Oryx and Crake

Oryx and Crake envisions a future where corporate dominance has reached unprecedented levels, surpassing governmental authority and shaping societal structures entirely. The narrative depicts a world where corporations wield absolute power, with unchecked influence and control over every aspect of life. While occasional references to countries like Russia and Fiji suggest a global setting, the focus remains on the division within the Western world between pleeblands and exclusive corporate compounds, such as Anooyoo and HealthWyzer.

Law and order exist solely within these compounds, where corporate security forces, known as the CorpSeCorp men, prioritize safeguarding corporate interests above individual rights. In this profit-driven environment, everything becomes commodified, from sex and beauty to health and happiness. Corporations exploit people’s vulnerabilities without regard for ethical considerations, manufacturing and spreading diseases to profit from their cures—an egregious abuse of both corporate power and scientific knowledge.

Furthermore, the novel portrays a society where depravity, evil, and violence are not only commodified but also transformed into forms of entertainment. Executions, suicide, child pornography, and animal snuff videos are sensationalized and broadcasted on dedicated channels, highlighting the perverse depths to which corporate influence has permeated every aspect of culture.

This depiction of corporate hegemony and the rampant commodification of human existence serves as a critique of contemporary trends in the early 21st century, where corporate influence extends beyond consumer culture to shape public policy and influence elections. The compounds and their associated organizations symbolize the dangers of hyper-commodification and the unchecked supremacy of corporate interests in an increasingly consumer-centric and entertainment-driven society.

The clearest example of the danger of corporate dominance occurs in the novel’s climax, when it becomes evident that the catastrophic event that wiped out most of the world’s population originated at RejoovenEsense. The novel warns the reader about the consequences of unchecked corporate power and the commodification of human life, forcing the reader to reflect on the ethical implications of profit-driven agendas and the erosion of individual autonomy in the face of corporate dominance.

Atwood’s Oryx and Crake depicts a world where the humanities—history, literature, and language—have been marginalized in favor of science, consumerism, and entertainment. History is reduced to mere entertainment fodder in video games like “Blood and Roses,” while institutions like the Martha Graham Academy, one of the few remaining bastions of humanities education, are neglected and ridiculed by those working in the sciences. Language, once a medium for profound human expression, is now primarily used by corporations for advertising and marketing, resulting in a shallow and superficial form of communication devoid of any emotional depth.

The characters of Jimmy and Crake are also symbolic of this divide—Crake is a scientific genius who ridicules art and achieves success fast, whereas Jimmy earns his father’s disappointment and doesn’t become financially successful. Despite this obvious devaluation of the humanities, the novel underscores their intrinsic importance in defining human identity. Jimmy, labeled a “word person” in a society that prizes scientific proficiency, finds solace in his love for language, clinging to obsolete words and images for comfort. His affinity for the humanities is portrayed as a source of humanity itself, a quality that distinguishes him as one of the last true humans even before the onset of the devastating plague. This humanistic perspective, termed “general thinking” by Crake, ultimately proves to be Jimmy’s salvation, both figuratively and literally.

The novel raises concerns about the consequences of a culture obsessed with progress at the expense of acknowledging and preserving its past. It warns that disregard for history and the humanities may lead to a loss of collective identity and shared cultural heritage, potentially rendering people unrecognizable as humans in the traditional sense. However, despite Crake’s attempts to eliminate cultural and humanistic inclinations in the genetically engineered Crakers, they continue to show an interest in myth, religion, and art. This resilience suggests that these facets of human culture are not merely sources of happiness or ethical integrity but essential components of human identity and survival itself.

In the world depicted in the novel, advancements in science blur the traditional boundary between humans and animals. Notably, the pigoons (genetically modified pigs engineered to grow human organs and brain tissue for transplantation) challenge conventional notions of species distinction. Their human-like similarities make people uncomfortable, hinting at a sense of taboo akin to cannibalism. The Crakers, Crake’s genetically engineered beings, represent the most extreme fusion of human and animal characteristics. With features such as color-changing sex organs resembling baboons and a digestive system akin to rabbits, the Crakers trigger questions about whether they are humans, and if they are, what makes them so.

Throughout the narrative, characters consider the distinction between humans and animals from different perspectives. Jimmy, suffering from a sense of inadequacy due to his lack of scientific talent, frequently likens himself to animals, reflecting his sense of inferiority. In contrast, Crake believes that those things that are traditionally considered “distinctly human” (love, art, language, self-awareness, and knowledge of mortality) are evolutionary mistakes, which are “inelegant” solutions to the problems of life and survival, preferring instead to create the Crakers as a superior genetic blend devoid of human intelligence or sexual desire. Additionally, he engineers a plague to eradicate humanity, perceiving humans as a fundamental problem in need of elimination.

Oryx and Crake delves into the complexities of human-non-human distinctions, exploring factors like intelligence, self-awareness, artistic creativity, and philosophical thought. While presenting various perspectives on this question, Atwood refrains from endorsing any single answer as definitive. Instead, the novel probes the implications of such inquiries, reflecting Atwood’s environmentalist concerns. It challenges the notion of humans as distinct entities separate from nature, suggesting that humans are inherently intertwined with and indistinguishable from other forms of life in their environment.