The British writer John Wyndham (1903–1969) explored societal effects of surprising or mystical events. A paradigmatic example is The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), which portrays identical-looking children born without sexual intercourse. I propose a reading strategy that focuses on the fictional spatial order and analyses how the construction of the children’s otherness interferes with the village’s demarcation. Furthermore, I interpret the mysterious pregnancies as a reference to basic embryo research in the 1950s – cloning. Finally, I scrutinize Wyndham’s negotiation of utilitarianism throughout the novel and his critique of truly utilitarian decisions that are based on constructions of Otherness.

英国作家约翰·温德姆 (John Wyndham，1903-1969) 探索了令人惊讶或神秘事件的社会影响。一个典型的例子是The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)，它描绘了出生时没有性交的长相一模一样的孩子。我提出了一种关注虚构空间秩序的阅读策略，并分析了儿童他者的构建如何干扰村庄的划分。此外，我将神秘怀孕解释为 1950 年代基础胚胎研究的参考——克隆。最后，我仔细审视了温德姆在整部小说中对功利主义的谈判以及他对基于他者建构的真正功利主义决定的批判。