Jacob A. McCleese

3 July 2013

Can’t Tie a Good Book Down

          To label Oryx and Crake strictly as “utopian” would be a lapse in judgment. Although the novel is filled with utopian conventions, Atwood employs these conventions in a way that is uniquely her own. The novel’s inclusion in this course broadens the discussion regarding utopian fiction’s relation to other literary genres. Utopian fiction, like all fiction, strikes a unique balance between entertainment and instruction, but Oryx and Crake’s balance looks more like traditional fiction than utopian fiction. Atwood’s prose does not read like an instruction manual, like many utopian novels, but the inherent attribute of literary instruction is apparent in Oryx and Crake.

          Literary instruction often takes the form of axioms and aphorisms. In novels like More’s Utopia, the instruction outweighs the novel’s entertainment value. The novel is divided into various sections where Raphael Hythloday, the central character, depicts life on the isle of Utopas. With section headings like “Of Their Towns, Particularly Amaurot,” “Of Their Magistrates,” and “Of Their Trades and Manner of Life,” I didn’t begin reading this book expecting a high entertainment value. Hythloday does, however, deliver several fantastically, terrific cultural dictums. One particularly poignant one reads, “They never heard of any of these philosophers . . . yet they made the same discoveries as the Greeks” (2.20). More, through his character, delivers a scathing indictment to his culture. The Europeans were famous for colonizing, and white-washing cultures under the auspices of giving aid. More saw through the veil of European dominance and expressed his disdain through his characters. His entire novel functions as a kind of social instruction.

In contrast, Atwood instructs a little at a time throughout Oryx and Crake. Possibly the best instructive moment in the novel comes through narration during Jimmy’s return to the Paradice dome. Jimmy finds an old windup radio and turns it on. The next line reads, “He doesn’t expect to have anything, but expectation isn’t the same as desire” (273). What a succinctly beautiful, philosophical assertion (Obj. 1c). With this one line, Atwood opens the rest of her novel up for inquiry. Is Crakes’ mass genocide expected? Did Crakes’ death at Jimmy’s hands fulfill the reader’s desire? And my personal favorite: does Oryx’s character fall short of the reader’s expectations and desires? Well, Jimmy definitely anticipated that Crake was about to do something deplorable, and as a reader I found great satisfaction in Crake’s demise (I wonder what that says about me). As for Oryx, I’m not completely convinced readers were meant to be satisfied with her. Her character is full in the traditional sense of evaluating characters; however, when she dies her past is still cloaked in a mysterious shade that never lifts. It definitely feels as if Atwood purposefully does this.

          Jimmy’s constant questioning about Oryx’s past reflects the way I felt about her at the end of the novel. Atwood provides bits and pieces about her past, but she never really delves into the dark recesses of Oryx’s mind. Perhaps that is instructive also. Literature is not supposed to be spoon-fed to the audience; it takes work, questioning, and dedication to grasp literary concepts. Atwood invites readers to create questions for discussion by leaving holes in her narrative, like Oryx’s background, that fuel further investigative queries. Again, unlike More, Atwood instructs with short poignant statements that grasp the reader like a mother wanting a child’s attention.

          Atwood’s short instruction is possibly one of the main elements that make Oryx and Crake so entertaining, but it is not the only entertaining element. One of the most entertaining components of the novel is its ability to enact the natural-supernatural, a romantic convention that imbues something natural with supernatural qualities (Obj. 1b). Crake’s mind exemplifies this convention. Throughout human history, the only being that creates other beings ex nihilo is God (or gods, if you prefer) and Crake breaks this trend. His humanoid creations shroud him with the cloak of godhood and he is not shy about displaying this cloak. Crake makes many great godlike assertions in this novel. His best is about immortality, which, he says, “is a concept. If you take ‘mortality’ as being, not death, but the foreknowledge and the fear of it, then ‘immortality’ is the absence of such fear” (Atwood 303). What a magnificent thought. This thought is not beyond the bounds of natural cognition, but it carries such a lofty air that a supernatural being could have stated this, making Crake seem superior to the other characters in the novel.

          Crake’s superiority is evident when he interacts with Jimmy, the average population’s representative, but his intelligence pushes the bounds of human reason without exceeding them, natural-supernaturalism. This is a popular utopian trend, although the other novels usually applied natural-supernaturalism to the physical body. In Herland, the women are described as “swift moving figures,” “big bright birds on their precarious perches,” and “wild antelopes” (2.19-2.34). These descriptions would be normal, applied to a jet, an antelope, or a multi-colored crane (ok maybe not a multi-colored one). However, when these descriptions are applied to seemingly normal women the women, again, take on supernatural auras. This is probably why Herland is one of the more entertaining novels assigned for this course. Natural-supernaturalism gives the reader a little extra something to think about. Women could really move swiftly, and they could be light enough to perch on a sturdy tree branch. These abilities, just like Crake’s mind, flirt with the boundary between fantasy and reality.

Oryx and Crake, lastly, connect to the other utopian novels with its treatment of love. Love, as it is presented in other utopian novels, is broken down to one of its most basic components: sex. Love, in today’s dominant culture, is a mixture of sex, heightened emotion, a forever promise, and the right timing. Philosophers, poets, musicians, and skinny, asthmatic humanities students have written exhaustively about love, it is a critical part of human society. Crake doesn’t feel this way; he wants to love eliminated. He believes, “Falling in love, although it resulted in altered body chemistry and was therefore real, was a hormonally delusional state” (Atwood 193). When Crake creates his perfect beings, he takes away their propensity for love, and subjects them to their most animalistic urges. His creations have a particular mating time and ritual that resembles many animal species, such as, Peacocks and Parrots. The most attractive males of these fowl species are the ones with the most colorful plumage.  Crake’s males display their large penises, turned blue in reaction to the female pheromones (blue genitals are a positive marker for these guys), and begin a ritualistic dance to entice the lone fertile female to mate. They are just like birds. All of this is so ordered, and there is no need for emotion, heartbreak, or jealousy.

Ecotopia treats love in a similar way. In this utopian society, people pair off, wed, and begin what appear to be loving relationships. However, Will Weston realizes that Ecotopian marriages are void of romantic attraction. Traditionally, marriage is a monogamous life-long commitment; any deviation from this is viewed as a betrayal. This is not the case in Ecotopia. Weston writes, “It is all fearfully complex and dense . . . . Marriage . . . is not so crucial that it be all together satisfying” (Callenbach 108). This society has evolved past the point of centering life around marriage. Sex outside of marriage is expected and, therefore, not treated as infidelity. This treatment of marriage goes against everything that the Western culture has built marriage to represent, but the system eliminates the possibility for wars to be fought over unrequited love (Helen of Troy) and politicians getting impeached because of wandering members.

Crake’s and the Ecotopian’s view of marriage and love seem wrong on the surface. They are void of emotion, something that most people would require as a necessity in any lifelong partnership. I would have loved to be a part of the conversation that took place when the Ecotopians presented the change in the definition of marriage (Obj. 1e); it probably was as heated as the one taking place over homosexual marriage now. Marriage, love, and romantic relationships are stalwarts of human culture and people do not welcome deviations. However, Utopian novels are built on deviating from the traditional way of life. Oryx and Crake is by no means strictly utopian; it has elements from a variety of genres. It possesses many remarkable utopian conventions, but Atwood adapts them to her own world, her own beautifully twisted world.