The novel is titled Oryx and Crake, which made me wonder; who is Oryx? Who is Crake? How do they pertain to this piece of literature? By reading, I eventually found out about Crake–who seems to be a superior leader of some sort–but made me more curious about Oryx. Concluding that these two are significant figures that impact Jimmy (Snowman) that he uses to curate stories for the Crakers. The introduction of Oryx was quite disturbing; understanding that she was trafficked and used in pornos, changed the pace of the story for me. We questioned different “Oryxes” in class and it made me want to elaborate on it further. Giving my own view on the perspectives of Oryx.

I want to begin with Jimmy’s tunnel vision of Oryx. I say tunnel vision because what he learns about Oryx, was just Jimmy trying to insert himself into her narrative. He prods and pokes her with questions to somehow miraculously seek revenge for her. Only paying attention to what people did to her and clues that would lead to them. He doesn’t understand how she feels–he asks Oryx “What city?”, to which she replies “Why do you care? I don’t care. I never think about it. It’s long ago now,” (Atwood, pg. 93, Oryx)–seemingly desensitized to it all. We get to see the “savior complex” within Jimmy, as per someone who mentioned it in class. And the romanization of Oryx–that he justifies–because he “loves” people whom he could care for and be able to “mend” their imperfections. So in a way, Oryx had such an explicit background that he fell in love with her, reducing her to her trauma.

The biggest factor that changed the life of Oryx is Uncle En. Uncle En sees her as one of the many children he exploits, nothing but a pawn for his business. Giving false narratives to them in order to gain their trust. This goes hand in hand when Oryx is seeked out by men who want to engage in sexual activities; and Uncle En sees this as an opportunity to further exploit her for tainted profit. After he “saves” her, compliments are being thrown around which might’ve enforced some sick conditioning onto Oryx. Uncle En is so happy with her that he even asks if they want to get married, showing that he gave her more attention than the other children–unless there are others which we are unaware of. Oryx might have been just another number in Uncle En’s calculator.

Now we get to see how Oryx perceives herself. Through the stories she tells Jimmy, we can see how she downplays her past life and makes it seem more of a journey; while also distancing herself from the explicitly of it all. But even if she downplays her experiences she is in no way ignorant about it. She understands what she went through and knows what information is liable to her. Even though Jimmy tries to press her, she denies and tells him the shallow details, giving her a clear-eyed perspective. I feel like she’s so desensitized and is essentially blocking out her trauma. Fortunately it seems that she was able to distance herself from that life.

Because I built up on the quote, “Snowman riffles through these three stories in his head. There must once have been other versions of her: her mother’s story, the story of the man who’d bought her,” (Atwood, pg. 91, Oryx)–etcetera etcetera–we can also dwell into how the village saw her as well as her own mother had. Before her father had passed, she wasn’t paid much attention to. But soon after she was fed more and dressed in better clothing. Showing how her mother was prepping her to be sold; as a resort to receive money and support the rest of her children. This is where Oryx had deemed the concept of love from her mother, but it vanishes eventually. Especially with the empty promise that she would come back. To conclude, with all these different perspectives we have read, does it make you–as the reader–think differently of Oryx?

From page one, Oryx and Crake puts you into a split world: inside the compounds everything is polished, planned, clean; outside lie the pleeblands, overrun by neglect, danger, and decay. Science and corporations promise comfort and order, but outside that order are people scraping by, wild animals mutated, and environmental collapse creeping in. Jimmy lives in both spaces—protected by privilege at times, deeply aware of what lies beyond the walls. Atwood slowly shows us what these walls cost: parts of ourselves, messy as they are desire, art, longing.

There comes a point in Chapter 7, it is a turning point where what once felt theoretical becomes deeply personal. Margaret Atwood uses a lunch-table conversation between Jimmy and Crake to show how the dystopia she’s imagined isn’t just about ruined environments or external collapse—it’s about trying to engineer away everything messy, unpredictable, essential to being human.

