The Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic 1951 novel by the English science fiction author John Wyndham. The novel is written in the first-person, and describes in elegant detail what happens after civilization collapses. It was later made into a radio series, a motion picture, and a television serial.

Plot summary

---

Triffids are very strange fictional plants, capable of rudimentary animal-like behaviour: they are able to uproot themselves and walk, possess a deadly whip-like poisonous sting, and may even have the ability to communicate with each other. Wyndham capably describes the triffid by breaking its appearance down into several more familiar elements: in fact he later suggests that the plant might be concocted of various different plants.

In the story, the narrator speculates on the plants' origins. He dismisses claims that they evolved naturally, or arrived from space, or were sent as punishment from a deity. Instead, it is suggested that they were bioengineered when he was a child, possibly in the Soviet Union by the real-life Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko (this detail is left ambiguous). Fear of the Soviet Union is a pervading theme of the novel, and Wyndham was writing at a time when the complete failure of Lysenkoism was unknown in capitalist countries.

The triffid quickly became established as a major crop due to its invaluable edible oils and proteins. The seeds reach the West, and the plants become commonplace, after a jet carrying a stolen box of seeds is shot down whilst attempting to defect. Many households keep them as a curiosity, almost a garden pet, making sure to have the sting docked at regular intervals. In commercial exploitation, the stings are left intact as docking impairs the quality of the plant oil.

The story proper opens with the narrator Bill Masen in hospital, with his eyes bandaged after having been stung by a triffid. He discovers that while he has been blindfolded, an unusual meteor shower has blinded most people on Earth (the sharp-eyed will notice close parallels in more recent apocalyptic sci-fi). Bill later muses that the shower may have been some sort of space-based weapons system which misfired, though the true cause is never revealed (this intriguing technique of withholding ostensibly-critical background to the plot is a key Wyndham characteristic also present in that author's The Midwich Cuckoos and The Kraken Wakes). The protagonist finds people in London struggling to stay alive in the face of their new, instantly-acquired affliction, some cooperating, some fighting: after just a few days society is collapsing.

Meanwhile, in a "double-whammy" situation characteristic of the Wyndham style, triffids are quickly regrowing their stings and eager to take full Darwinian advantage of the new "edge" over humankind that chance events have given them. Undocked specimens in captivity break free. The handful of sighted survivors escape the general collapse, to be faced by the growing numbers of free, undocked triffids, which grow bolder and more aggressive every day. They are also forced into some far-from-cosy realisations about just how many of his/her blinded fellow men and women each remaining sighted person can possibly help, without being exploited into an early grave.

Masen meets Josella Playton, a woman who also avoided being blinded, and the two manage to survive the perils of London and fall in love. Though they are separated, Bill and a sighted girl he has adopted eventually find Josella living with friends on a remote country estate, and the pair become an established couple. When a para-military organisation comes to take over their resources and want to split up the household, they escape with their son to join others in a community on the Isle of Wight. The entire second half of the book has much to say about just how impossibly difficult re-establishing the civilisation we have become used to (following a blow of whatever kind) might prove to be. Indeed, the novel ends with the triffids still dominant and a few human survivors grimly attempting to fight back.

Characters in "The Day of the Triffids"

---

• Bill Masen – protagonist, who escapes blindness owing to be blindfolded during the first attacks
• Josella Playton – also sighted
• Coker – a political activist, also sighted, who tries to establish a support system for the victims of the disaster
• Trofim Lysenko – a Soviet biologist, real historical character

Allusions/references from other works

---

• Triffids are referenced in the opening number of the stage/film musical The Rocky Horror Show: "I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott fight a triffid that spits poison and kills." Janette Scott played the role of Karen Goodwin in the 1962 film adaptation.
• The Triffids is also the name of an Australian rock group from the 1980s.
• In the computer game Darwinia there is an immobile enemy unit called a Triffid that looks like a flower and spits dangerous seeds.
• In Mormon missionary culture, as well as among many foreign exchange students, a "triffid" is a young Japanese schoolgirl, so named because of their giggle which sounds eerily like the sounds the plants made in the movie, and because groups of them seem to appear at random intervals.
• The film 28 Days Later features several nods to the Day of the Triffids, including the protagonist awakening in a deserted hospital, and finding other survivors by following tower lights.
• The band Gorillaz have a reference to a triffid on the band's official website. Upon further inspection of the band member, Murdoc's trailer in the Kong Studio parking garage, you'll find a Triffid as a potted plant. When you place your cursor over it, it makes a strange noise and the subtext states, "Absolutely Triffid".
• The online game Kingdom of Loathing, features a plant-monster called a Triffid in "The Spooky Forest" section of the game.
• The band Ash have a song titled "Day of the Triffids" on their CD Trailer.

Film, TV, radio or theatrical adaptations

---

The novel was adapted into a BBC radio series in 1957.

A film version of this story was produced in the UK and released in 1962.

It was turned into a BBC television serial in 1981.

In 2001, British novelist Simon Clark wrote a sequel titled The Night of the Triffids.

External links

---

• Essay by L.J. Hurst

1951 novels | Science fiction novels | Post-apocalyptic fiction | Fictional plants

Trifid | Da trifitterne kom | El día de los trífidos | トリフィド時代