Jessica Myers

07/11/2015

The Human Element

Speculative fiction creates a pool of ideas, where possibilities exist for discussion, yet at the same time, informs the reader of the dangers and problems society is facing, all while developing an entertaining narrative to engage the reader’s interest. In Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood uses the genre of speculative fiction to create a unique view of the world through the blending of dystopia and utopia. Atwood refers to this as an “Ustopia.” Rather than only focusing on the rules and social structures of a utopia or how to overthrow those rules and social structures in a dystopia, an ustopia allows the author to explore human nature, while interacting with the environment around him. Utopias and dystopias tend to change the environment around humans to form the “perfect society,” whereas ustopia addresses the problem of human selfishness. Atwood then helps answer the question, what about the human element? Her answer allows for the discussion of tension between creating a world to fit humanity (and in the process humanity destroying the world), and the human race being conformed to the world, which in this case means killing almost everyone and starting fresh with better genetics. By focusing on the problem of humanity rather than the environment, Atwood opens up new avenues of discussion for future possibilities.

Atwood develops the complex characters of Jimmy/Snowman, Glenn/Crake, and Oryx. Through them, she explores psychology and the human psyche. Each character is not only unique but created with duality. Before the “waterless flood,” each character had an identity they shaped for themselves, but afterwards, each character had a different identity based on how the Crakers perceived them. 

Jimmy was a boy who grew up neglected by his parents. His mother abandoned their family at a young age, and although his father remarried, he never seemed satisfied or proud of Jimmy. Due to the lack of his parents’ involvement, Jimmy spent much of his free time surfing the internet watching inappropriate material, smoking illegal substances, and playing violent games with his friend Glenn. His parents’ focus on their work or personal problems, instead of being involved in their son’s life, reveals that improper nurture can lead to negative personality traits later in life. This proves true for Jimmy, when he grows up to be quite a womanizer. Unlike in Herland, where Charlotte Perkins Gilman created three separate men to represent the different types of men, Atwood was able to encompass all three in one character, Jimmy. Similar to Terry, Jimmy is a womanizer and manipulates women’s emotions so that they will have sex with him. Throughout his education, he is a man of words and scholarship, like Van. With Oryx, Jimmy wants to find the men who enslaved her in sex trafficking and fight for her honor, which would be akin to the chivalrous Jeff. This combination of attributes creates a round character, who is more realistic than Terry, Van, or Jeff.  Furthermore, Jimmy is given the unique ability to look at his memories metacognitively. For example, “Maybe she had loved Jimmy, thinks Snowman. In her own manner”(61). He is able to examine, not only the feelings of others, but his own feelings and motivations, by reflecting on interactions throughout his past. Atwood gives Jimmy the unique ability to relive events through the eyes of a child, but examine and respond to those events with the maturity of an adult. This complexity helps us meditate on our own memories and perceptions of previous experiences, and how those experiences have molded our decisions and personality. 

Although Jimmy acquires the new name of Snowman when he begins caring for the Crakers, he attains a new identity through this name. Snowman is no longer a carefree man just trying to get by in a world that is slowly falling apart around him. He is given a new purpose in life: to fulfill his promise to Crake and Oryx by caring for the Crakers. Ironically, Snowman “is a leftover dinosaur who, in the end, achieves demigod status among the curious Crakers” (Wells). The Crakers rely on Snowman for information regarding the world around them. Although Jimmy/Snowman is the narrator, with the Crakers, Snowman becomes the guide. He “literally leads the Crakers to a new home and safety and encourages their way of life. Further, Snowman builds and perpetuates the Crakers mythology” (Wells). This new sense of purpose does not help Snowman feel any less trapped by the situation he has been forced into. He thinks to himself, “Get me out! … But he isn’t locked up, he’s not in prison. What could be more out than where he is?” (45). Things are worse for Snowman, since he can remember how things were but is stuck with how things are now. He is realizing that even though life should now be perfect, since all of the selfish people have been removed, he is miserable because he cannot live the way the Crakers live since he is not designed like them. This world that Crake intended to be a utopia has become a dystopia for Snowman, showing that it takes more than just a change in environment to create the perfect place for mankind.

Crake’s original name was Glenn, until he later renamed himself. Glenn’s upbringing was similar to Jimmy’s. His father passed away in an “accident.” His mother and step-father were fairly uninvolved in his upbringing. During his high school years, he developed the skill of hacking, which he used to steal money from his step-father and later to enter the cyber-world of MaddAddam. Glenn is portrayed as a “numbers man,” who ends up becoming a well sought after genius. It is even hinted that he potentially has Asperger’s through the sub-chapter entitled “Asperger’s U.” By creating a foil between Glenn and Jimmy, Atwood is able to explore nature vs. nurture. Both of these boys had similar upbringings, but they ended up making completely different choices in their adult life. Glenn ends up attending the most prestigious college and is then hired by the best funded compound, RejoovenEsense. Here, he takes advantage of the resources and brains that have been given to him and creates the Crakers. Just as in utopias and dystopias, the idea of eugenics is addressed. The Crakers have been created with “pre-selected characteristics. Beauty … docility… UV-resistant skin, a built-in insect repellant, an unprecedented ability to digest unrefined plant material. As for immunity from microbes, what had until now been done with drugs would soon be innate” (304). By giving Crake a “God complex” through the use of BlyssPluss, Atwood reveals humanities true problem. Humans will only continue to selfishly destroy the world and society around them. Therefore, according to Crake, a new race should be created that can sustain itself without destruction to their surroundings or each other. Crake’s solution to the world’s problem develops him into a totalitarian leader similar to those found in Anthem. Crake is making decisions for the good of the whole without getting the opinions of how the rest of society might feel about those decisions. His solution brings up questions of “Who should decide what is good, right, or just?” or “Does one person have the right to just end things, if they feel life is no longer sustainable?”

