Discussion Questions (2)

1.       Despite Crake’s best efforts to remove the “G-spot” in the brain, the Crakers still acted in ways that defied his attempts. What does this say about human nature? In order to keep them fundamentally human, are there some things that cannot be removed?

2.       In the book, does Nature beat out science? The spliced animals did go feral, but the Crakers are products of science. Does natural evolution triumph over synthetic evolution? Or is it the other way around?

The Crakers Analysis

The Crakers

The green-eyed children of Crake are human beings that have been genetically altered to have more adaptable traits and not have many of the negative traits of humanity. They have been spliced with various animal traits to make them more durable, and Crake has added his own little additions to help to keep them away from the mistakes of man. Once they hit a certain age, they die. No population problem and no suspense. However, there are some things that are intrinsically human that no matter what Crake did, he could not splice out. Singing and dreaming were human traits that Crake could not get rid of without removing the humanity of the Crakers. He though he removed the parts of the brain that he saw as useless or dangerous. However, the Crakers still exhibit behaviors that were not originally intended. Abraham Lincoln displays leadership qualities, and appears to be more outgoing than the others. They create a model of Snowman, something they should not have had the capacity to do, and burn it in an attempt to communicate with him, an idea that was totally their own creation. They also revere Orxy and Crake as gods, despite the fact that they have no real conception of what a god is. The Crakers are symbolic of the inability for man to control everything, and nature’s ability to change. They are also a testament to human nature, and what parts of us are so ingrained into being human that they cannot be done away with.

Jimmy/Snowman Analysis

Jimmy/Snowman

Jimmy, or Snowman as he is known by the Crakers, is the protagonist of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. He is best friends with Crake growing up and falls in love with Oryx after meeting her. He is the caretaker of the Crakers after the demise of their creator and their mentor. He is estranged from his father and step mother, whom he feels no connection to, and is abandoned by his mother, an event that would define and haunt him. Jimmy is the most human of the characters in the book. He often wears his heart on his sleeve and is very much at the mercy of his feelings. As a child, he would often drive his mother to tears in an effort to get some kind of response from her. His extreme need for emotional attention was unable to be met in a society where people’s emotions were often stifled and not shown. In fact, besides his mother’s tears, the only other really emotional display made by his parents is when they are fighting. His mother leaves, leaving Jimmy with no one to connect to emotionally since his dad has the empathy abilities of a wooden spoon. It’s at this time he makes a connection with the most unlikely person: Crake.

Crake is the complete opposite of Jimmy in just about every way. Jimmy and Crake spend a lot of time getting high and watching torture videos and pornography and playing very interesting games like Blood and Roses or Extinctathon. They grow up together; Jimmy constantly frustrated by Crake’s abilities and recognition, even from his own father and step-mother, and eventually part ways for different colleges. Jimmy, a words person, is barely accepted into a less famous school, while Crake, a numbers person, is accepted into the most famous school. Jimmy’s inability to think like a numbers person makes him feel like he is disappointing his dad, but at this point he is so estranged from his father that it doesn’t even matter, and that he does not fit in with the rest of the genius compound kids. Ironically, however, being a words person is what allows Jimmy to survive the apocalypse and his emotions are what makes him the ideal caretaker for the Crakers.

After his early adult life, he is reunited with Crake. They go to his private facility, Paradice, and it is there that he finally meets Oryx. He had seen her only in fleeting images on television screens before, but he was in love at first sight. However, Crake was also in love with Oryx (supposedly) and again bested Jimmy. However, Oryx sees both of them and Crake uses Jimmy’s feelings for Oryx to carry out the final leg of his master plan. One has to wonder if Crake has planned out every single detail, from Oryx’s love for the Crakers and her asking Jimmy to promise to take care of them, to Jimmy’s love for Oryx and inability to break his promise to her. After Crake unleashes his plague and kills Oryx, Jimmy kills Crake, despite saying earlier that he didn’t think he could actually kill someone.

As Snowman, he keeps true to his promise to Oryx and watches over the Crakers. He tells them what things they should avoid and weaves stories for them. The ability to empathize with the Crakers and even the simple ability to tell stories would have been lost to another member of the compound society. Jimmy wasn’t just the best man for the job; he was the only man for the job. The Crakers revere him and heed his words, and he, despite finding them annoying, helps them in the new world they have been brought into.

