Environmental Issues In Oryx And Crake Essay

By the end of the novel, it becomes evident that Oryx and Crake is entwined with significant social issues that help enrich and broaden the reader's understanding as they view the novel through the lens of the issue. Environmental issues is of great importance to the novel. Atwood’s overall argument about environmental issue present in Oryx and Crake has to do with human manipulation of nature. This is seen through genetic modification of animals to better suit our needs. ChickieNobs which were “Chicken parts” with “No eyes or beak or anything” (Atwood 78) is an example of humans using animals to benefit themselves. They have no concerns toward the health of the animal, but rather what is easier and more efficient for them. Atwood argues that humans are the

Social class is another prominent issue in the novel. Government authority has disappeared, and in its place the big biotech corporations have stepped in to fill its place. They exert their control through a private security force, CorpSeCorps that provides only enough law and order in the non-corporate "pleeblands" to assure the security of the corporate compounds. Classes are determined by the adeptness with the use of technology. The “numbers people” or those intelligent enough to contribute to technology make up the elite class which are housed in luxury compounds that were safe, quiet, and desirous. Those lacking in the intelligence required to advance technology were less fortunate and therefore lived outside the compounds, the “pleeblands” which were marked by disease and poverty. Jimmy the protagonist was of the lucky few that belonged to the compound life due to his parents that worked there. The class difference is seen when Jimmy a “words person” graduates and ends up at the less desirable school, Martha Graham, whereas Crake a “numbers person” gets to go to the more fancier schools,