Literary Analysis Essay on Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Introduction

Oryx and Crake, a futuristic dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood presents many forms of anxieties and fears the current world experiences. The novel stipulates how technological and scientific issues that impact the world at the political, social and economic, environmental, and biological contexts (Semenovich 2). Furthermore, Oryx and Crake showcase the challenges of scientific and technological advancement as instruments of global capitalism that infringes on ethics. Therefore, Atwood brings to light the division of humanities and science while presenting the human fear of repression, self-annihilation, and domination. Most importantly, the novel warns humanity that our actions or inactions are leading to our perpetual downfall in a post-apocalyptic language. As such, the future in Oryx and Crake is by no means happy. Most people suffer in the realms of poverty while a chosen few, the elite live in rich walled compounds where corporations and scientists disregard the environment and the rest of the society.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The novel Oryx and Crake illustrate the challenges and dangers of capitalism at its height without regulations. Jimmy, whose alter ego is Snowman, is born and brought in a future where the most powerful entities on earth are corporations. The fortunate groups of people with corporate jobs lead luxurious lives in walled compounds owned and policed by corporations. The walled-in complexes are complete with all social amenities such as schools and everyone works for particular companies. However, the compounds are surrounded by big slums or pleeblands and people struggle for survival. Residents in the pleeblands work for meager wages and are completely exposed to the risk of pollution and crime. Residents live in dilapidated infrastructure without rights to protection since there are no police but privately owned security called CorpSeCorps.

The pursuit of corporate profits crosses the boundary of environmental protection. "Oryx and Crake" ingeniously violates the species boundary and heightens the urgency of ecological warning. Crake a scientist living in the compound assumes the natural world including animals and humans are part of an enormous laboratory in need of control. Crake together with other scientists ignores ethical considerations with regards to the environment in pursuit of financial gains that motivate scientific research. The scientists create transgenic species that are self-reproducing and act as environmental pollutants that replace nature. Transgenic plants spread faster and choke native plants leading to environmental degradation. Furthermore, unlimited science practiced by corporations on genetic modification destroys infrastructure and even people. Jimmy's father works in a company that specializes in DNA modification. The company created Pigoons that are a species of large pigs fused with human DNA. Similarly, Jimmy gets a pet rakunk during childhood that is half-raccoon and half-skunk. However, the danger arises when splices destroy vast habitats and human infrastructure. For example, Snowman lives in a world where intelligent pigeons live in herds and hunt other animals and people.

On the other hand, corporations such as HelthWyzer put hostile bioforms into their premium over-the-counter vitamin pills to spread diseases and then create an antidote to maximize profits (Atwood 126). In a conversation between Jimmy and Crake about HelthWyzer, Jimmy states that the corporation has "a really elegant delivery system - they embed a virus inside a carrier bacterium, E. coli splice, doesn't get digested, bursts in the pylorus, and bingo!" (126) there is a random insertion of the disease. It shows how corporations in the fictional future can do anything with scientific advancement to generate profits. It degrades ethical standards for environmental and human population conservation. Such fears are evident in the current day and age. The growth of multinational corporations creates a risk of consumer exploitation in the quest for profits.

Genetic engineering has become a hotly contested topic in the 21st century. Scientists have produced genetically modified crops (GMOs) and even human bodies. Such developments raise ethical, legal, religious, and humane questions about the future of humanity. In the novel, Crake pursues the genetic engineering of humans to create Crakers aimed at changing the social, economic and cultural dynamics that dominate planet earth. According to Crake, his plan to reinvent the social body takes two dimensions. First, Crakers would provide a solution to all that is wrong with humanity. Secondly, to destroy the old social form, Crake creates the BlyssPluss Pill made to inhibit the dominant social values such as pleasure and sex. The pill is embedded with a virus to destroy all of humanity so that Crakers can be the new social structure. Crake argues that the logic of the BlyssPluss Pill is simple. It is meant to "eliminate the external causes of death" (Atwood 173). Since the pill inhibits the need for sex, Crake tells Jimmy that wars are a repercussion of misplaced sexual energy. Therefore, according to Crake, war is an external cause of death that plays a larger role than racial, religious and economic factors that lead to war (Atwood 173). However, Crakers fail to fulfill their divine purpose. Nevertheless, Atwood ends the novel with uncertainties about the Crackers. She leaves the possibility that they would peacefully coexist with the environment for many years or that the crackers would need to protect themselves by developing their intelligence as their creators did.

