Oryx And Cake Analysis

This article analyzes the ecocritical insights in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Cake (2003). The main analysis will mainly concentrate on the appropriation of natural elements in the novel. This appropriation includes the anthropomorphic qualities inserted into the novel’s textual fabric. The anthropomorphic features are the human qualities or characteristics given to animals and inanimate things. I will focus on how the anthropomorphic features help us to understand the function of nature in ecocritical contexts. More specifically, how nature could serve as an integral part of human natural environment. As such, nature is the non-human part of environment and people are the human element of the natural environment. Accordingly, the analysis will accentuate some anthropomorphic characters, such as Pigoons, who are a hybrid of pigs and human beings. The study of this ecocritical peculiarity corresponds to the vital interaction between the non-human elements and human elements in the novel. This interaction

The opposition between males and females is exemplified in the character of Oryx: “Oryx, the central woman character, is known to be a child porn star. She is sold during her childhood by her mother, along with her brother because of poverty” (588). This is because “she suffers class, gender, and sexual as well as colonial exploitation. She becomes a sexual commodity passing from one man to another, with each one exploiting her sexually. She is acquainted with the job of women in society during her childhood itself”