Umaymah Shahid

Utopia + Dystopia = Ustopia

Two worlds. One sweltering in the hustle of technology, pills, diseases, and eugenics. Another where humanity almost seems to cease as we know it, and a genetically engineered, peaceful race takes residence. These two worlds constitute the meat of Margaret Atwood’s novel, Oryx and Crake. Sitting in a historical and literary utopias class, I wondered while reading Oryx and Crake, how does this novel compare to the previous utopian literature we have read? There are actual characters, there is greed and disease, and oh yeah, the whole world ends in an apocalypse! However, neither is the novel completely dystopian. It has friendship, love, gardens, and the Crakers who live as a community with love and peace. Margaret Atwood has not created one or the other; instead she created an "Ustopia," a marriage between utopias and dystopias, bringing conventions true to both genres into one narrative. This essay will explore the different writing style of Oryx and Crake, several utopian and dystopian conventions, and how it compares with various other utopian texts read throughout the course.

          Margaret Atwood’s writing style in Oryx and Crake differs when compared to the other strictly utopian texts read in class. Atwood gives the reader information of the society through dialogue or the main characters’ own observations, interspersed with feelings, admiration, disgust, story, drama, and friendship. In More’s Utopia, the reader only knows about Utopia through the detailed and straightforward, essay-like, account of Raphael Hythloday’s visit.  There are no dynamic characters and an almost nonexistent plot. Gilman’s Herland is a definite upgrade from Utopia as it integrates the narrations of the young men’s understanding of Herland mainly through Socratic dialogue and some action. Callenbach’s Ecotopia on the other hand combines the dry tract writing to inform the reader about the political, social, and economic spheres of the Ecotopia, with the sexual escapades, war games, and other adventures detailed in the his journal entries. Thus the reader has some fictional conventions to look forward to after the dry narration of Ecotopia. Oryx and Crake diverges slightly from this form of narrative by giving the reader an account of the story, the economics, and politics through the character’s story, so it reads like any regular fiction novel such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Uglies. It has character development, plot, dialogue, love, and jealousy all wrapped into its narrative. This divergence from the typical Utopian novel is welcomed because Atwood accomplishes the task of creating a utopian/ dystopian narrative while making it enjoyable, creating thus a literature of ideas (objective 1e).  For example, Jimmy is a dynamic character whom readers feel sympathy towards for being stranded in the post-apocalypse, having a nonexistent family, and a condescending best friend. Through Jimmy, the reader understands the society without being bored with straight-up information but discovering this world through Jimmy’s unpredictable life, a character the reader more or less becomes invested in. While the other utopian texts taught the reader what the utopia was like, it did little to incite true interest in the storytelling. Keeping the varied writing style of this novel, Atwood’s use of utopian conventions, though true to the genre, is very unique.  

A major utopian convention of the traveler and the guide takes shape as the story progresses. Jimmy and Crake are the traveler and guide typical of the utopian text with dialogue and observations as our means of gleaning information of the society.  Just as Watson has Marissa as his guide in Ecotopia, and Van, Jeff, Terry have their mentors in Herland, Jimmy has Crake as his guide inside and outside the compound. Some places Crake guides Jimmy through in the novel are Watson-Crick, Paradice, and the pleeblands.  Through their travels the reader is informed of the various aspects of society. The pleeblands, for one thing, “were a giant Petri dish: a lot of guck and contagious plasm”, with dirty air, and so many people scurrying from one point to the next (287). Through Jimmy’s observation we understand that the pleeblands not “the mental deficient” they were always made out to be by the corporations (288). In the same way, we hear Crake describe the security of Paradice requiring “vows of silence”, “closed-circuit internet emailing”, “living quarters inside the security zone but outside the airlock”, and the “enhanced immune-system functions” (303). It is through the dialogue between Jimmy and Crake, the observations of Jimmy, and some times the narration from Crake that informs us of the pre-apocalyptic society.  Jimmy becomes the reader’s guide throughout his journey taking the reader to his old compound, his school, Paradice, and back to the post-apocalyptic land with death, decay, and destruction around him. Jimmy guides the reader through the structure of the compounds, guarded by walls and soldiers with masks, always alert, but on the inside people could walk around without fear, “go for a bike ride, sit at a side-walk café, buy an ice-cream cone” while the outside was “unpredictable” (27). Yet regardless of the perfect world inside the compound, Jimmy’s mother felt like a prisoner. The utopia around her became her dystopia. As Jimmy takes the journey, we see the utopian and dystopian worlds collide, and a true sense of the idea one’s utopia is another dystopia appears (objective 1b). The compound is the mother’s dystopia and the community’s utopia; the pre-apocalyptic world is a dystopia for the inhabitants of the pleeblands and utopias for those in the compounds; post-apocalypse is a dystopia for Jimmy and a utopia for the Crakers, and the list goes on. These conflicts create the utopian and dystopian conflict, which drives this novel forward.

