Failed Mother-Child Relationships in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

Oryx and Crake offers plentiful examples of failed mother-child relationships.Jimmy’s complicated relationship with his mother is developed most thoroughly. Herdistance, depression, and distraction stem from the work she does. Like Offred’s motherin The Handmaid’s Tale, she stays busy working. Unlike Offred’s mother (whose careeris never specified), Jimmy’s mother works for a large bio-technology corporation. Herprofessional status as a microbiologist, unthinkable in the patriarchal culture of Gilead,should make a progressive, positive statement about women’s achievement of equality.Her work ultimately threatens her sanity, though. As a result, she abandons her onlychild.

Readers learn through Jimmy about the differences between his world and theearly 21st century world. Many of the changes are technological. Scientists create foodsubstitutes, hybrid animals, and life forms used only to generate transplant tissue.There are several examples of scientific advancements applied to human reproductionas well; wealthy couples can create children with made-to-order specifications. Evenmore than in Gilead, children are described as the result of breeding. Those childrenborn into the time of the novel are largely left alone to parent themselves; no positivemothers or mother figures help the main characters. These examples illustrate thefailings of this future society.

From the beginning, Jimmy remembers his relationship with his mother asstrained. When he was a child, she expected him to be bright and understand her work.As alittle boy, he wanted unconditional love that she could not always provide. It seems clearthat Jimmy’s mother experienced some of the “undeniable anger” Adrienne Rich findsthat connects all mothers (24). His mother’sjob...

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...ing just around the bend.

Works Cited

1. Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1985. Print.

2. ---. Oryx and Crake. New York: Anchor Books, 2003. Print.

3. ---. “Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother.” Snapshots: 20th Century Mother-

Daughter Fiction. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates and Janet Berliner. Boston: David R.Godine, 2000. 24-38. Print.

4. ---. The Year of the Flood. New York : Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 2009. Print.

5. NancyChodorow. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Print.

6. Nancy Chodorowand Susan Contratto. “The Fantasy of the Perfect Mother.” Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory. New Haven: Yale UP, 1989. 79-98. Google Books. Web. 5 March 2011.

7. AdriaSchwartz. “Taking the Nature Out of Motherhood.” Bassin, Honey, and Kaplan240-255. Print.