Ruthi Engelke McDonald

Oryx and Crake—Utopia, Dystopia, Speculative Fiction, Damn Good Read

          Margaret Atwood calls the writing she has done in Oryx and Crake speculative fiction, which can be traced back to “Jules Verne, who wrote about things that he could see coming to pass that were possible on Earth”(Atwood) instead of fanciful events that are highly unlikely to happen and which often involve going to another planet. The setting of the novel is one that could be imagined happening given the circumstances of the times and available science. In the opening chapters, we know that some kind of an apocalyptic event has occurred because we only meet Snowman and the children, who do not seem to be of the once prolific society since Snowman has to explain what all the objects are that they have found. It is immediately apparent that the need for a specificity of language is no longer necessary and that these new beings do not have a zone of proximal development to understand the concepts that Jimmy/Snowman can. Although the Crakers cannot comprehend the dialogue with other authors that Bahktin described, the reader sees the similarity between Snowman, the castaway left her with none other of his own kind, and Robinson Crusoe, who was marooned on an island. An allusion is made to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner when he quotes, “Alone on a wide, wide sea” to show that just as the mariner had only the spirits for company, Snowman only has the Crakers. Later, as Snowman begins to realize his role as last man standing, he sees the animals as beautiful, just as the mariner blesses the sea snakes and the albatross falls from his neck. Snowman finds himself to be somehow responsible both for what happened to mankind and for what might happen to the Crakers. Bhaktin said that a dialogic work would carry on a conversation with other works of literature and other authors. Basically, he said that everything anybody says is in response to or in anticipation of a response to things that have been said or will be said. Since there is both the action of the vehicle of the novel and the dialogic work happening in the text, the reader is more able to ingest the message of the book in a more pleasurable manner. Bhaktin stated that the novel’s flexibility is one of its greatest strengths to adapt and change.

          Since Oryx and Crake is a novel, we have very carefully defined and crafted characters. Jimmy is our narrator on this adventure and we get to know him through Snowman‘s reminiscences of his former life. These reminiscences take us to the Compounds, which have a suburban-like, sanitized version of utopia. Inside the walls, society is separated by employment in the corporations. Everything the employees and their families need is inside the gates of the compound: school, home, work, shopping. Outside the Compounds are the Pleeblands, which are not as safe or clean, but which are not as closely monitored. The people in the compounds sacrifice freedom for safety. The Pleeblands are presented as a dystopia from Jimmy’s point of view inside the compound, but when he actually visits them, he finds them different than he expected, much more rich and varied than the compounds.

          Snowman takes the conventional journey of the hero back to the beginning of the end at the Paradice dome inside the ReJoov compound. The dome houses the incubation home for the Crakers, a kind of Garden of Eden created by Crake for them to be grown in. When Jimmy first saw the dome on a tour with Crake it resembled Coleridge’s pleasure dome of Xanadu. The trip he takes back there is actually a reverse trip from when he led the Crakers down to the beach, making him a kind of Moses figure. While Crake was alive, the Crakers lived in their habitat and were visited by Oryx, who taught them about the animals and plants. Since they were running out of food, Jimmy had to relocate them from their home paradise to make a new community by the ocean. These experimental beings remain after most of the humans have died out and represent a new hope for the world, a re-set. Jimmy is the outsider that does not understand their ways. Oryx has attained goddess status as the creator of the animals and Crake is almost a deity as their creator. Both the dome and the beach are gardens and fit with the Utopian conventions set up in previous novels. In this case the millennial event is the virus that kills off most of humanity.

          Oryx and Crake is very different from Herland in its portrayal of the female. The main female characters are not the super-moms that appear in Herland. Jimmy’s mother is far from the nurturing mother that sacrifices all for her child; instead, she is self-absorbed and abandons him. Moadine or Zava would never contemplate leaving a child behind, unless it was in the child’s best interest. Oryx can be viewed as an earth-mother archetype due to her elevation as creator of the animals for the Crakers. She is an unlikely mother having grown up in the sex trade and never having a mother figure to model herself after. Motherhood does not have the all-important stature in the world of Oryx and Crake that it does in Herland. Although we get a detailed account of the mating ritual, Atwood does not delve deeply into motherhood for the Crakers. We do know that they mature quickly as the oldest of them is seven years old. Since childhood is so short, it stands to reason that mothering is not as necessary in their families or needed for any substantial length of time.

The earth as the mother is a predominant feature of Ecotopia, where the concern is for the environment and how human beings affect the world. Ecotopia has a story to it, but the stakes are nowhere near as high as in Oryx and Crake. The split between the land that is Ecotopia and America seems like a small event compared to the apocalyptic practical extinction of mankind. Callenbach gives us a happy little story about a man who does not believe a society built on concern for the environment can work who has his mind changed by friendly people and a sexy woman. The book has important things to say about how we treat our resources, not to mention how we treat each other. But human beings seem to respond better to fear than to polite entreaties to mend our ways. The startlingly possible events in Oryx and Crake comprise a warning of what could happen as large corporations become the government and control most everything. Using animals to graft human organs, chemically enhanced and genetically altered animal food sources, and killer viruses in pills marketed by pharmaceutical companies to improve function are not outside the realm of possibility. That’s what makes Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction so frightening. While Ecotopia tells us what we can do to alter our behavior toward the environment, Oryx and Crake shows us what could happen if we don’t.

          Bhaktin saw the novel as being able to achieve much more than other forms due to its ability to not only engage with contemporary reality but to re-conceptualize the individual. Since Oryx and Crake is more novel than tract, with well drawn characters and a complex story line, it is able to engage the reader more fully and with more emotional involvement than previous Utopian fiction. We are able to relate to Jimmy, to feel sorry for him, and to reject him as a fool, which allows us to examine our own motives and actions. Since we live in a similar world of gated communities, security checks, and corporate power, we are familiar with the setting of Jimmy’s youth, which makes Snowman’s world even more frightening. Atwood accomplishes the novel as a dialogue-opening mechanism for social change.