Loneliness is repressing. And claustrophobic. In our modern world, we constantly crave attention and have hundreds of friends on Facebook and Instagram. We have a need to socialize with people because loneliness is not an option. The Snowman’s loneliness is the hardest to reconcile with. He craves human interaction and physical contact with another person. He needs to hear the voices of people and animals. In desperation, he imitates the voices of animals such as the roar of a lion to reassure himself (11). It feels like he is shouting into the void because no one can hear him. We don’t have to fear that in our world. Modern technology has equipped us to be in constant contact with people all around the world. We are not alone. But in a way, Jimmy’s loneliness still feels familiar. Our technology has certainly upgraded our level of communication, but in a way has diminished our human interaction. We mainly speak through technology. Is it possible that once we realize the importance and necessity of human interaction it might be too late?

One of the most interesting scenes in Oryx and Crake was the one on pages 31-32, where Atwood describes the separation of the Compounds and the cities. “Long ago, in the days of knights and dragons, the kings and dukes had lived in castles, with high walls and drawbridges and slots on the ramparts so you could pour hot pitch on your enemies, said Jimmy’s father, and the Compounds were the same idea. Castles were for keeping you and your buddies nice and safe inside, and for keeping everybody else outside” (32). I found this passage enlightening as it resonates with the social conditions of our time. There is a class division in society as the bourgeoisie (the business owners, CEOs, bankers) are separated from the working class (factory workers and so forth). the bourgeois society shields itself from the rebuke and protests from the working class by creating laws and rules that legalize the inequality between these two classes, acting as castles that keep these people safe. Similarly, the society in the novel is very similar as the OrganInc people deem the ‘pleeblands’ as unsafe and beneath them: “there were people cruising around in those places who could forge anything and who might be anybody, not to mention the loose change – the addicts, the muggers, the paupers, the crazies” (31).

Another thought-provoking instance in the novel is when Jimmy/Snowman’s mother condemns the OrganInc as unethical and a “moral cesspool” (64). “At NooSkins’ prices it is. You hype your wares and take all their money and then they run out of cash, and it’s no more treatments for them. They can rot as far as you and your pals are concerned. Don’t you remember the way we used to talk, everything we wanted to do? Making life better for people – not just people with money. You used to be so … you had ideals, then” (64). We can observe this terrible truth in our society as well. Our culture is based on profits and money. Big corporations such as the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry promise in their advertisements and propaganda a better life for their consumers. But they only cater to those with money. What about the poorer sections of the society who cannot afford to pay exorbitant amounts of money for these services and medications that could potentially save their lives? Everyone has a right to health and development but such corporations in their goal to earn profits stray from achieving the common good.

In addition, the environmental destruction in the world of Oryx and Crake is terrifying. I am afraid to ask, but is that where are planet is heading? Jimmy’s mother discusses how beaches and many eastern coastal cities were washed away due to the rising of the sea level. “And she used to snivel about her grandfather’s Florida grapefruit orchard that had dried up like a giant raisin when the rains had stopped coming, the same year Lake Okeechobee had shrunk to a reeking mud puddle and the Everglades had burned for three weeks straight” (72). This reminds me of our situation – the increasing global warming, carbon footprints, pollution etc., but Jimmy’s world is so much worse. Margaret Atwood shows our future in a way; how are actions impact the planet we inhabit. I love that through this fictional universe, we get a glimpse of the reality of our present and perhaps act as warning of what we shouldn’t be doing.

The first five sections of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake feel like watching someone fill a canvas from two sides.  At first there is nothing but white space, just someone called Snowman and the woods around him, later a young boy named Jimmy with dysfunctional parents.  As the novel progresses, however, the reader is exposed to more and more of the art, the gap between the two ends lessening, almost warranting a re-reading of the initial chapters.  This play with time is likewise reflected in the plot itself as it takes place in the future in a world removed from our own, but with vestiges of what humanity once was.

Snowman’s character serves as the link between the current state of the world and what it was before “Crakers” and “the children of Oryx” began to roam the Earth.  As a child, the accounts of Snowman’s youth describe what humanity had become before it seemingly disappeared.   Divided into two domains, the compounds, towns sealed off from the outside world, isolated and self sufficient, and the “pleeblands” where there are comparatively few laws, and which are often referred to as a place were lesser, more savage people dwell.  The compounds all revolve around corporations, one grows specialized pigs to harvest organs, another grants newer, younger skin to the aging.  All of them revolve around money, and though it’s easy to say that our current society is no different in its money-lust, there are no artists in these high security domains.  Jimmy is one of the few who “isn’t a numbers person”.   Through discussions between Jimmy’s parents it seems that at first such developments were for the betterment of man, for “making life better for people – not just people with money”(57).  But as with art, it seems, so went morals.