Jimmy is a very complicated character. Of the three main characters, he is the most human. Another way to take that is, that even before the end of the world, he was one of the only humans left. He sought out the rejected and the broken in his love life because they were human too. Long before he was actually alone, he felt alone, and before he was seeking out other human life in the ruins of civilization, he was seeking out real human beings that had been damaged or rejected by the drones that ran society. Painters, writers, and others who were in touch with the Romantic “soul” were not valued or considered useful in a world where numbers and science ran everything. As the last real human, it’s only natural that the story is told from Jimmy’s point of view. We would not be able to relate to someone else. 

Themes and Motifs

Alex's part

Names

The theme of names or naming is very prominent in the novel, as it is portrayed by the motifs of the names of the characters, such as Crake, Oryx, and Snowman. The theme of names has several different important roles in the story. Oryx’s name is quite representative of her character, as readers are never actually aware of her real name. This is fitting for her character, as readers are left completely in the dark to the true emotions and intentions of Oryx. Often times when asked questions by Jimmy, she remains very vague and mysterious in her answers. In addition, her upbringing as a forced sex slave did not allow for her to become the person she was born, but rather to be what she was raised to be. Thus her actual name is of no importance, for she never really was the person she would’ve been had she lived a normal life. The second important meaning in the use of names is the way in which the three main characters are given the nick names Crake, Oryx, and Thickney. These names turn out to be very prophetic, for the names are all those of extinct animals. Ironically, both Oryx and Crake end up dead at the end of the novel, fulfilling their names’ foreshadowing. However, Jimmy/Snowman was given the name Thickney. Despite the other two characters’ names sticking with them, Jimmy does not keep the name of this extinct animal. This coincides with the fact that as far as readers are aware, he survives at the end of the novel. His extinction is void as well as the name of Thickney. The name Snowman is also symbolic of the transformation of Jimmy. Jimmy goes from a normal, well preserved human to one who is barely surviving, and is legend as far as humans go. For, the original version of the name that Jimmy gave to himself was Abominable Snowman, which is a legendary creature, and the only of its kind. From Snowman’s perspective, he is the only surviving human, which has given him legendary status for surviving against all odds. Also, the fact that Snowman named himself alludes to the true influence and power that he truly has throughout the novel. This can be seen as he is left in charge of the crakes, and whatever he says is what they believe and is law. He can manipulate them in whatever way he sees fit. Also, the fact that Jimmy does not keep the name Thickney, which Crake assigned to him, shows his true resistance to the deeds and influence of Crake. He ends up killing crake, and survives the virus that Crake intended to kill everyone. Despite the fact that Crake granted him this immunity through constant injections, the final power and authority were put into the hands of Snowman, as Crake realized that only Snowman had the true emotional capability to handle the arduous task of protecting the crakes. Also, the names of the compounds are symbolic on a much simpler level, for they portray the purpose of their operations. For example, OrganInc farms is fitting, for organs are grown in animals that can be utilized for human needs. The name is quite ironic however, as the word “OrganInc”, sounds very similar to the word “organic”. The irony is that for the operation with the compound to be organic in nature, it would need to be all natural and not invasive upon nature. This is obviously not the case. As for Jimmy’s parents, it is fitting that his mother’s name, Sharon, is known, and his father’s name is not. For Jimmy’s relationship with his mother is very important and dictates many of the events that unfold and the emotions that are felt through the novel. Jimmy’s relationship with his father is lacking in worth, which makes his namelessness appropriate. Thus the theme of naming and names is very important to the nature of the novel.

