Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. It is definitely an odd novel, but it is a very good read. I would love to ask the author about some of the themes in the novel, if she feels our would is heading down a similar path. I would also want to ask her about Crake, why he decided to wipe out humans. Another thing I am also confused about is Oryx's character. It did not seem like she had that big of a part in the novel, but she had such a huge and lasting impact on Jimmy. 

What I really liked about the novel is the writing style. I like how the time frame would jump all over the place and you would not really know where you are in Jimmy's life until the end. For example, in the middle of the book there would be chapters devoted to Jimmy talking with Oryx, yet Oryx was not introduced in the novel yet. We only truly meet her in the end, where we find out Jimmy was an adult.

I liked getting to know Jimmy and Snowman as two separate people until the time frame blurs and Jimmy becomes Snowman. I think that represents how much Jimmy changed in the short amount of time what the world was in chaos. He wanted to be a different person. He wanted to leave Jimmy behind in the compounds.

I would also have liked to know what happened to Jimmy's father. Most likely he also died with the infection, but it would have been interesting to have one last meetup with Jimmy and his dad because they have not seen each other in a long time.

The ending also kind of threw me off. Snowman is just about to meet the other humans, and it ends. Also with his foot infection. Does he meet the other humans, and then dies? Or does he outlive the infection? I would like to think he does, but maybe it is irony. Everyone else in the world dies from this horrible disease which Jimmy is immune to, but he ends up dying from a small cut on his foot.

Even though there are questions left to be answered, I really did enjoy the book. It is not as bad as I thought it would be to read between the lines and make up conclusions for myself.

New Beginning

I found it very interesting how the first paragraph of the novel,

        Snowman wakes up before dawn. He lies unmoving, listening to the tide coming in, wave after wave sloshing over the barricades, wish-wash, wish-wash, the rhythm of heartbeat. He would so like to believe he is still asleep. (Atwood 5)

and the first paragraph of the last chapter,

        Snowman wakes up before dawn. He lies unmoving, listening to the tide coming in, wish-wash, wish-wash, the rhythm of heartbeat. He would so like to believe he is still asleep. (Atwood 439)

are almost identical.

Since in both are him waking up, I think it represents a new beginning. In the first chapter, Snowman is starting his routine. He is living day by day barely surviving. We do not know anything about him yet. It not only starts his journey, but the readers journey as well.

In the first paragraph of the last chapter, we know Snowman. We know his story and how everything came to be, but he is about to start a new journey. He knows that there are more people around his vicinity. When he wakes up, he is starting his new journey to meet these people.

I really like how the author did this. To me, it feels like Snowman is starting a new life, and a brand new chapter, even though the book is soon coming to a close.

Chaos

Everything is coming together. I was very shocked to find out that Crake meant for everything to happen. He purposely planted the infection in his pills so that essentially the human race would be wiped out, except for Jimmy.

It is somewhat irritating how the book never fully explains why Crake did it, but I think that is because Jimmy never truly knows why he did. I think it is because Crake wanted the world to be run fully by his Crakers. I think he knew that humans would continue to destroy the world, so he decided to 'play god' and make the world a better place. If that was his logic, then I do not understand why he did not want to be there for himself instead of enlisting Jimmy with the Crakers.

Then this poses another question; did he expect Jimmy to shoot him? If he did, then he must of known about Oryx and Jimmy's affair. If he did not, then he must have thought Jimmy would not care if he killed Oryx in front of him.

When Jimmy is alone, playing over the events that have entailed in his mind, one of his thoughts really stuck out to me, "How long had he been planning this? Could it be that Uncle Pete, and possibly even Crake's own mother, had been trial runs? With so much at stake, was he afraid of failure, of being just one more incompetent nihilist?" (Atwood 409).

Nihilist: Someone who rejects theories of morality or religious beliefs.

It really stuck out to me because the doctors could never explain Crake's mothers death, and Uncle Pete suddenly dies too. If they both died from a mysterious infection, Crake could have used them as a trial to test out what his microbes were capable of.

But why his family? This is why another one of Jimmy's thoughts stuck out to me, "Had he been a lunatic or an intellectually honorable man who'd thought things through to their logical conclusion? And was there any difference?" (Atwood 409).

Maybe Crake was just a psychopath.

Crake's Plan

Crake's plan ties in with, what I think are, the main themes of the novel. That people will do anything for money, as well as people want to be perfect. These two can be combined with one major theme: Humans become caught up in the material things in life.

The first part of Crake's plan is a pill. A pill that he knows everyone will want. The benefits of the pill include,
     
        a)    would protect the user against all known sexually transmitted diseases, fatal, inconvenient, or merely unsightly;
        b)    would provide an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess, coupled with a generalized sense of energy and well-being, thus reducing the frustration and violence, and eliminating feelings of low self-worth;
        c)    would prolong youth. (Atwood 355)

And with these points only, everyone would be lining up to buy the pill because you could pretty well do what you want with little to no consequences, as well as staying younger longer. This is not the end of Crake's plan though. What he would not tell people is that upon consuming the pill, it sterilizes you.

Crake's logic is that it will reduce the population in a positive way, but I find it horrible. I do not think he is visualizing how this will effect people in their everyday lives. People will not be able to start families when they are ready. They will have to go through all the heartbreak knowing they never will be able to.

But this is where the Crakers come in. All these people who consume the pill and now cannot have children can purchase the next best thing. The ones who have enough money anyways. They can buy a 'child' made in a lab and pick out what features they want to to have and how it will look. One thing is for sure, every one of them will be the parents ideal of perfection.

I find this very sickening. Would anyone actually want to buy one? They are not even humans. They do not look like humans. The way Snowman describes them in the wasteland, they seem more alien then anything. So, if people were that desperate to have a baby, would they succumb to one of these Crakers? That is what Crake is hoping for.

If I could ask Crake some questions, I would ask him:

Do you expect everyone to take the pill?
Are you expecting no one to catch on that your pill makes them sterile?
Are you trying to make your Crakers the dominate species?
Are the Crakers supposed to take over the world?
Why do you feel that every child has to be perfect?

Things are Getting Worse

It seems like things are continually becoming worse in Jimmy's world. A quote that stuck out to me—and proves this—is,
        "He'd watch the news: more plagues, more famines, more floods, more insect or microbe or small-mammal outbreaks, more droughts... There were the usual political assassinations out there in the pleebs, the usual strange accidents, the unexplained disappearances. Or there were sex scandals: sex scandals always got the newscasters excited," (Atwood 307).

Yes, all of these things seem horrible, but what really stuck out to me is the way that Jimmy does not seem bothered by any of it. It seems like they happen so often that it does not effect anyone anymore. Especially when he says, "...the usual political assassinations," because it makes it sound like it is not breaking news, just a typical news story.

I am also kind of confused about what the 'pleeblands' are. It seems like it is the area that is not the compounds, but I do not know why it is referred to as the pleeblands. The pleeblands are viewed as quite negative, to the people in the compounds at least. They are said to be dangerous and you need to be tough to survive in them.

Though pleebland is not a real word, it means poor, crime-infested neighborhoods. Or where ordinary people live. I guess we are kind of living in a pleebland now. Maybe that is why they built the compounds; they tried to make this perfect world.

Their version of 'perfect' turned to chaos because of everyone's imperfect actions, such as creating new diseases and doing everything just for profit. I think one of the main focuses of the novel is how there can never be a perfect world. There will always be fault and greed and suffering.