An analysis of Margaret Atwood's style and craft
Margaret Atwood certainly knows how to captivate and draw a reader in, especially in Oryx and Crake. From her vivid characterization of Johnny to her stark world-building skills, her style is one that tends to be a bleak, pessimistic, and morbid. In my examination of her style and craft, I was supposed to pick a particular passage to focus on; however, I found that the entirety of the section Wolvogs to be an excellent representation of Atwood's style throughout Oryx and Crake.
Basically, this chapter serves to show just how distant Jimmy has become from his old lifestyle alongside Crake. It also shows how the environment of the Watson-Crick Institute fosters the apathy that Crake already feels toward nature.
At the beginning of the section, Jimmy describes how beautiful the Institute seems compared to Martha Graham, his own college. Jimmy describes the statue at the entranceway as a school mascot with some dignity. He describes it as 'bronzed' and tells the background of the mascot, a goat/spider hybrid. The way that Atwood juxtaposes the grotesque and often defiled statue of Martha Graham, a feminist figure who is portrayed decapitating a man in gory detail, with the shining and progressive statue of the goat/spider (that has saved lives via improvements to bullet-proof vest materials) at Watson-Crick embeds the idea in the reader's head that the institutes of Jimmy and Crake are worlds apart in attitude and style.
Crake then begins to show Jimmy around the Institute. He gradually introduces him to increasingly complex artificial creations, from multi-coloured flora to water-retaining rocks to artificial butterflies. While questioning Crake on the background of the butterflies, we get a subtle hint at Jimmy's views on Crake's new surroundings. He mentions that "He didn’t want to get into the what is real thing with Crake." This seemingly annoyed aside from Jimmy shows that he is at least a little bit intimidated by Crake's new home and lifestyle. His retorts through their conversation also reinforce that he seems to disagree with Crake's view of artificial life.
The detail that Jimmy uses to describe Crake's comfortable and lavish apartment shows yet again how different his own living quarters are in comparison. Jimmy's question about the food served to students is especially interesting, since Crake only responds with "It's food." in an indifferent manner. This is yet another example of Atwood juxtaposing Jimmy and Crake by showing how little the latter cares about decent food, while the former gawks at the variety and quality of it all.
Crake later offers Jimmy a tour of the various labs around the institute, with one standing in particular to Jimmy. Inside, Jimmy is shown a horrid-looking mutated chicken. It lacks a head, a beak, eyes, a brain, feathers, and most of its limbs save for tube-like growths sprouting from its side. The mouth that it does have is in the middle of its body and resembles that of a sea anemone. Crake explains that this chicken cannot think and does not feel pain, he also states that the tubes growing out of it form chicken breasts, while some other sub-species grow drumsticks and other chicken parts. Jimmy finds this abomination of nature absolutely revolting, while Crake simply explains that this creation is much more efficient at producing high-protein meat than classic chickens. The queasiness that Jimmy feels show that he finds altering organisms to this level to be immoral and irresponsible, while the characteristic calm and cool-headedness of Crake show us once again that he sees nothing wrong with mutilating animals. While Crake does eventually show Jimmy other genetically modified organisms, I found the design of the altered chickens to be intriguing. They seemed like some sort monstrosity conjured up by the likes of HR Giger, an artist who specialized in disturbing and challenging art, sometimes involving parts of living organisms stitched together in a terrifying way.
In summary, Margaret Atwood seems to craft a terrifying and engaging story about the consequences of altering nature through her morbid and vivid style of writing. Her unique look into the horrors of artificial genetic mutation do well at warning readers of the dangers of playing with nature.
Basically, this chapter serves to show just how distant Jimmy has become from his old lifestyle alongside Crake. It also shows how the environment of the Watson-Crick Institute fosters the apathy that Crake already feels toward nature.
At the beginning of the section, Jimmy describes how beautiful the Institute seems compared to Martha Graham, his own college. Jimmy describes the statue at the entranceway as a school mascot with some dignity. He describes it as 'bronzed' and tells the background of the mascot, a goat/spider hybrid. The way that Atwood juxtaposes the grotesque and often defiled statue of Martha Graham, a feminist figure who is portrayed decapitating a man in gory detail, with the shining and progressive statue of the goat/spider (that has saved lives via improvements to bullet-proof vest materials) at Watson-Crick embeds the idea in the reader's head that the institutes of Jimmy and Crake are worlds apart in attitude and style.
Crake then begins to show Jimmy around the Institute. He gradually introduces him to increasingly complex artificial creations, from multi-coloured flora to water-retaining rocks to artificial butterflies. While questioning Crake on the background of the butterflies, we get a subtle hint at Jimmy's views on Crake's new surroundings. He mentions that "He didn’t want to get into the what is real thing with Crake." This seemingly annoyed aside from Jimmy shows that he is at least a little bit intimidated by Crake's new home and lifestyle. His retorts through their conversation also reinforce that he seems to disagree with Crake's view of artificial life.
