Oryx And Crake Character Analysis

A person is the product of their environment. A child raised in a healthy, loving environment will likely grow up to be a well-adjusted human being. On the other hand, a child raised in the environment pictured by Margaret Atwood in her dystopian, speculative-fiction novel Oryx and Crake, will retain many of the negative traits that are permeated by that culture. That child is Jimmy, the son of two dysfunctional individuals. The conflicts that he is exposed to, and take part in between his parents, and the harmful culture that permeates every aspect of compound life will take shape in his flaws. The effects of a deficient environment on a developing child is proven by examining the conflicts, characters and settings of Jimmy’s life,

Jimmy’s

Crake, his best friend, and the one person that is more flawed than Jimmy, also experiences a lacklustre upbringing. His father was assassinated, and he is exposed to the corruption of the drug companies at a young age. “He was head in the clouds. He believed in contributing to the improvement of the human lot. (Atwood)” The faint memories he had in his childhood continue to influence his decisions later in life, resulting in the Paradice project. Oryx experienced the worst abuse as a child, yet Atwood presents an Oryx that seems friendly and supportive. There is no evidence, however, that Oryx is not lying. No one really knows her background story, and can Crake really be trusted after what exterminating the human race? It’s most likely that, following the patterns of negligent childhood development and character flaws, that she is not telling the truth. In that case, she is similar to Jimmy and Crake in the fact that they are both flawed human beings. The last character, or characters, are the Crakers. Flawless and perfect, at least in Crake’s eyes. However, Jimmy is a human character and therefore contains flaws, which he passes on to the Crakers. For example, Jimmy uses Crake and Oryx as Deities, to control them. The impact he has on their lives is immense, just like the impact his parents had on his