Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake

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Recommended: Dystopian literature

The Ending of the Human Race
Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake is considered to be a world time dystopian masterpiece. Atwood presents an apocalyptic atmosphere through the novel’s antagonist, Crake, and protagonist, Jimmy/Snowman. She does this when Crake uses his scientific knowledge and wickedness to eliminate and recreate an entirely new society. “Future-Technology was envisioned as a way to easing the burden of life, and it was accepted that slavery would remain a tacit part of human existence until there would be some effective replacement for it, for until the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them (bk.1, pt.4), there would be a need for the enslavement of other to ease life’s load” (DiMarco 172). Since there was a need for perfection for a better life it was always understood that there would have to be many occurring disasters in which led to the ending of the human race. Through the presences of separation in social class to form a perfect community, the creation of perfect people (Crakers), and a society full of technology that allows humans to be free from diseases has warned readers of the possible outcome of the novel. The idea of a perfect everything foreshadows the future toward an end in civilization after recreation.
Atwood creates many ideas in which allude to the thought that an apocalypse was to occur in the future of the novel Oryx and Crake. The presence of separation between a perfect and corrupt society presents many dangerous ideas that lead to the assumption of the ending of human life. In the novel, two different societies are being represented, one being the Pleeblands and the other being the Compound. The Pleeblands have been badly looked upon because p...

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...d. “Where future-life will be motivated less personal gain and grounded more in a genuine care and respect for other” (DiMarco 172). Now that Jimmy is left with the Crakers the gifts of art and humanity can be established and a world full of imperfection could be the start to a new beginning.

Works Cited
DiMarco, Danette. "Paradice Lost, Paradise Regained: Homo Faber And The Makings Of A New Beginning In Oryx And Crake." Papers On Language & Literature 41.2 (2005): 170-195. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 May 2014
Ingersoll, Earl G. “Survival In Margaret Atwood’s “Novel Oryx And Crake.” Extrapolation (University Of Texas At Brownsville) 45.2 (2004): 162-175. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 May 2014
Kuester, Martin. “Genetic Games of Retiring God: Atwood’s “Divine Solution” in Oryx and Crake.” Zeitschrift fur Kanada-Studien 30.2 (2010) 76-86. Web. 1 May 2014

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