The Parent-Child Bond

The theme of the parent-child bond in the in the novel is extremely important. The relationships that the three main characters share with their parents dictates the way they live their lives and how they are able to connect to others emotionally. The way Jimmy’s mother and father neglected and did not properly nurture him greatly affected the manner in which he lived his life. The way his mother just left him so abruptly, and how his father had a very lustful and seemingly meaningless relationship with Ramona caused all of Jimmy’s relationships with females to be void of meaning and longevity. Any sort of love that he gained from these half-baked relationships was only a temporary fix for the pain that he felt from his failed relationships with his parents. Crake also lacked a decent relationship with his parents. The only real connection he felt with his father was through the game of chess, and even this is miniscule in emotional meaning. It seems as if the only person that Crake is capable of bonding with is Jimmy, and even the true nature of their relationship is uncertain. Oryx was also neglected by her parents, as she was sold to a traveling salesman by her mother. Despite this life-changing action, Oryx still has great love for her mother and hope for the future. Against all odds, Oryx turns out to be a very nurturing person who is able to form connections easily with others. This is why it is fitting that she is chosen to nurture the crakes when they are first created. The parent-child bond effect on Oryx directly affects Crake and Jimmy. Neither of them have ever experienced any kind of true love. It would seem that both of them experience this for the first time with Oryx. This is most likely due to the extreme nurture that she is able to exude upon them. Also, Jimmy’s lack of nurture from his parents makes it difficult for him to carry out the role of the guardian of the crakes, despite his relative success. Thus the importance of the bonds the characters share with their parents is can be seen.

Motifs:
All of the names of the main characters and the outcome of their characters fates are representative of the theme of names. For the parent child bond, Jimmy as the struggling caretaker, Oryx as the original nurturer, and Crake as the emtionally void creator are good motifs for the theme.
Melissa's Part

Language

Beginning

pg. 68, Snowman: “Hang on to the words,” he tells himself. The odd words, the old words, the rare ones. Valance. Norn. Serendipity. Pibroch. Lubricious. When they’re gone, out of his head, these words, they’ll be gone, everywhere, forever. As if they had never been.”

This quote summarizes Snowman’s role in trying to help the knowledge of his species survive. He has to memorize these words because, at this point in the novel, he believes he is the only surviving human, and he has to be the one to retain as much knowledge of his kind as he can.

Pg. 98, Snowman: Toast was a pointless invention from the Dark Ages. Toast was an implement of torture that caused all those subjected to it to regurgitate in verbal form the sins and crimes of their past lives. Toast was a ritual item devoured by fetishists in the belief that it would enhance their kinetic and sexual powers. Toast cannot be explained by any rational means.

Toast is me.

I am toast."

The reason novel contains two whole paragraphs devoted to toast is to show the futility of Snowman hanging on to as much human knowledge as he can. He’s getting old, and once he dies, all the knowledge will die with him. He cannot try to explain it to the Crakers, as its too complicated for them to understand. In fact, the two paragraphs are all about him imagining explaining toast to the Crakers.

            I chose the second paragraph to quote because, since he cannot pass any knowledge on to the Crakers, it will be years before anyone finds out any information about human life, and even trying to find information on something as simple as toast could be very difficult. Or, its possible they may never find out anything about toast, so, as it explains in the above paragraph, toast can be whatever people decide to define it to be.  

Middle

pg. 195, Snowman: “He’d developed a strangely tender feeling towards such words, as if they were children abandoned in the woods and it was his duty to rescue them.”

This quote comes from when Jimmy is in college, and he discovers old words in library books. He is immediately taken with them, most likely because he has always been a word person. Also, his love of words becomes very important after the apocalypse occurs. He believes he’s the only human left, thus he is the sole bearer of human knowledge.

End

pg. 374, Snowman: “Or, Get the hell off my turf before I blow you off, as in some old-style Western film. Hands up. Back away. Leave that spraygun.”

In this quote, the purpose of language changes. Snowman has just gone to see the other remaining people like him, and he’s debating whether or not to approach them. The quote comes from him thinking about the possible ways this interaction could go if he decides to reveal himself. Of course, in imagining this scenario, Snowman uses lines from old films. This makes sense because he has a fondness for them, and he has often relied on old words to calm him in times of distress. This is one of those times, as this could go one of several ways. Either the people are kind and are willing to listen to Snowman’s story as well as take care of the Crakers after Snowman dies, or they attack him. They could also kill the Crakers, should they ever find them, or take advantage of them. Thus Snowman’s decision carries a lot of weight, and looking to lines from old films helps him somewhat gauge the situation.

Motif: The motif that best fits language is the library that Jimmy visits at Martha Graham. It is where he first realizes his love of words, and it comes to represent the knowledge he attains that no one else cares about. However, his knowledge comes to have great importance when he is one of the last humans alive.

