As I continue to read Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, more and more of me just wants to know what happened “before”, what happened to the relationship between Jimmy and Oryx and Jimmy and Crake, why isn’t the book called Oryx and Crake and Snowman? These questions about uncovering the backstory to Snowman’s life and the backstory to Jimmy’s life probe my further reading.
One aspect of this book that sticks out to me is the way that The Children of Crake were materialized, showing intense planning by Crake himself to eliminate functions of humans he deemed useful. I tweeted about how I thought the way they acted was very removed, they were built logically and thus their “human” instincts removed many of the evils we know today. This is most notably shown in the way Atwood describes how The Children of Crake have sex. Crake made many “adaptations” to the human brain and body and adapted many features of other animals, such as the transformation of blue skin to symbolize arousal from baboons. This manner in which sex was regarded was much more of an “athletic demonstration” (165). This new way of reproduction thus eliminated prostitution, sexual abuse of children, sex slaves and rape, all things that are prevalent today and are hard to prevent although many efforts are present.
This also gives us a little clue to how the world Atwood is describing was formed. Seemingly all known humanity was wiped away and Crake manufactured a new human race built from the ground up. Taking away the unwanted features of humans and adding in adaptations from other animals “As Crake used to say, Think of an adaptation, any adaptation, and some animal somewhere will have thought of it first” (164). These designer humans display the qualities of an idea human in Crake’s mind.
Professor Licastro responded probing that in this logic is creativity, humanity and passion lost? I believe so. The way Crake has manufactured these humans removes the expressive nature of human life we treasure today however it seems to eliminate many unnecessary evils. This begs the question of can a balance be struck between the two? Is it possible for humans to adapt a new way of living to progress and eliminate such things as rape and sexual abuse?
I agree that these manufactured humans have lost all passion, creativity, and humanity. The way Crake created them rid them of all human emotion. They only have the “practical” traits of humans and were almost built to something like a robot. I think that getting rid of emotions does eliminate unnecessary evils, however I do not think it is possible for us to progress past things like rape and abuse. Unfortunately, I believe that in order for their to be positive, happy emotions and acts, there have to be negative ones as well. In order to create balance, both are necessary.
I think that the humanoid Children of Crake have lost many key elements of humanity and are definitely not human. A human society without violence and abuse is difficult to fathom, and is most likely impossible. However, I believe that people can continue to eliminate the evils of society as they progress. I see the violence in the world as a function on a graph approaching the limit of zero violence without ever reaching it. That’s one of the main characteristics of humans: we are not perfect, we do not match all of our universal ideals, but there are always people pushing to be closer and closer to a safer, more enjoyable world for the future.
Although I agree with many of your points, I think that the Crakers still have a lot of humanity left in them, specifically when it comes to the God complex, spirtuality, and leadership. For example, when Snowman describes to them the mythology of the old world (which he’s conjured up), they begin to make him a part of it (some remnant of the lost past) and worship the figures that are Oryx and Crake. In addition, the small society of Crakers shows signs of authority and Snowman makes remarks about how the Abraham Lincoln character seems to take charge more and more often. Though I think they’ve been so shaped and adapted to produce more caring and logical beings, they still show signs of intellect and creativity, yet one must also consider that they are in a very primitive state, and so is humanity (relatively).
I don’t think rape and sexual abuse will ever cease to exist even with the adaptations Crake has implanted in his creations. For example, male muscovy ducks genitalia have evolved into a corkscrew shape over time in response to the corkscrew shape of the female muscovy ducks vagina. The reason for this adaptation is that a majority of male muscovy ducks force themselves on female ducks who do not desire it and thus have evolved their physical form in order to become more successful in achieving this forced feat, but overtime Female muscovy ducks have developed a way to force unwanted mates to “dead ends”. This adaption phenomena is best summed up as a constant evolutionary battle with no clear winner in sight. With that said, what is to stop the Crakers from evolving to accomplish this feat as well. Like Jeff Goldblum’s character says in ‘Jurassic Park,’ “Nature finds a way”. Therefore, in order to really tackle the problem we have to target the rape culture that is prevalent in our society today and create a new culture to counter it.