It’s interesting how much Oryx’s perspective of her life varies from Snowman’s and Crake’s. While one can say that both Snowman and Crake are intellectuals, Snowman tends to care about intrinsic values and emotions more than Crake. Crake is practical and emotionless, at least on the surface. So much so, in fact, that he doesn’t have much of a reaction when his mother dies in front of him.
Snowman remembers how he would badger Oryx into telling him about her background and childhood. As opposed to his privileged compound life, Oryx grew up in the third-world pleeblands; a world where children were sold routinely by their parents and ended up being slaves or pornographic actors. Her view, consequently, is that she’s lucky that her life worked out the way it did and that she’s now where she is. She doesn’t hold any grudges against the people who used her as a child, and Snowman can’t understand this. This relates closely to our current socio-economic divides because it is often difficult for upper-class individuals to identify with or even see from the same perspective as the less well off. Snowman is preoccupied by the little things: finding out who these people were and exacting some sort of revenge for what was done to Oryx. Oryx, rather, remembers the situation, knows that there were many that were much worse off than her and is actively working with Crake to fix larger problems in the world.
Something I found scary was the future of the internet. We’re constantly fighting for freedom of speech, press, etc., but what happens when the demand turns to wanting to see videos of immoral, perverse and disgusting acts? At what point does there need to be a certain aspect of regulation?
Lastly, I thought the pertinence of Snowman’s career to our class was uncanny. We live in a society where advertising is king and marketing is one of the most profitable careers to go into. I think Atwood accurately portrays the qualms and successive lack of fulfillment entertained by advertisers. What do you guys think about someone who’s job it is to mislead people or instigate desires in them? It’s often seen as a glamorous job where you get products before they’re released and meet famous people, but what is the cost on the individuals psyche?
You bring up some good points, but I’d like to add to your discussion of Oryx and her past. It seems when Snowman recalls his conversations with her, he had an intense desire to censor and alter her past in a way that was fitting for his story. He interjects his own remarks within dialogue that happened between Jimmy and Oryx, and in a way tries to emphasize these perverse elements of her life to give him a greater ability to assist her in overcoming them. The fact that she could do this on her own and be completely ok with it, yet he can’t even come to terms with her past (let alone his own) says a lot about how truly invested Snowman is in what he left behind. This censorship of the storyteller also goes along with your broader questions about a society, and I think that if there’s need for hiding information then it is because a collective or individual is also burying the trauma that goes/went along with said information.
I really like your analysis on the contrasting nature of the main characters in this novel. I believe that Oryx is, in a way, the opposite to Crake in the fact that she wants to simply move forward instead of staring anew. Her personality is one that is optimistic and wants to make the most of a situation. Although Jimmy was quick to jump on Oryx’s past, she explains that through her experience she was able to learn to read and write English. She claims that most other boys and girls her age living in her condition would not have this opportunity. Crake wants to use his scientific mind to essentially purge everything wrong in the world by recreating a humanity that he deems as being flawless. He does not think that his world can get any better and simply wants to create a new one. I had not noticed these stark differences in personality until I read your post.
These points are super interesting! In all honesty I had never really thought much about the aspect of the advertising business having an adverse reaction on the psyche. To me, the ad industry is about clever ways of wording things, not necessarily to dupe the buyer, but to show the product in its best light, in a way I suppose those two are one and the same. For someone like Jimmy, I don’t think the duplicitous nature of the ad industry would cause as much moral dilemma as it might to you and I. After growing up in such a rough and cut-throat world, I would not think Jimmy would think twice about running ads that are themselves cut throat. That fine line however, is at least somewhat addressed in our world by ad regulation industries that ensure ads are (for the most part) genuine.
In addition to these thoughts, I found the points you made on Oryx’s perspective on life interesting as well. It would seem logical that someone who has gone through so much hardship would become jaded and pessimistic , but Oryx takes an opposite disposition, at least on the surface. Even though she never displays it, I get the feeling that beneath Oryx’s calm and optimistic facade, there is a life-time of hardship and horror waiting to break through.
Great reflection Cesco! As someone who is considering a marketing field, I found your question about the psyche of someone whose job is to mislead others interesting. When we first formed the written word and the symbols that came with it, out came advertising. In a nation marked by consumerism, we are faced with many choices throughout our day-to-day lives. The constant buzz of the publicity images flitting all around us is like chipping a woodblock with a pencil, slow, but eventually the woodblock will become dust. We do not realize the impact of the woodblock from one chip of the pencil, but after thousands there starts to become a dent in the wood. We are continuously being led toward the future, with no time to speculate on the present. The commercials tell us “Buy product A and your future will be better.” Why are these commercials effective? Because humans have a natural instinct to respond to emotions. When they see something enough times, humans begin to desire it. From a simple spread in a magazine to the countertops of consumers everywhere, advertising agencies know how to prey on consumer emotions. One very exaggerated example of this would be the ASPCA commercials (need I say more?!). This got me thinking about the implication that humans are the static ones, whilst objects or publicity images are dynamic. What does this say about consumer culture? That we are so stuck in our ways that we can’t get out, or move away from it. Publicity becomes the real that it “feeds upon,” and we lose our own identity to publicity that we become just pictures on a page. The manipulators of this process are certainly aware of what they are doing, but it puts the food on their table. Sometimes we have to make a choice between surviving and what may be for the betterment of society. I do not think that the advertiser is creating a false premise, but merely playing off existing thoughts within the consumer. Where the advertiser creates a dreamlike world that the consumer constantly aspires to. Advertising is about social relations of fear, desire, and envy. But these relations already exist within us. I do not think the question is of the psyche of the advertiser, but rather what do you think the impact is on the consumer, who constantly strives for better? I think it’s an innate value in the consumer that the advertisers prey on, rather than the advertisers creating a false world.
To answer your first question in regards to the regulation of the internet, I think that when there is a demand of perversive, intrusive, or ethically immoral internet content there has to be regulation in place to counter said demand. For instance, a lot of states have taken a hard stance on the recent intrusive internet phenomena that is “revenge porn”. Despite being a internet demand of that type of content society took a stance and established internet regulations in order to make sure that the content on the internet reflects the values and rights of society at large.
In response to your second question I think that the job as an advertiser is a respectable profession. I find that how one goes about advertising certain content and how they carry their self in the industry clearly reflects their reputation as both a person and more so, a advertiser. Also, I think that advertising is an art, so just like all the other art forms that exist in are world today, there are going to be those niche sub-genres that are insidious and malicious but these sub-genres are juxtaposed by positive and insightful genres within the art form of advertising that help spread a message or messages that society should be aware of. For example, I think advertisements that promote the protection of the environment as well as advertisements that promote charities are extremely beneficial to society and could be viewed as “positive manipulation”.