Later in the section Jimmy befriends Crake, and Atwood goes into a detailed account of their online antics, describing a number of games and websites the two would frequent.  Named are sites for everything imaginable and all are, for the most part, quite elicit.  Among the most disturbing are Shortcircuit.com, Brainfrizz.com and Deathrowlive.com, three websites that feature executions, be they via electric chair or lethal injection.  In this depiction of our future such activities are fun-to-watch events for the masses, no censors, lots of production.  It reminds me of France during its revolutions, with crowds and crowds coming to watch the guillotine in action, or the United States during the early battles of the Civil War as happy citizens would lunch on a hill overlooking the battle and cheer as men blasted away at one another.  In the novel, men on the verge of being executed would “ham it up” adding extra drama to the experience.  Why not?  Why not let one’s death be memorable?

Indeed for others on “nitee-nite.com”, death was an achievement.  The website, one Crake is particularly drawn to, features assisted suicide videos with even more glitz and glamour to extoll the greatness of whoever is being euthanized.   The site fosters a culture that would not be too surprising in the not so distant future.

These sites may sound barbaric and distasteful, but when compared with society’s current means of such operations I find it hard to call it much worse.  Yes, a culture of assisted-suicide would be dangerous and unhealthy, but making executions more tangible to the general public is neither dangerous nor unhealthy.  Is it better to simply carry executions out unknown to the general public?  How much privacy does the individual being executed warrant?  Is the death penalty just?  Though these may be questions in our time, in Atwood’s feature they become non-issues, and violence reigns.

Much of the story is told between Jimmy’s flashbacks and the present. From the very beginning readers begin to get a sense that Snowman is the only one who is able to reconnect the past world to the current one. When the children around him ask about the objects washed up  by sea he is easily able to identify all of them as a “hubcap, a piano key, a chunk of pale-green pop bottle smoothed by the ocean” (7). Only Jimmy is able to remember these items. The book suggests that Jimmy’s past may be our future. There are certain science fiction elements like the “sprayguns” and the genetic advancements that show a distinct technological sophistication that far exceeds our own. From this readers can conclude that there was some cataclysm that plundered Jimmy’s world into a primitive heap. Although it is still early to predict what exactly that world-changing event was, I predict it will have something to do with the genetic research that was being done by Jimmy’s father. This also explains the “green eyes” (102) that everyone has. At first I thought only the young children had green eyes and when men and women were mentioned, I believed they would have varying traits that would show that they are also survivors of the cataclysm much like Jimmy. Instead, they too possess the universal trait of green eyes which means that Jimmy must be much older than all of them. This sentiment is further supported on page 100 where Jimmy notes that all of the women, though ethnically different, all have the same kind of beauty to them. Perhaps this is to show how genetics has played a role in creating “more perfect” humans.

It would make sense that Jimmy would be the oldest. After all, he appears to be a wise shaman of sorts. The way he talks about Oryx and Crake makes them seem like gods. He even describes their path to fame as their “gradual deification” (104). It is unclear why those two specifically are the subjects of all his stories to the tribe. As with most ancient and primitive civilizations, mysticism is a recurring theme due to their inability to explain certain phenomena. Jimmy, having the knowledge of the old world, would have the answers to all of their questions but may be too tired to explain them or maybe he doesn’t want one explanation to lead to another. Having only read the first third of the book, the watch, in which Jimmy “listens” to Crake is still shrouded in mystery.

Much of the ideological conflicts can be found between Jimmy’s mother and father. Although both had worked for the same corporation, they begin to divert rapidly. Jimmy’s mother believes that science may have crossed the line. She criticizes that her husband’s work is “interfering with the building blocks of life” and that his work is “immoral”and “sacrilegious” (57). Her stance seems to be one in which she wants the world to retain its natural order. This is further demonstrated when she decides to run off with Killer, Jimmy’s pet, wanting the animal to be free to roam in the wild. Jimmy’s father has a very pro-science and big business vibe. When Jimmy’s mother says that she is depressed, he simply demands that she should “take some pills” (57). Instead of trying to console her with talking, he immediately resorts to using a drug to control her emotions. The domestic arguments taking place are not simply to outline Jimmy’s rather depressing childhood. It also serves as a way of showing what is wrong with world. The book does a good job of personifying ideological conflicts through the verbal arguments between the couple.

The most disturbing part of the reading were Crake’s and Jimmy’s time spent browsing the internet. Two young boys viewing pornography wasn’t really anything too alarming. It was their indifference towards the executions and other grotesque images that shocked me. Crake even explains that the executions “could get monotonous” (83) showing how prolonged exposure can make people indifferent about anything. Maybe this is what makes the internet so dangerous. Our voyeuristic ability to watch something so impersonally can drive us towards indifference about the most gruesome and morally-ill subjects.