45 pages • 1 hour read
John ChristopherThe White Mountains
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1967A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Series Context: The Tripods
The White Mountains is the first in a trilogy of novels, known as The Tripods, which follows Will’s efforts to escape, resist, and eventually overcome the Tripods’ domination of humanity. As the first book in the series, The White Mountains introduces the major themes, characters, and concepts of the trilogy, although some key revelations are reserved for the later entries in the series.
The first book follows Will, Henry, and Beanpole’s efforts to reach the White Mountains (the Alps), where a community that resists the Tripods’ domination lives in hiding. The second book, The City of Gold and Lead, picks up where the first leaves off, with Will infiltrating one of the Tripods’ cities. As he does so, he gains valuable information about the Masters, the species of extra-terrestrial beings who build and pilot the Tripods. In the third and final volume, The Pool of Fire, Will and various companions capture one of the Masters and use the information they gather from him to carry out attacks on the Masters’ three cities, eventually defeating them entirely. In the aftermath of the Masters’ defeat, delegations from various countries meet to plan a way forward for humanity, though it remains to be seen whether the world will successfully unify.
Cultural Context: Concerns About Totalitarianism
The Tripods series was written and published in the late 1960s at the height of the Cold War. The Cold War was a decades-long era marked by rising tensions between the United States and its allies, known as the Western Bloc, and the Soviet Union and its allies, known as the Eastern Bloc. As much a conflict of ideas and influence as of weapons, the Cold War saw the Western Bloc pushing for the establishment of Capitalist liberal democracies and right-wing dictatorships throughout the world as the Eastern Bloc supported authoritarian Communist regimes.
Although the Cold War is not mentioned explicitly in The White Mountains, the novel’s depiction of the Tripods’ control can be seen as a critique of totalitarianism, just as the novel’s exploration of human industry and ingenuity can be read as a validation of the Western Bloc’s socioeconomic system. The Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In the years since, readers continue to find The Tripods relevant to concerns about surveillance, data privacy, and even social or news media.
Literary Context: Young Adult Dystopian Fiction
The Tripods series is regarded as a seminal classic within the young adult dystopian genre. Although dystopian literature and young adult literature both predate The Tripods, Christopher’s series is one of the first and most influential examples that combines traits from both genres.
In keeping with the hallmarks of young adult fiction, The Tripods features youthful protagonists who embark on a coming-of-age journey from a state of naiveté to maturity. As The White Mountains opens, Will is hesitant to question or resist the social customs that shape his life. Over time, he becomes more confident and capable of opposing the Tripods. Christopher also incorporates several tropes associated with dystopian fiction, including his description of the Tripods’ apocalyptic takeover of the world, his conception of a heroic group that resists the Tripods, and his examination of conformity versus individuality.
Since The Tripods was published, young adult dystopian fiction has continued to develop and thrive. Notable modern examples include Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games series, Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, and James Dashner’s The Maze Runner Series. These and other similar novels share many basic traits pioneered in The Tripods.
