leaves London to go to Tynsham Manor, where he stays a while. But he wants to go and find Josella. So together they leave and go to another place. Where they are very welkom, if they want to be dead, because they starts to shoot at them. Bill wants to go further to find Josella in a place he talked about with Josella. Coker goes back to Tynsham Manor to help the people there. Bill finds Josella and other people to. They are in a house with Josella and Susan (who is travelling with Bill because he found her), but also with Mary, Joyce and Dennis, who were blind. Tho hole place is full with triffids, so they can only come out with special clothes. Bill tells about his trip, he has seen much triffids. Together with the other five people he lives there for six years. He builds a fence and sometimes he goes to the city to get food an other stuff. But after a while, they have to live as farmers.
Than certainly there comes a helicopter. It’s the gang of Michael Beadly. They have a big group on an island and also Coker is with them. He left Tynsham because there was a big diseas. They invite al six of them to come to the island. They decide to wait untill summer and then go to the rest.
But there is a problem. A little group wants to take over control and they demand off them to take twenty blind people in their home to take care off. They don’t want this and when the man with the guns sleep, they escape from the house, probably to go to the island of Michael Beadley. This is where the stoy ends.

Main characters:

Bill Masen: He is a biologist who works with triffids. The story is told from his point-of-view. He tells everything he sees and what he thinks, so you don’t know how he looks like. This is why I can’t say how big he is, if he brown or blue eyes or blond or brown hear has.

Josella Playton: She lives in St John’s Wood and is twenty four years old. She’s blonde and slim, but not thin. She nearly get married when she was nineteen. She writes books. These are the only things they tell about her. Josella and Bill fall in love with eachother.

Coker: Coker is the man who wanted to help the blind people. He kidnapped many people from the Michael Beadley gang to help him with it. After his plan does not work he stops with it and makes friends with Bill. Together they are going to find Josella. About his appearance is nothing told, just like the rest.

Susan: Susan is a litle girl, but they didn’t say how old she is. Bill finds her on his trip to Josella. She is scared of the triffids. She lost both her parents and her brother. Later when she lives with they other people, Josella and Bill regard Susan as their own daughter.

Theme:

This book is a science fiction book. The story is made up by the author and walking plants who eat human flesh it is not realistic.