Crake opens by talking about how much misery comes from “biological mismatches” such as hormones, pheromones, where the person you love so much might not love you back. He says humans are “imperfectly monogamous,” and proposes that if people either pair-bond perfectly or embrace guilt-free promiscuity, many kinds of sexual torment would disappear. Or make mating cyclical, inevitable like other mammals. The dream: less suffering, more predictability. Jimmy pushes back. He sees what Crake imagines, but also recognizes what would be lost. Remove mismatch, heartbreak, jealousy, risk…what remains of art, beauty, emotional depth? Jimmy defends courtship, the sting of rejection, the longing in unfulfilled desire. These aren’t just nuisances; they’re what feed poetry, story, creative life.

Crake responds by framing art as peripheral—a result of those mismatches, a kind of signal, maybe even biologically useful. In his vision, if suffering is designed out, the cause of much art might disappear. His design for the Crakers where jealousy and competition are minimized reflects this: it’s not simply a choice, but an engineered reality. Jimmy sees loneliness in that engineered calm. He senses that without risk, without desire, without emotional unstable edges, something vital is erased. Even when civilizations die, he believes, art, words, imagination are what survives. That’s what carries memory and identity forward when everything else is gone.

Atwood doesn’t paint Crake as purely wrong, or science as evil. She shows how tempting his arguments are: who wouldn’t want less pain? But the novel warns that what feels like “progress” might also be the erosion of art, identity, longing. Those things are fragile, difficult to measure, unpredictable—but they give life its depth. This conversation makes the setting of Oryx and Crake more than backdrop. It forces you to ask: if you had the power to remove mess, failure, desire, would you? And what pieces of yourself or your creativity would disappear? Because after collapse, it might not be tech, not even biotech, that survives but the art, longing and memory, and maybe those are exactly the things worth holding onto.

Religion started in order to help ourselves understand the natural world around us, allowing ourselves a certain degree of control over what we cannot understand. Why did the rivers flood and swallow the crops? The people must have angered their pantheon of gods. But, when science arose to contest the explanations previously established by old belief systems, one sees themselves as knowing more and knowing better such as Crake who maintained that “God is just a cluster of neurons” (157). For at least chapters one through eight of Oryx and Crake, there is a perception of control held by the humans and most evident within the scientists in the Compounds. Jimmy’s dad simplifies human life as merely “cells and tissue” (57) showing his desensitization to the vulnerability of life and illustrating the illusion of control he has over biology solely because he can so easily alter it. On the other hand, his wife deems it immoral and sacrilegious (57) and the very reason she sees it this way is demonstrated by the effects that these experiments and research have on the customers of NooSkins and OrganInc. When experiments failed, volunteers reappeared in unnatural colors and “peeling in ragged strips” (55) because they hoped to have a degree of control over their aging, a natural condition of living. As extreme is the work of Jimmy’s dad, perhaps more radical is the work of Crake who accepts that things are the way they are in order to fulfill their biological purpose (167), but he doesn’t seek to “fix” the effects of aging, he intends to harness only the strengths of living things such as purring or smelling like citrus to fend off predators and insects in order to create a new humanoid species altogether, the Crakers. He’s a mad scientist of sorts or maybe even god-like in creating the Crakers, but all developed with a dangerous eugenics-like intent using advanced genetic engineering. Crake, himself, didn’t believe in God, but to Snowman’s content the Crakers revered Oryx and Crake (157), even when they did not know, themselves, that all the stories that Snowman shared were just that, stories. And this shows, too, the control that Snowman perceives himself to have over the Crakers. He refers to himself as Crake’s prophet (104), but also recognizes that the Craker’s only believe him because they already developed trust in him (96), but what happens when the Crakers exhaust their curiosity. Will Snowman lose his control too? Will they stop providing him with fish? Will it be reminiscent of the creation of the bobkittens meant to keep the green rabbit population under control, but instead began to snatch babies out of their prams?

