Oryx and Crake

Oryx and Crake is a novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, which was published in 2003.

Returning to the dystopic themes of Atwood's earlier novel The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake presents a very different scenario than that novel's religious theocracy. However, in both novels the collapse of civilization quite noticeably echoes current events.

The protagonist of Oryx and Crake is Snowman, clad only in a bedsheet, who appears to be the last human being on Earth. He's not entirely alone, however; strange hybrid beasts such as wolvogs and pigoons and rakunks are roaming freely. As well, a group of what he calls Crakers -- a mysterious community who seem, at first, to be both human and eerily not quite human -- lives nearby. They bring Snowman food and consulting him on matters that surpass their understanding; thus, Snowman comes across as a post-apocalyptic hermit guru. As the story develops, these assorted lifeforms are revealed to be the products of genetic engineering.

In flashbacks, we learn that Snowman was once a young boy named Jimmy, who grew up in the early 21st century. His world was dominated by multinational corporations which kept their employees' families in privileged compounds separated from the pleeblands. Shortly after Jimmy's family moved to HelthWyzer, where his father worked as a genographer, Jimmy met and befriended Glenn, a brilliant science student.

Atwood's satirical take on current society is presented most pointedly in the jaded activities of these two youths. Jimmy and Glenn spend a lot of their free time playing online computer games such as KAskFactMaster.Com Osama and Blood and Roses, or watching live executions, Noodie News, frog squashing, graphic surgery and pornography.

Their favourite pastime, however, is an online game called Extinctathon, a trivia game which requires immense knowledge of extinct animal and plant species. Using the codenames Thickney (Jimmy) and Crake (Glenn), they try to work their way up the ranks to become Grandmasters.

On another trip through the dark underbelly of the Web, they come across an Asian child pornography site, where Jimmy is struck and haunted by the eyes of a young girl he calls Oryx, who will eventually become intimately involved in the lives of Jimmy and Crake as all three move toward their roles in the end of the old world and the birth of the new.

Crake used his prominent position at a biotech corporation to launch a project to create the hybrid Crakers. His goal was to create a peaceful society that will live harmoniously with nature. These genetically engineered humans are leaf-eating herbivores and they only have sexual intercourse during limited breeding seasons when they are promiscuous. Thus, many of the conflicts in human culture are removed.

At the same time, Crake created a virulent genetic epidemic that, apparently, killed off all humans except for Jimmy. Jimmy was unknowingly vaccinated with the intention of acting as a guardian for the Crakers. Thus, Crake could be argued to be a mad scientist, albeit maddened by the troubled society he occupied; alternatively, one might see Crake as rationally saving intelligent life from an inevitably dying society. In the story's climax, Crake arranged his own death by manipulating Jimmy into killing Crake for self-defense. At the same time, Oryx died and, thus, we find Jimmy obsessing over his vanished world and, especially, Oryx.

However, the story ends with some unresolved ambiguity as three, ragged true humans arrive and spend some time observing the Crakers. Then, Snowman, in turn, spies on these humans and, on the final page, Snowman walks in the open towards these humans.

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