Oryx and Crake – Sept 15

It is revealed to us that the Crakers dream (as well as sing) because Crake could not remove these things from the human essence. What does this say about Crake playing God? What does this say about the Craker’s humanity in a posthuman society? How does this fact maybe set up an image of the Craker’s future?

4 thoughts on “Oryx and Crake – Sept 15

  1. As it is said in a Jurassic park “life finds a way,” I think we can apply that here. I think that this is just an allegory, and the moral of the story being, one can try to manipulate nature and play God, but in the end sentient beings will develop these things regardless. I think this is just foreshadowing, telling the reader that these Crakers will evolve regardless of what Crake intended. “Watch out for art, Crake used to say. As soon as they start doing art, we’re in trouble. Symbolic thinking of any kind would signal downfall, in Crake’s view. Next they’d be inventing idols, and funerals, and grave goods, and the afterlife, and sin” (361). They will develop culture, through song, and maybe eventually even societal rituals. They will possibly develop religion, as they created an idol to pay homage to Snowman for a safe journey home. The idea here is that the sentient mind, as we have seen in the evolution of the human, will always evolve, and will continue to gain knowledge about the world and its place in it. These Crakers will develop a concept of the soul, it may not be called a soul for them, but this is the inevitable progression of self aware and conscience life.

  2. As it is said in a Jurassic park “life finds a way,” I think we can apply that here. I think that this is just an allegory, and the moral of the story being, one can try to manipulate nature and play God, but in the end sentient beings will develop these things regardless. I think this is just foreshadowing, telling the reader that these Crakers will evolve regardless of what Crake intended. “Watch out for art, Crake used to say. As soon as they start doing art, we’re in trouble. Symbolic thinking of any kind would signal downfall, in Crake’s view. Next they’d be inventing idols, and funerals, and grave goods, and the afterlife, and sin” (361). They will develop culture, through song, and maybe eventually even societal rituals. They will possibly develop religion, as they created an idol to pay homage to Snowman for a safe journey home. The idea here is that the sentient mind, as we have seen in the evolution of the human, will always evolve, and will continue to gain knowledge about the world and its place in it. These Crakers will develop a concept of the soul, it may not be called a soul for them, but this is the inevitable progression of self aware and conscience life.

  3. While I certainly agree with James’s comments about the representation of larger humanity through their stated ability to dream and sing, I am unsure about the supposed hopefulness of this message. Though Crake repeatedly expresses a distrust and dislike of all things abstract or non-scientific, I do not think his children’s apparent adoption of a slightly artistic past time represents the failure of his uber-rational vision for his creation. After all, though the children build a shrine to Snowman, appear devoted to him as prophet, and, as the question points out, engage in song, these artistic/spiritual/humane developments are just recurrences of earlier human developments. Moreover, if they represent the children of crake’s development, do they not also represent the children’s development toward a society governed by modules, compounds, and genetic modification? I think if that we are to view the children as allegorical, it is certainly a less than hopeful allegory. More directly, I think, Atwood offers readers a view of humans on a precipice of development. The children’s apparent humanity may in fact eventually be erased by their larger development as a people.

  4. I also believe that Atwood’s future for the Crakers is ambiguous, but there are several points in the closing pages that a slightly different future could be in store. Crake is certainly becoming a sort of godlike figure to the Crakers, and Snowman a sort of prophet, a bearer of truths.Linked several times to Moses, with the burning bush and leading the tribes of Israel out of Egypt, Snowman thinks to “Lay down a few commandments, Crake’s parting words to them” (436). However the prophet Snowman also corrects this mistake, saying “No point in telling them not to lie, steal, commit adultery, or covet. They wouldn’t grasp the concept” (436), showing strong confidence that for all of their features, the Crakers aren’t truly fallen like the biblical human. They exist, by the design of Crake, without a laundry list of faults, and any ones they happen upon would have to be derived from their biology, like Crake and even Jimmy believes happened to humanity. The religious commentary is constantly introduced and checked, making me believe that Crake achieved his ultimate end of being a remote designer, and not a loving God patriarch.

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