Synthetic Evolution vs. Natural Evolution

Motif: Pigoons as a motif for synthetic versus natural evolution works because they are so suited to their purpose of benefitting humans they are not good to have in the wild. They one of the main experiments from the Compound to go awry, and they show how nature triumphs over science.

Beginning

pg.38, Snowman: “Pigoons were supposed to be tusk-free, but maybe they were reverting to type now they’d gone feral, a fast-forward process considering their rapid-maturity genes.”

This quote is an example of how all the genetic engineering the scientists in the Compound did backfired. They did as much as they could to control nature, but ultimately, nature won, and with disastrous results. Because the pigoons were man-made and thus have no natural predators, their population is extremely large. Also, they have human DNA in them, so they are becoming smart, making Snowman take precautions so he can avoid them.

Pg. 164, Crake: “Think of an adaptation, any adaptation, and some animal somewhere will have thought of it first.”

Crake’s observation here comes from him explaining how the Crakers reproduce, and how he used DNA from different animals so it would be physically obvious when the females were ready to mate. His reasoning behind this was to take the emotions out of sex, and how it was so much better the way animals did it. There was no rape or unrequited love or heartbreak. Sex was merely a way to keep the population going. However, for all his logic, Crake does not consider that the reason animals have certain adaptations, for reproducing and otherwise, is because different adaptations are well suited for different animals. The adaptations that animals have are not in humans because those adaptations do not suit humans. He thinks he knows what they best traits are for the perfect humans, so he creates the Crakers. He takes away as many human traits in them as possible, but eventually nature takes over. The Crakers start becoming more curious as the novel progresses, showing once again, nature always wins over science.

Middle

Pg.202, narrator: “What they were looking at was a large bulblike object that seemed to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came twenty thick fleshy tubes, and at the end of each tube another bulb was growing.”

The ChickieNob shows genetic engineering at its most terrifying and disgusting. The reason its so disturbing is not only because of its looks, but also because it’s not even an animal; it’s just a giant growing piece of meat. When Jimmy sees it, he is immediately horrified by it for those very reasons.

On the other hand, the ChickieNob is solely for human consumption, which means its only useful in the short-term. The people in the Compound are so focused on the present they do not think about the future, aside from how they can make it better with all of their science.

End

Pg. 366, Snowman: Maybe all will be well, maybe this trio of strangers is good-hearted, sane, well-intentioned; maybe he’ll succeed in presenting the Crakers to them in the proper light. On the other hand, these new arrivals could easily see the Children of Crake as freakish, or savage, or non-human and a threat.”

At the end of the novel is when synthetic and natural evolution come directly head to head. Snowman has to decide whether or not to approach the first humans he’s seen and tell them about the Crakers or just kill them. If he does kill them, that means after he dies, the Crakers will be the only ones who will survive. If that is the case, it stands to reason they will become more human as they learn more about the world around them. This would make sense because throughout the novel, Margaret Atwood has demonstrated through other situations that nature always triumphs over science.

Verbal vs. Numerical

Motif: Martha Graham college is a motif for verbal versus numerical because it represents everything the Compound does not care about. Thus, its in a state of complete disrepair. However, the knowledge there becomes relevant once Jimmy is one of the last humans alive, as he is able to keep the knowledge around for longer than the other people in the Compound who died from the apocalypse.

Beginning

Pg. 50, narrator: By OrganInc’s math-and-chem-and-applied-bio yardstick he must have seemed dull normal: maybe that was why his father stopped telling him he could do much better if he’d only try, and switched to doling out secretly disappointed praise, as if Jimmy had a brain injury.”

Because Jimmy’s world is so math and science based, anyone who does not think in those terms is considered less intelligent than everyone else. Thus, Jimmy is thought of this way. However, Margaret Atwood shows in this novel that focusing on science so much ultimately leads to the demise of Jimmy’s world. It would make sense that Jimmy would survive, as he did not create any of the science that destroyed his world.

Middle

Pg.188, narrator: “Or Problematics. Problematics was for word people, so that was what Jimmy took. Spin and Grin was its nickname among the students. Like everything at Martha Graham it had utilitarian aims. Our Students Graduate With Employable Skills, ran the motto underneath the original Latin motto, which was Ars Longa Vita Brevis.”

The poor state of the Martha Graham School shows how little the Compound cares about art or verbal skills since the people in it are so focused on science and numerical knowledge. The ironic part is that is what leads to the demise of their world with Crake’s plan.

