Literary lens: New Historicism
Margaret Atwood began writing Oryx and Crake in 2001 while on a tour to promote her latest book The Blind Assassin. In March of that year, Margaret was in Australia birdwatching when she observed red-necked crakes, partly inspiring her story. Her other main source of inspiration was her time spent thinking about survival scenarios in the company of close relatives who happened to be scientists. Her writing was also influenced by her visit to the Arctic north, where she experienced the effects of global warming firsthand. Although she took a break from writing after the September 11 attacks, she still managed to finish and publish the book by 2003.
While this book was being written (2001-2003) people the world over were still fresh to the new millennium and the remarkable advances in science, technology, medicine, and art that had come out of the 20th century. In terms of western society, the future seemed bright and full of promise and achievement, then the September 11 attacks occurred. The entire world was struck with fear and dread as the newest threat to humanity emerged: terrorism. It's certainly easy to make connections between events occurring in the book and in real life. The miraculous advances in bioengineering represent the potential that humanity had at the turn of the millennium. The book was also written not long after the birth of Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be artificially cloned. This leap forward of man's perceived mastery over nature was most likely a heavy influence for Margaret as well. As for the terrorist attacks, it can be argued that they didn't influence Margaret much since she was on hiatus after September 11, 2001.
Power
In terms of power within the story of the novel, the text so far suggests that governments have become weak and instead large, influential corporations have come to be more powerful. The only real threat to these corporations is each other. This is shown by a constant scare among corporation staff that spies from rival corporations are stealing their corporation's secrets for profit or development. The only real form of subversion to this power we have encountered thus far would be Jimmy's mom escaping the compound after completely obliterating both Jimmy's father's and her own computers. After it is confirmed that she has escaped, security personnel are dispatched to Jimmy's house and question both Jimmy and his father on nearly every topic related to Jimmy's mother. Since Jimmy lives in a walled compound made for corporation employees, it is most likely considered an extremely serious offense to escape the compound, as well as destroy valuable research data stored on computers.
Culture
The only major cultural event that has been hinted at by the story is the wiping out of nearly all of humanity, and even this can only be inferred by the information given by the novel so far. The story, however, is rich with cultural references, especially in the names of consumer products, genetically engineered organisms and facilities that produce them. Names such as "wolvog" (wolf-dog hybrid), HelthWyzer (health-wiser) and Blyssplus (viagra) are all deliberately misspelled to give the human world a detached feel when compared to the actual world. These fictional references are nearly always understood via context.
The main value presented (in my opinion) by the culture the protagonist lived in is that "Nature is our toy, we'll do what we want with it.". This was expressed often by Jimmy's parents arguing, with Jimmy's mom against genetic engineering, and his father dismissing her worries. These can also be used to illustrate the larger tension between groups in this futuristic society. Some (in fact most) seem to be alright with hybridizing life, while some like jimmy's mother disagreed so much that they are separated.
While this book was being written (2001-2003) people the world over were still fresh to the new millennium and the remarkable advances in science, technology, medicine, and art that had come out of the 20th century. In terms of western society, the future seemed bright and full of promise and achievement, then the September 11 attacks occurred. The entire world was struck with fear and dread as the newest threat to humanity emerged: terrorism. It's certainly easy to make connections between events occurring in the book and in real life. The miraculous advances in bioengineering represent the potential that humanity had at the turn of the millennium. The book was also written not long after the birth of Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be artificially cloned. This leap forward of man's perceived mastery over nature was most likely a heavy influence for Margaret as well. As for the terrorist attacks, it can be argued that they didn't influence Margaret much since she was on hiatus after September 11, 2001.
Power
In terms of power within the story of the novel, the text so far suggests that governments have become weak and instead large, influential corporations have come to be more powerful. The only real threat to these corporations is each other. This is shown by a constant scare among corporation staff that spies from rival corporations are stealing their corporation's secrets for profit or development. The only real form of subversion to this power we have encountered thus far would be Jimmy's mom escaping the compound after completely obliterating both Jimmy's father's and her own computers. After it is confirmed that she has escaped, security personnel are dispatched to Jimmy's house and question both Jimmy and his father on nearly every topic related to Jimmy's mother. Since Jimmy lives in a walled compound made for corporation employees, it is most likely considered an extremely serious offense to escape the compound, as well as destroy valuable research data stored on computers.
