I thought it was interesting how Jimmy longs so much for human contact that he is willing to upset his mother with probing questions just to be able to “[stretch] out his hand” and touch his mother (33). As his mother retreats into her own world, Jimmy becomes so desperate for a connection to humanity he is willing to act out in order to get a reaction. Jimmy’s frustration with the stoic world he lives in is shown through his audacity to pester his mother in order to get a reaction. Snowman’s broken relationship with his parents prevent him from forming future relationships with others. When he interacts with the Crake children he has trouble connecting with them and sometimes snaps at them. Snowman’s deconstructed narrative of his life, jumping from the past to the present, is an extension of the decaying world that he lives in.

Snowman retreats a lot to the past as seen through his memories of his childhood with his family and playing games with Crake. Additionally, the novel reverts a lot to past notions such as when Snowman says, “any reader [I] can possibly imagine is in the past” (41). With this withdrawal from the present into the past, Snowman demonstrates his unhappiness with the present situation in society and desires to return to simpler times when he didn’t understand all of the complexities of life. Snowman believes that ignorance is bliss, which leads me, as the reader to believe, that the present is full of confusion and difficult times. In the present, Snowman has no one to interact with except the Crake children. Therefore, in an attempt to feel his need for a social interaction, he relives his past memories. In the present, Snowman has nothing to do and “has to find more and better ways of occupying his time” (40). With the lack of interaction in his current world, Snowman retreats further and further into his mind.

Snowman longs to get out of the prison-like world he is trapped within. “Get me out! he hears himself thinking,” but then realizes that “he isn’t locked up, he’s not in prison” (45). Although Snowman is physically free, his mind is trapped within society’s cave. With the opposition between his mind and his body, Snowman exhibits a dichotomy within himself. Trapped within an in-between world, or a purgatory of sorts, Snowman’s mind is in one place, while is body is in another. Although his body is in the present, his mind is in the past to escape the hardships of everyday life. Snowman is not happy with his current life, so he retreats into a purgatory between the past and the present in his mind. Stuck in his own cave, fostered by society, Snowman is unable to get out. Additionally, there is a dichotomy within his own mind as he experiences both scientific views thrust upon him by society, as well as his own thoughts about the world. When the “book in his head” tells him to “ignore minor irritants,” Snowman “feels he has a listener” who is “watching him slyly” (46). The paranoia that Snowman feels within his own head, demonstrates his fractured relationship with the world around him as well as the distrust he has for society. Snowman did not grow up in a typical loving family, so he was never able to create long-lasting relationships. He feels as if the true world is “hidden behind the screen of leaves,” and if he searches deep enough inside his head he can find the world and live happily within it (46). The idea of the world being hidden, exhibits Snowman’s duality within himself in that he is confused about what the world should be like.

In a world where “nothing [Jimmy] could achieve would ever be the right idea, or enough,” Snowman’s personality becomes splintered, as seen through the narrative which switches from the past and the present and from Jimmy to Snowman (50). The past and the present within Jimmy have become so splintered that “Snowman has forgotten everything else about Jimmy’s tenth birthday except the rakunk” (51). Attempting to disassociate himself from the past, Snowman’s memories become splintered, reflecting the destructing world around him. As Jimmy’s father takes on a new job at HelthWyzer, his parents start fighting. As Jimmy is stuck between his parent’s opposing views, his world is further split in two. With a warring world, Jimmy is forced to maintain his only connection to his pet rakunk, Killer. Unable to fit in with the human world, Jimmy forms a bond with animals. Additionally, in order to try to form a human connection, Jimmy acts out in school and uses his hands as puppets to put on a show that is an unsettling mirror image of his life. Jimmy cannot connect to his parents, who are supposed to teach him the basis of how to interact with the world, so he acts out to gain attention and “applause” from other kids (60).

Crake asks “what is reality?” which brings up an important point about society’s blurred lines between the truth and the fabricated (83). Crake uses these blurred lines to bridge his own reality within society. With the sex show on HottTotts, Jimmy observes “three layers of contradictory make believe, one on top of the other” (90). When what we are surrounded by is fabricated, our own lines become obscured. Therefore, Jimmy has trouble recounting the years in between discovering HottTotts and meeting Oryx because during that time he was undergoing the reestablishment and questioning of his reality.  Crake probes Jimmy to question his own reality, and once Jimmy begins to do this, he reverts to Snowman, who saves the picture of Oryx for years. Stretching across time, Oryx blurs Jimmy’s reality and bridges the past and the present.

Snowman goes on to explain to the Crakes what pictures are. When the “not real can tell us about real,” we are enabled to create new technologies that can further explain the current world (102). Within Atwood’s fictional novel about the future, the so-called “not real” world of the book can foreshadow the real that our world might become. With this, Atwood warns us about a post-apocalyptic future. One example that comes to mind within our current world is the Bible. Many people rely on the Bible to dictate their life, but we as a society are not sure that all of the stories are true. However, for the believers, the Bible is true insofar as it is their reality. Therefore, the objective “not real” can dictate a person’s reality. Just as the Children of Crake praise the “fabrication” of Crake created by Snowman, their belief in their past is dictated by Snowman’s “not real,” or made up stories (104). In order to maintain some form of human connection, Jimmy is forced to repeat this “dogma” about Crake so that the Children of Crake do not get disinterested and leave. Just as the television show may have put on fake executions to gain viewership, Snowman lies about Crake so that the Children of Crake remain interested. Therefore, the fabrication of reality is intertwined within a relationship to people.

Snowman turns to alcohol to escape his blurred reality. In a world where the reality is so bad that people will use cocaine to escape, Snowman does not deviate from this pattern with his alcohol abuse. With the line “out, out, brief candle,” Atwood draws a parallel to Shakespeare’s Macbeth and demonstrates Snowman’s internal schism, just as Lady Macbeth’s declaration of “out,out, damned spot,” demonstrates her psychological decline.