Perfection In Oryx And Crake

Imagine living in a world where people are not content with who they are, and as a result are always striving for perfection, which as learned through Oryx and Crake is unachievable without consequences. This world, portrayed in Margaret Atwood’s book, displays the different factors of how society has changed through time and displays the negative effects of people’s need to be flawless. This aspiration for unattainable perfection leads to the destruction of the society through unethical behavior, segregation, and technological advancement. Although these repercussions may seem like a small price to pay for perfection they will ultimately destroy the world as they know it.
Perfection is something people strive for, but it is these ambitions

Segregation is all around and comes in many different forms. “At NooSkins’ prices it is. You hype your wares and take all their money and then they run out of cash, and it’s no more treatment for them” (Atwood, 56). This quote demonstrates NooSkins’ disregard for the moral responsibility that should be upheld as a company. They only offer the best for those who meet their financial standards and the minute they have drained all their money they are no longer interested in offering the best for their previous clients. In this society there is also a lot of segregation amongst the “word” and “numbers” people which is demonstrated in the quote, “The security going into Watson-Crick [which] was very thorough, unlike the sloppy charade that took place at Martha Graham” (Atwood 197). This security sophistication at Watson-Crick compared to Martha Graham shows how the “numbers” people are superior and “words” people are inferior. This segregation of “words” and “numbers” is dangerous to their society because the world cannot function with just one. You need the scientists to create the new amazing inventions and the word people to advertise it and use their emotional sensitivity to make sure the creations are morally acceptable. This is important because most of the scientists do not have the ability to look at the emotional aspects of a product. This notion of thinking the numbers people are

In life, growth is the key to success and in Oryx and Crake it is shown to play a great deal in human evolution. An example of this in the book is how they started to use companies like Infantade, Foetility, Perfectababe to create the dream child. Their system to achieve this dream child was to “have a few trial runs, and if the kids from those didn’t measure up they’d recycle them for the parts, until at last they got something that fit all their specs-perfect in every way” (Atwood, 250). This in itself was one of the first signs that technology had gone too far because they started to treat the method of creating human life as an equation, and if they didn’t like the outcome they would simply start over with zero disregard for the child. This was only the first step in the path of destruction, now that they had created the “perfect” child a lot of people became displeased with themselves. They would then simply go to the Street of Dreams where in this magical place people would change everything which they felt was not perfect. This is shown in the quote when it says “ The shops were mid-to-high end, the displays elaborate. Blue Genes Day? Jimmy read. Try SnipNFix! Herediseases Removed. Why Be Short? Go Goliath!” (Atwood, 288). These creations made the world obsessed with being like everyone around them, which caused them to lose focus on the important things and