Ironically, Crake becomes an actual god to the Crakers, despite his efforts to remove the “god gene” from them. Snowman points out, “Crake was against the notion of God, or of gods of any kind, and would surely be disgusted by the spectacle of his own gradual deification” (104). To the Crakers, Crake is their benevolent creator who removed the chaos from the world for his “children” (103). Snowman and Oryx created this understanding of Crake since they were the ones who answered the Crakers questions about the world, where they came from, and who Crake was. This worship of Crake shows that people are still fundamentally the same, no matter how perfectly they have been genetically engineered. People are designed to worship something. It is just a matter of who or what they are given to worship.

Oryx was a woman who was delivered out of sex slavery by Crake. Throughout, the novel she is an enigma to Jimmy, as he tries to discover more about her past as a sex slave. As in other dystopias, she becomes the love interest of both Crake and Jimmy, creating the stereotypical “love triangle.” She has intrigued both of them since Crake and Jimmy first saw her on a “kiddie-porn site.” Ironically, Jimmy would have never met Oryx, if Crake had not used his extensive resources to find her and relocate her to work at the RejoovenEsense Compound. Here is another example of human selfishness, which later leads to guilt and regret. Both of these men are vying for the same woman. Although Jimmy enjoys his time with Oryx, he questions how his actions will make Crake feel, and how they will affect their friendship.  

The Crakers view Oryx as the goddess of nature. They refer to the animals as the “Children of Oryx.” Snowman later discovers that the Crakers have begun to “perform some kind of prayer or invocation” to Oryx (157). Similar to the women in Herland, who worship a mother figure, the Crakers worship Oryx as the goddess of nature. However, even before becoming a goddess figure to the Crakers, Snowman remembers her with the reverence and awe of an adoring supplicant. In reminiscing about the different forms Oryx appeared in Jimmy’s life, he questions, “Which of these will it be, and how can he ever be sure there’s a line connecting the first to the last? Was there only one Oryx, or was she legion? … They are all time present, because they are all here with me now” (308). Just as Anthem’s Prometheus has his Golden One/Gaea, Snowman/Jimmy falls for Oryx at first sight and loves her with worshipful awe. However, in taking on this goddess role, these types of characters lack the complexity and depth of Jimmy or Crake.

Atwood is unique from utopias and dystopias by trying to create a dialogue about how to fix the world’s problems that she is pointing out, instead of suggesting potential solutions to the world’s problems. For example, she designs the Compounds to be a mini-oasis amidst the chaos and danger of the pleeblands. Although these compounds create a utopian sense of safety and a location containing schools, shopping, food, and housing, they are an extremely selfish design. Their purpose is to keep those in need out and refuse help to those who are suffering from disease and hunger. She brings up the question of whether it is good to remain in a protected haven while the rest of the world destroys itself. The compounds represent an extreme example of where capitalism may lead. The paradigm of supply and demand caused dehumanization of both the provider and receiver. The scientists become dehumanized as they can no longer “afford [ideals]” (57). Whereas, the customer becomes dehumanized as they are being experimented on and come up with more outlandish desires, particularly the desire for immortality. Unlike Ecotopia where suggestions for fixing the world’s problems, such as overpopulation or pollution are given, Atwood depicts capitalism at its most dangerous and provides no viable answer to the dilemma. She even satirizes America’s passion for youthfulness by having Crake design the Crakers to die at the age of thirty. Crake defines immortality as “a concept. If you take ‘mortality’ as being, not death, but the foreknowledge of it and the fear of it, then ‘immortality’ is the absence of such fear. Babies are immortal”(303). But is that how everyone would define immortality?

Speculative fiction forces the reader to perceive the current world as a utopia in comparison with the fictional world they just read about. This feeling of appreciation produces a concern about the direction the world is heading. Concern then develops into the desire to prevent what was speculated “might be.” Speculative fiction has enough ties to present society to build fear about what could happen, rather than generating the typical “utopian” feelings of “wouldn’t that be nice” or “that could never happen.” Once this fear is created, we are left with the haunting urgency to make what we just read never become a reality.

Works Cited

          Wells, Hannah. “Oryx and Crake: A Hybrid Utopia” Final Exam Submission 2013. LITR 5439 Literary & Historical Utopias, 29 June 2013. Web. 10 July 2015.