End

Pg. 347, Narrator: “Here the handwriting stops. Whatever Jimmy’s speculations might have been on the subject of Crake’s motives, they had not been recorded.”

            This quote is from the letter Jimmy writes right after he shoots Crake. It suggests that the only knowledge of what happened to the Compound will come from his letter, but the information is incomplete. No one besides the people who were there will really know what happened. Also, as it says in the quote, no one will know why Crake did what he did, because Jimmy does not know, so he cannot relay that information. Despite what the Compound thought at the time, it is verbal knowledge that becomes the most important because it tells people about their world, and Snowman is one of the few people left who knows about it.

Jordyn's Part

Immortality:

Humanity’s quest for immortality, or running away from death, is what drives many of the Compounds and their business with the world, creating the pigoons and Nooskins to sell to people who want to be young forever. The end of humanity was the BlyssPluss pill, which claimed to prolong youth and sexual prowess. So in the end, human’s fight for immortality ended in their demise. Additionally, Crake created the Crakers to carry on humanity’s legacy without the “bad parts” that caused humans to nearly destroy the Earth. However, he manages to remove their knowledge of death, effectively ending the concept of immortality, except through any remaining humans that survived the plague.

Examples in Text:

-When Jimmy asks who pays for the technology at the RejoovenEsense Compound the response is “’Grief in the face of inevitable death,’ said Crake. ’The wish to stop time. The human condition.’” (Atwood 292)

-“’Immortality,’ said Crake, ‘is a concept. If you take ‘mortality’ as being, not death, but the foreknowledge of it and the fear of it, then ‘immortality’ is the absence of such fear.’” (Atwood 303)

-“Men can imagine their own deaths, they can see them coming, and the mere thought of impending death acts like an aphrodisiac. A dog or a rabbit doesn’t behave like that….But human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else, some new version of themselves, and live on forever.” (Atwood 120)

Motif: BlyssPluss Pill

Disease:

The concept of disease plays at least two roles in Oryx and Crake. One of these roles is a weapon of destruction, used by the Compounds in order to obtain more money. Crake accuses the groups of manufacturing bioforms and infecting a portion of the population with it in order to get money from them for a cure. Bioforms are also used as attempts to take down the Compounds, with the fear being that someone will sneak in and release a bioform inside the buildings and take down the businesses for various reasons.

However, the main way disease is used is through Crake’s massive plague on humanity. Crake correlates humanity with being a plague on Earth and itself, and the only way to remove the illness is to remove it completely through the disease carried through the BlyssPluss Pill and cure the planet, replacing the species with a more Earth-friendly one.

Examples in the Text:

-          “’The best diseases, from a business point of view,’ said Crake, ‘would be those that cause lingering illnesses. Ideally-that is, for maximum profit-the patient should either get well or die just before all of his or her money runs out. It’s a fine calculation.’” (Atwood 211)

-          In reference to the Crakers. “What had been altered was nothing less than the ancient primate brain. Gone were its destructive features, the features responsible for the world’s current illnesses.” (Atwood 305)

Motif: Bioforms, BlyssPluss Pill

Spectacle:

The spectacle of humanity in Oryx and Crake is constantly portrayed and leaves very little to the imagination of those watching. Entertainment is a constant cycle of pornography, live suicides, televised executions, and many others. Additionally, since nearly everything is broadcasted, people feel the pressure to keep up their appearances in order to look good all the time, which leads to buying products that may have a person look younger, but have unintended consequences. Snowman represents this spectacle with his various plays and stories he comes up with to entertain others and to become popular and feel clever and understood

Examples in Text:

-          “Site after site, channel after channel went dead. A couple of the anchors, news jocks to the end, set the cameras to film their own deaths – the screams, the dissolving skins, the ruptured eyeballs and all. How theatrical, though Jimmy. Nothing some people won’t do to get on TV.” (Atwood 344)

-          In reference to the Crakers watching Snowman eat a fish. “The spectacle of depravity is of interest even to them, purified by chlorophyll though they are.” (Atwood 101)

-          “He is Crake’s prophet now, whether he likes it or not; and the prophet of Oryx as well. That, or nothing. And he couldn’t stand to be nothing, to know himself to be nothing. He needs to be listened to, he needs to be heard. He needs at least the illusion of being understood.” (Atwood 104)

-          “Anna K. was a self-styled installation artist with big boobs who’d wired up her apartment so that every moment of her life was sent out live to millions of voyeurs.” (Atwood 84)

Motif: Television and Snowman

Discussion question: What effect, if any, do you think the television programs had on Jimmy or the rest of the population?