Atwood's novel creates a sense of cold rationality and cultural numbness that the world fears. Since the internet was created to promote interconnectedness and a shared sense of empathy, it has accomplished quite the opposite. In the current digital age, the internet has become a source of cyber crimes such as identity theft, fraud, pornography, and violence. In the novel, Atwood shows that the internet does not breed compassion as people are bombarded by violence and sex. Crake and Jimmy used to get high and watch pornography and live violent executions over the internet. According to Atwood, "they'd roll a few joints and smoke them while watching the executions and the porn... (51). The unregulated usage of the internet, especially among teenagers, creates challenges due to access to illegal media like the case of Jimmy and Crake at their teen.

A closer analysis of "Oryx and Crake" presents gender and religious insights. Atwood illustrates the instability and artificiality of masculinity and femininity that promote the porous aspect of sexual and gender boundaries. During his childhood, Jimmy depicted the constructed stereotype of masculinity under the lens of his father. "His father was always giving him tools, trying to make him more practical" (Atwood 41). Based on the extract, Atwood indicates that the notion of practicality and being reasonable is gendered because it is affiliated with masculinity. On the other hand, the display of emotion and tears is a feminine trait. When Jimmy's mother leaves, he refrains from crying despite the pain he suffers. "He could have burst into tears" only, "If he'd been a girl" (Atwood 73). The author also uses Jimmy's father to express feminine and masculine differences. According to Jimmy's father, women have a temperament and when he describes his wife, he states "Women always get hot under the collar" (Atwood 10). Therefore, the novel has a notion of male domination of women.

Religion is a significant theme in the novel Oryx and Crake. Margaret Atwood uses religious imagery and allusion to situate her futuristic narrative within the biblical Christian tradition. First and foremost, the title evokes the creation title of Adam and Eve even though the author attributed the title to represent the male and female hierarchy. Crake utilizes his scientific knowledge to destroy humanity and serve as God by creating a new species of people (Crakers) that would be superior to prior humans. Like in the Genesis narrative, Eve engages Adam into sin by eating fruits from the tree of knowledge. In the same sense, Oryx follows Crake's lead without asking questions depicted in Adam's trait in the Bible. Therefore, by using inverted gendered responsibilities, the novel showcases how the masculinity endorses technological progress steering the fall of humanity. According to Christianity, Eve is demonized for promoting the fall of man. However, the novel depicts the masculine domination of the world since male scientists dominate the scientific ideologies regarding the natural world order. On the other hand, there is a parallel connection between biblical Noah and Snowman. After God used the flood to destroy sinful people, Noah rescued the fate of humanity. Similarly, Snowman is portrayed as the last man who would rescue Project Paradice after the fall of Crake (Semenovich). Besides that Crake assigns Jimmy the duty to take care of Crackers as Adam was responsible for taking care of animals and plants.

Conclusion

In conclusion, "Oryx and Crake" is a futuristic novel that presents a dystopian world created through man's quest to change the natural order of things using technology. The novel has moral lessons that should serve as a guideline to the modern world in light of tremendous scientific and technological breakthrough. Technology and science should better human life but should not act as a destructive force that degrades humanity and the environment like in the dystopian world in Oryx and Crake.

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. "Oryx and Crake." docs.ivymindacademy.com/EBooks/oryx_crake.pdf.

Semenovich, Lacie M. "Old Beginnings: the Re-Inscription of Masculine Domination at the New

Millennium in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake." 2008. ETD Archive. Paper 501.