The detail that Jimmy uses to describe Crake's comfortable and lavish apartment shows yet again how different his own living quarters are in comparison. Jimmy's question about the food served to students is especially interesting, since Crake only responds with "It's food." in an indifferent manner. This is yet another example of Atwood juxtaposing Jimmy and Crake by showing how little the latter cares about decent food, while the former gawks at the variety and quality of it all.
Crake later offers Jimmy a tour of the various labs around the institute, with one standing in particular to Jimmy. Inside, Jimmy is shown a horrid-looking mutated chicken. It lacks a head, a beak, eyes, a brain, feathers, and most of its limbs save for tube-like growths sprouting from its side. The mouth that it does have is in the middle of its body and resembles that of a sea anemone. Crake explains that this chicken cannot think and does not feel pain, he also states that the tubes growing out of it form chicken breasts, while some other sub-species grow drumsticks and other chicken parts. Jimmy finds this abomination of nature absolutely revolting, while Crake simply explains that this creation is much more efficient at producing high-protein meat than classic chickens. The queasiness that Jimmy feels show that he finds altering organisms to this level to be immoral and irresponsible, while the characteristic calm and cool-headedness of Crake show us once again that he sees nothing wrong with mutilating animals. While Crake does eventually show Jimmy other genetically modified organisms, I found the design of the altered chickens to be intriguing. They seemed like some sort monstrosity conjured up by the likes of HR Giger, an artist who specialized in disturbing and challenging art, sometimes involving parts of living organisms stitched together in a terrifying way.
In summary, Margaret Atwood seems to craft a terrifying and engaging story about the consequences of altering nature through her morbid and vivid style of writing. Her unique look into the horrors of artificial genetic mutation do well at warning readers of the dangers of playing with nature.
Great post Erdem. I like how in depth your post is in terms of exploring the differences between Jimmy and Crake and more specifically how Atwood develops this juxtaposition. When I was reading this chapter I actually had very similar thoughts to yours. When Jimmy first walked into the Watson-Crick Institute I felt that it was obvious how taken aback and shocked he was. As you said, Jimmy is used to a very different lifestyle than Crake is and I think Crake's lavish life contributes significantly to Snowman's present-day hatred towards Crake. Although he didn't necessarily want to be what Crake had become/be a part of the things Crake was creating, it is evident that Jimmy is jealous of certain aspects of Crake's life. I think Atwood does a great job of establishing this by, as you mentioned, showing Jimmy's longing of such a life-style but still reminding the reader of Jimmy's disgust towards certain parts of Crake's work (for example the chicken). Overall I am in agreement with all of your points and I find it interesting that you tied HR Giger into the post... it certainly created some very vivid images in my mind!
ReplyDeleteI quite enjoyed your post, Erdem! I think it's unique that you analyzed a full chapter rather than doing a close-reading of a specific passage. It was very well-written.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to further look at the contrasts between Martha Graham Academy (MGA) and Watson-Crick Institute (WCI). The former's first descriptions appear in "Applied Rhetoric", where Jimmy begins his university life. The use of imagery ("swimming pool that looked and smelled like a giant sardine can", "[the food] looked like rakunk shit") practically reduces the academy to a pleebland-esque environment. I especially liked the line "Jimmy found the place depressing, as did—it seemed—everyone there with any more neural capacity than a tulip”. I think it also helps convey the derelict state of the academy--even brainless things like plants would fail to live there happily.
On the other hand, the description of WCI certainly creates a mood of admiration towards the highly-advanced building. Compared to describing MGA, the diction changes from words like "beige" and "depressing” to "beautifully lain" and "brilliant flame red". From this change, anyone with more neural capacity than a tulip would realize that WCI is far superior than MGA. Even the unique words like “Rockulators” and “mesembryanthemaceae” make the place sound more important. This is especially effective compared to the faulty air conditioners that work half the time at MGA.
(cited from pages 226, 242, 243)
Nicely done. One thing I found very interesting in the book is the way she portrayed the differences between Jimmy and Crake, which you touch on a few times. Crake is as down to earth as possible, to the point of excess. Art, to him, has no value. The origin of something, artificial or not, is irrelevant. Everything is taken at face value, without any sort of analysis. He strikes me most of all like a robot, which has been given instructions, but cannot think in terms of "why." He has this idea that an intelligent race must exist, but he doesn't see fit to endow then with jokes, or art, or anything. And he kills all the humans in order to pave the way. He seems to have to real reason to have such a goal, he just does, and he's willing to sacrifice the spirit of his ideals in order to follow his plan to the letter. Jimmy is an audience surrogate—where we do not understand Crake, Jimmy doesn't either. He contextualizes Crake's strangeness, which is important because Crake's strange values are critical to the plot. That's why it's so good to analyse his personality.
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