Opening Line
Day of the Triffids kicks off with one of the most memorably offbeat similes ever used as an opening. The implicit promise that the entire novel will be as humorously off-kilter and unexpected as the opening line is not fulfilled, unfortunately, but that does nothing at all to lessen the beauty of its introduction:
“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”
Strategic Insight
At one point, the narrator is giving some advice on dealing on defending against triffids and through figurative language conveys important about their strategic limitations.
“From a triffid point of view, a city must be much like a desert, so I should think they'll be moving outward toward the open country on the whole.”
Triffid Locomotion
If you know beforehand that a triffid is basically a flower and that the triffids are trying to take over the world, it is certainly reasonable how they could be a threat relative to simple movement. So, how exactly do these creatures get around?
“When it `walked’ it moved rather like a man on crutches.”
Of course, even knowing this still leaves questions. Like, for instance, how could an entire planet be threatened by anything that moves with the facility of someone using crutches.
“I cracked, and howled like a girl in a Victorian melodrama”
The narrator’s companion in his fight against the nefarious plant creatures lumbering along like a man on crutches is Josella Playton and the very fact that she is apologizing for her behavior makes her interesting enough, but the extra addition layer of being ashamed of behaving like the female companion of the hero in any number of previous incarnations of stories using the basic template as this one makes her all the more attractive. She is a new kind of heroine for a new kind of British melodrama.
Waxing Philosophic
For the most part, the novel moves along at an accelerated clip, recognizing itself for what it is rather than trying to be something it isn’t. However, there is a section where that recognition gives way to contemplation and the narrative turns to poetry and philosophy to try to make sense of things. In so doing, the narrator spins forth his most beautifully constructed paragraph filled with imagery, metaphor, and psychological musings in an effort to explain how pessimism always seems to somehow give way to optimism when given enough time
“Under a wide blue sky where a few clouds sailed like celestial icebergs the cities became a less oppressive memory, and the sense of living freshened us again like a clean wind.”