A scene more reminiscent of the ancient sacrificial rituals existing to appease the gods is the day Oryx is sold to the man. This transaction is described as being needed “more and more often, because the weather had been so strange and could no longer be predicted” (118). It is similar to making ritual sacrifices in exchange for a good harvest. But, in Oryx’s village it is meant to keep the rest of the family alive in exchange for the life of a child and their childhoods. The man recognized he had control over the village because they were poor and suffering and even attempted to sound generous by “taking the boy off [Oryx’s mother’s] hands” (121). Some mothers shun their choices, feeling as if “this act, done freely by themselves… had not been performed willingly” (121) which further demonstrates the level of influence the man has over the village, that he is the only hope left for their families. Deep in his power, he is killed and dumped in a river, a loss of control. Similarly, in Snowman’s present, he is the only human left, the mad scientists are gone and left behind is a city of which humans have lost control.

In Oryx and Crake, Atwood uses fiction to paint an image to the readers of a dystopian society after disastrous climate effects. She uses Snowman, as one of the only people in this new world to have witnessed both its past and its eventual decline, to compare and contact these two worlds with one another. This intertwining allows readers to see how this dystopian world is not as far as it seems. 

For example, Snowman is shown to be a very depressed character, haunted by his past losses and the new world he is not forced into. Throughout the story so far, we see many instances where Snowman recounts events that took place and how his indifference towards them led towards the destruction of his world. Many times this feeling of guilt from his apathy catches up to him when he recounts his past and he is overcome with emotions of despair. 

Atwood’s dystopian narrative builds on Ghosh’s notion of Cli-Fi. In The Great Derangement, Ghosh argues that a new genre of story needs to be brought to attention. He argues that Cli-Fi is important because Climate destruction is not easily conceptualized. By creating a world that shows the future effect of human actions, we can build a closer relationship between our environmental actions and the future of our world. Atwood uses Snowman’s perspective to show the truth of human consequences. By contrasting Snowman’s memories of the old world with those of the new, Atwood creates a bridge that allows readers to see how the choices we make now have an impact in the future. 

I also think it’s funny that the Crakers are named after important historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt. Atwood gives them familiar names, this uncanny connection also links the future to the past, and makes this dystopian society closely connected to the past world. 

The reading also got me to think, if the Crakers are designed to be free of human flaws, but still have human traits like curiosity and judgement, could their natural human traits make them recreate human behaviors? Could their traits lead them to form hierarchies within the Cracker community even without any idea of past history?

Discuss and jot for 15 minutes in small groups. Try to have a) an argument, however provisional and half-baked and b) a few page numbers to guide us to to shore up that argument

1. Oryx’s back story is brutal, to say the least, and Jimmy has to “piece it together” (114) with great difficulty. Jimmy tells us, also on 114, that he has to assemble Oryx from “three stories” (those of Jimmy, Crake, and Oryx herself) and that there “must have been other versions of her” (from her mother, the men who bought her, and so on). What are some of the different “Oryxes” that emerge from this chapter? What strikes you about her attempt at telling her own story? Pay special attention to the different ways different storytellers/owners/observers “read” women’s bodies and sexuality, especially Oryx’s closing words in the chapter.

2. Who are the Crakers? What are some of their traits and capacities that stand out to you? What are the contrasts between homo sapiens and these similar, but reengineered, humanoids? What is their relationship to sex, sexuality, and reproduction, and what might Atwood be saying by contrasting Craker’s sexual practices with those of regular humans?

3. Jimmy’s and Crake’s paths diverge in the backstory related in ch. 8, such that Crake receives the elite education at the Watson-Crick Institution and Jimmy attends the Martha Graham Academy. Compare and contrast the two institutions and Jimmy’s perception of both. What might Atwood be pointing at in our own world through this contrast? Do these fictional places remind you of any real institutions? What do you make of Jimmy’s reaction, in particular, to the way sex and sexuality are treated at Watson-Crick? What is Crake’s attitude towards sex, and why does that matter in terms of the novel’s broadest themes?