          Nature is a utopian convention that also sees conflict in its organic and inorganic state. The inorganic nature is genetically engineered and does not serve the purpose of preserving humanity, but as a marketing business to get money from people. As Jimmy enters Watson-Crick with Crake, the reader is flooded with the beautiful scenery developed by the students in botanical Transgenics. Around him, Jimmy observes “a whole array of drought-and-flood-resistant tropical blends, with flowers or leaves in lurid shades” (199). He observes fake rocks that absorb water in humidity and release it when in a drought. The butterflies had “wings the size of pancakes and were shocking pink” and even though they were genetically modified, the butterflies could fly, mate, lay eggs, and hatch caterpillars (200).  Another inorganic phenomenon is the creation of the ChickieNobs, chickens with multiple body parts, a mouth opening in which nutrients would be dumped, and no brain to ensure no pain. Nothing remains natural in the pre-apocalyptic world and so there develops a distance between humans and Nature.

 In the post-apocalyptic world, although nature is not engineered, it works against mankind. The trees provide Snowman shade from the scorching sun from which he must take cover so he does not fry; constant typhoons and storms raid the land; Pigoons, Rakunks, Snats, and Bobkittens roam the forests. Nature is at war with humans, and it is the opposite of what we see in former utopian writing where humans are at one with Nature, where for example, Ecotopian citizens worship trees. Nature in other utopias provides a source of comfort for the people, and they remain close to nature because it keeps them grounded to their animal roots and provide an organic living space.

Nature and ‘humans’ walk a road together in Paradice. When Jimmy enters Paradice he sees the space inside “filled with trees and plants, above them a blue sky”, artificial of course, and then he sees, enveloped in this Garden of Eden, the Crakers, beautiful and available in all skin colors (302).  However, a beautiful garden is empty without beautiful people. Crakers, though genetically engineered and therefore inorganic, are a race at one with the environment, learning about the leaves, insects, animals, and eliminated from the diseases of jealously, lust, racism, and fear. As Hannah Wells states in her 2013 final exam “Oryx and Crake: A Hybrid Utopia”, the Crakers are not a perfect people because they live in a perfect world, but because they were engineered out of a terrible one. Amidst this chaotic world of BlyssPluss and NooSkins and pleeblands, is a utopian community with Utopian ideals.

Oryx and Crake has so far been compared to several other utopian novels in structure, theme, and conventions, but Herland strikes as a very close resemblance to the Crakers, and I want to spend a little more time analyzing the Crakers. Firstly, the Crakers are curious creatures, always questioning Snowman about his beard, toast, Crake, different words they do not recognize, and the list goes on. Curiosity is also a dominant trait of the women in Herland. Questions pour out as they seek to understand more about the young men’s country, the role of women, punishment, food, etc. Furthermore, the Crakers are in tune with Nature just as the women in Herland. The Crakers revere Oryx and Crake as gods and proclaim that “Oryx watches over us at night” but “Crake always watches over us” (161) Despite the fact that Crake tried to eliminate the concept of God from their DNA, the Crakers “have developed reverence” for Crake because of Jimmy’s attempt to explain the world to the thirst Crakers (157). Likewise, the women in Herland believe that there exists a Loving Power, revered by the women with a motherly relation, who desires good in “their welfare and especially their development” and in return, the women have a “loving appreciation and a glad fulfillment of its high purposes” (10.67). Consequently in both texts the reader can feel the respect and awe to a higher power, whether it is a person or an idea. Finally both communities have a strong sense of care for each other and for others. Women in Herland care for one another’s children, for the wellbeing of Terry, Jeff, and Van, and even providing therapy and care for those inclined towards misbehavior.  Crakers care for each other’s injuries through a purring mechanism genetically engineered by Crake; men get together to mark and protect their territory using their urine, which is also genetically modified, to drive away predators such as Wolvogs, Rakunks, Bobkittens, and Pigoons; and they care for others such as Snowman when he comes to them with an injured foot. Both of these Utopian societies thrive on the care of others and their unselfishness makes them utopian, almost perfect.

          Oryx and Crake is the child of a marriage between utopia and dystopia, or as Atwood calls it in her article “The Road to Ustopia”, Ustopia. It embodies the utopian conventions of love, gardens, and communities, simultaneously illustrating dystopia with the apocalypse, market greed, and the pleeblands. Just as every utopian text read thus far, this novel proposes the ills of a society steeped in biotechnology and the potential consequence of an apocalypse if the ills are not remedied. Introducing this novel to the class helped broaden my horizon of the way a different genre incorporates themes of utopia and dystopia. Through intense discussions the class discovered the beauty of bringing together a dystopian and utopian world and to a whole new genre of speculative fiction. Being a speculative fiction, the novel petrifies the reader because such events can be seen unfolding in our time today. Currently we are experimenting with cloning, genetic splicing, and trying to find the cure to every disease present. Will we become as greed-driven as the corporations in Oryx and Crake? Will our society lose the ethics because we are consumed by profitable science? These questions gnaw at the reader till the end of the book.

Oryx and Crake has introduced us to a world, which lives in a paradox of raw love and sex trafficking, apocalypse and a new race, cures for disease and disease-ridden pleeblands, and the paradoxes continue. This novel does not allow the reader to only discover a society thousands of years after a tragic event (Anthem) or to only uncover a society that is perfect but will soon collapse because perfect worlds do not exist. It allows the readers to witness both worlds. To simultaneously live in mankind’s paradise and in mankind’s hell.

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: Anchor Books, 2004.

Margaret Atwood, "The Road to Ustopia." The Guardian 14 Oct. 2011

Wells, Hannah. “Oryx and Crake: A Hybrid Utopia.” UHCL, 2013. Web. 09 July.