Oryx and Crake 9/15

The Children of Crake were intended to live as immortal beings, as immortality comes from lack of fear. In order to achieve this, Crake eliminated an interest in art, reading, or religion. However, with the revelation that the Crakers built an effigy to summon Snowman home, this distinction is called into question. Has Crake really achieved immortality for his creations? Is his concept of immortality flawed? Is there a way for humans to become immortal?

6 thoughts on “Oryx and Crake 9/15

  1. When considering whether or not Crake really achieved immortality in the Crakers, I think the answer would depend on your own interpretation of immortality. I personally think Crake ultimately fails. Crake has a distinctive interpretation of immortality set a part from the traditional meaning. He reinvents the definition to mean having no fear of death and/or dying—not necessarily having everlasting life. Like many other things, Crake manipulates qualities of the Crakers to fit his own interests. Based on his definition of immortality, the Crakers are made to die at age 30 so to prevent any sickness, anxiety or further aging that occurs after 30 years. I think this notion of immortality isn’t valid because in reality immortality is the ability to live forever or to have eternal life and Crake’s children are unable to do so. Instead they are actually dying younger than humans. I would prefer to live a longer life and face death than to just drop dead at 30.

    However, I could see where some might argue that Crake is successful. In some cases immortality is sought after because in avoiding death and having everlasting life, you are able to go about life not worrying about death. By having the Crakers simply die at 30—no exceptions—a certain fear of death might be eliminated, but I am still not convinced.

    • Can you write a full point, first body paragraph, second body paragraph, and then a conclusion essay in 2 days for me. It is for a school assignment,

  2. The idea of immortality is one that has popped up throughout human history, as does the question of what makes one immortal. Crake seems to think that it is the lack of fear, and using his form of ‘logic’, it seems to make sense. However, as Miller stated, a more commonly held idea of immortality is to be undying. I think that it is Crakes insistence that the Children of Crake have no interest in art that doomed his creation from achieving immortality. To me, immortality is being remembered more than it is the same person continuing on through the ages. This is why art itself is immortal- we remember the art of the ancient Egyptians, read the poetry of people through the ages. We might not know their names in every case, this is true, but we remember and look at their art, things that have lasted millennium. By elliminating reading, he has taken from his Children the works of many other ‘immortals’- people like Confucious and Shakespeare, authors who like on through their works long after their bones are dust. By limiting his creations, Crake has kept them from immortality. Once they die, they might be remembered for a time, but eventually even memory dies.

  3. I tend to take the same approach as Jimmy initially did with Crake’s envision of ‘immortality’; it sounds like applied rhetoric 101. Crake’s flaw lies in his very definition of mortal v. immortal. Immortality isn’t the ability to die without fear– it’s the ability to not die. While his goal for the Crakers falls in line with his continuous strive for a purely rational humanity, he again applies his very bias sense of what is rational in order to fuel his God complex. Furthermore, Atwood clearly shows the Craker’s religiosity when summoning Snowman (“Ohhh. Munnn”) and their connection to him as a savior. I think Crake’s biggest fault lies in the fact that his creation is derivative of humans and yet he tried to strip them of all that humanity is. While they may be ignorant to these subjects in history of art and religion and may not have the cultural bearing to conceptualize it, Atwood’s portrayal here shows their is still an innate sense of humanity, and therefore mortality.

  4. While reading this part of Oryx and Crake about the elimination of art, it immediately reminded me of the gallery in Never Let Me Go. According to those guidelines of proving humanity, not only the Crakers’ lack of skill in art but their lack of interest in art possibly proves that they do not have a soul. Thus, while they’re “immortal,” they are no longer human beings, just fabricated forms of them. Though this is questioned, it shows that the immortality is indeed flawed because it strips them from needed human traits and they still possess the capability to die, they just lack the fear of it.

  5. I’m not sure if fear and lack of art and religion are synonymous. I feel as if Crake attempted to do away with art and religion because he, personally, finds them a waste of time. Crake might actually succeeded in creating a type of immortal being for the same reason Levena thinks he fail. Immortality, or the closest we can get, is achieved through others remembering you. What Crake did fail at is the suppression of art and religion.
    In Craker society, Crake and Oryx are immortalized through the religion the Crackers have created around them. The did show signs of forming a religion in the early days, back when Crake was still alive, when they asked, “who made them” (311). By the end they show ever more signs of a basic religion with Snowman’s effigy and the lore about Crake living in the sky. Combine the remembrance as a form of immortality with a lack of fear of dying and immortality, in this sense of the word, becomes easily achievable.

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