Character Analysis

Oryx

            Oryx is a girl who was born in a very small poor village and at an early age was sold so her mother could provide for her remaining siblings. Oryx made her way from one owner to the next, initially working as a flower sales girl, then a sexually exploited youth, until she was finally tracked down by Crake and worked for him as a teacher for the Crakers. Oryx grew up learning how to control others. Oryx regularly plays as the innocent girl and makes others around her feel as if they have the power in the relationship, when really it is Oryx who holds the power. Oryx is able to get what she wants out of others by manipulating them. Throughout the novel Oryx is emotionally distant and each time that Jimmy asks questions to get some emotional response from her Oryx tends to dance around the question, giving an answer that has no insight into what Oryx feels. She tends to neither dwell on the past nor look much into the future; she instead lives in the day. The only time where she expresses a longing in time is the anticipation of the Crakers being made public. Despite her being unemotional, Oryx establishes a relationship with Jimmy and although she does not say it, Jimmy knows that the relationship is the most “real” thing that either of them have ever been involved in.

            There is also the possibility that Oryx is not at all who she says she is. It is entirely possible that nothing that Oryx said in the novel is true and therefore this character analysis is useless. The possibility that Oryx is merely an actor is ever present. Crake could have just found a girl who closely resembles the girl from the video Crake and Jimmy watched as a kid and used her as a substitute because he knew it would affect Jimmy. In all of the conversations that are shown in the novel between Oryx and Jimmy, Jimmy directs all the conversations to extract the responses he wants. Oryx could just be catering to Jimmy’s desires and telling him what he wants to hear when really none of those things ever happened, to her at least. There by making none of it real. But what is real?

Jimmy’s Mom/Crake’s Father

            Although both of these characters are said to be paranoid and out of touch with modern society these are two of the most humane characters in the novel. These two openly rebel against what has become the social norm of society and the compounds in the novel. It is this rebellion against the social norms that gets both of these characters executed within novel. It is also the loss of these two characters that emotionally shape the two protagonists of this story early on in the novel, Jimmy and Crake. These characters function as a base for how the protagonists create their moral standards. Where Jimmy does things, many times hurtful, his desire is not to inflict harm on others but to illicit some form of response. As Jimmy grows through the novel he develops this more to illicit specific responses he wants at the time. For Crake the execution of his father early on ingrains in his mind how cruel this world is and is then, due to the emotional bond with his father and the sense of betrayal from his mother, grows up in hunger for vengeance of what the world took from him.

How has this book changed your views on the threat level of biological weapons?

Discussion Questions (3)

Three discussion questions in regards to Margaret Atwood's novel, Oryx and Crake, are:

1. In what ways can Crake be attributed to essence or figure of God? Why did Crake want to get rid of the "G spot" in the human brain and how is this ironic?

2. How might the end have been different if Jimmy had approached the three other humans that the Crakers encountered before him? Why is the end that the author implemented effective?

3. In what ways did the modified organisms created in this novel help the human race? Did they contribute to the greater good of humanity at all, and if so how? How is this different from today's society?

Jimmy’s father/ Uncle Pete/ Crake’s mother

These three characters all work within the system of the world they live in.  They are prime examples of the ideals of the time: none question the path society has taken.  They all are involved in the scientific community.  Jimmy’s father and Uncle Pete work in genetic splicing, and Crake’s mother is first married to Crake’s father, who worked with Uncle Pete, then to Uncle Pete himself.  They are all very two dimensional characters:  Jimmy’s father is the typical unhappily married man who falls for his young assistant shortly after his wife leaves; Uncle Pete is the unlikable stepdad who may have had a hand in Crake’s father’s demise; and Crake’s mother merely a shadow in the background, subordinate to her males.  They are notable in that they are not notable: they represent the typical of the society, and Atwood makes them hollow to stress the importance of those who oppose the culture they live in.