Culture
The only major cultural event that has been hinted at by the story is the wiping out of nearly all of humanity, and even this can only be inferred by the information given by the novel so far. The story, however, is rich with cultural references, especially in the names of consumer products, genetically engineered organisms and facilities that produce them. Names such as "wolvog" (wolf-dog hybrid), HelthWyzer (health-wiser) and Blyssplus (viagra) are all deliberately misspelled to give the human world a detached feel when compared to the actual world. These fictional references are nearly always understood via context.
The main value presented (in my opinion) by the culture the protagonist lived in is that "Nature is our toy, we'll do what we want with it.". This was expressed often by Jimmy's parents arguing, with Jimmy's mom against genetic engineering, and his father dismissing her worries. These can also be used to illustrate the larger tension between groups in this futuristic society. Some (in fact most) seem to be alright with hybridizing life, while some like jimmy's mother disagreed so much that they are separated.
Interesting analysis Erdem, I think Oryx and Crake is definitely very reflective of the fears of our time period.
ReplyDeleteI was interested in your point on the entities that hold power in young Jimmy’s world. The fact that large corporations now hold the most power shows the some of the issues with capitalism. Just like any other system involving humans it is not perfect. In this world, capitalism has grown out of the control of the governments, so that now the populations’ values are pretty much solely based on making money, succeeding according to capitalist laws. Oryx provides a first hand example of this: her mother was forced to trade human love and affection for money. She also raises the concern that capitalism is not the right system to combat climate change. In young Jimmy’s world, people are making great advance in science, but are not doing so to reverse climate change. Instead, the “nature is our toy, we’ll do what we want with it” works only to help big companies to make a profit. This issue is very present today, as there are stunningly rapid advances in consumer technology, while advanced technology is applied much less eagerly. Because the value system is centred around profit, there is no room for the wellbeing of the human race to be considered.
This is a great post Erdem. I was really interested to read your point on the deliberate misspelling of familiar words. I agree that this was done to foster a sense of detachment. This kind of device is often seen in dystopian novels now.
ReplyDeleteOryx and Crake is a startling prediction of the near future. Margaret Atwood seems to do this a lot, taking modern events and ideas and amplifying them slightly to prove her point. It was interesting to me that Dolly the sheep was cloned around this time—this would definitely have influenced Atwood's writing, and is probably the basis for some of the ideas around cloning and genetic modification. I will say though, I disagree with the comment that 9/11 may not have influenced Margaret Atwood as much. I think the widespread fear of a threat to our way of life that was spread and created by the 9/11 attacks probably influenced the apocalyptic nature of the book. When 9/11 occurred, many people were afraid it would spell an end to the Western way of life, or in fact develop into another world war. This attack put terrorism 'on the map' in many parts of the world, and that kind of mass cultural fear would doubtless influence or encourage thoughts of the end of our way of life.
Finally, the red-necked crake. I figured there was probably some symbolism in Atwood's choice of name (she rarely does anything without a meaning behind it), but I didn't really know before you brought it up. I think it's important to note that the red-necked crake is currently a species of least concern on the conservation scale—though it is extinct in the future that Oryx and Crake presents. This is just shows us how much of the world's animal species have been destroyed in this dystopian future.
All in all, this was an excellent post with many well-written points that made me think. Thank you for sharing. :)
Hi Erdem! It is great that you did some research here, but you should also acknowledge the source of that research. A link or work cited notation should accompany it.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry, I didn't realize that I hadn't posted the link! I mainly used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake#cite_note-randomhouse-atwood-9 which is a wikipedia page, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/1013/margaret-atwood was the actual source of the information.
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