From page one, Margaret Atwood does an incredible job at forcing readers to believe in her futuristic creation. However, by the time we close the book, readers realize that this futuristic world can be just around the corner. Additionally, Atwood leaves a tremendous amount of responsibility on the reader. Not only are we forced to make our own conclusions about the Crakers, Snowman, and the group that Snowman encounters, but just as any utopian/dystopian text, readers are expected to do something with the reading. In other words, once we all agree that Oryx and Crake is a fate we hope to avoid, Atwood indirectly asks us how we avoid such fate.
A large part of Oryx and Crake is centered on mankind’s dependency on technology and innovation. Atwood uses this novel to question whether our race is moving closer to extinction with our obsession with “moving forward”. With a twist of irony, the character Crake chooses to manipulate human beings and the natural world in order to bring us closer to the natural world. The question therefore is this: can our innovations become our demise? In Hannes Bergthaller’s essay, “Housebreaking the Human Animal”, he calls this dilemma the “ecological crisis – a crisis that…[arises] from flaws in humanity’s biological make-up.” Exposing mankind as a species that prefers to manipulate it’s surroundings rather than adapting and coexisting with it, Bergthaller connects Atwood’s fictional novel to scientific concerns on sustainability. Going so far as comparing human beings to species of which are now extinct, he explains that the idea of over-populating an area until all resources are used up, is natural in itself – nothing but natural selection in a populated world. Thus, Bergthaller sides with Atwood by challenging the human species. However, while Atwood’s position is to provide readers with a novel that can act as a threat, Bergthaller installs what he calls “the ecological imperative.” That of which “humans ought to acknowledge (to properly perceive) that they are a part of nature and behave accordingly…Humans ought to behave like a part of nature because they are a part of nature.” Such a point can hardly be refuted (especially after reading Oryx and Crake) but is this ecological imperative even possible? Can we advance as a society in ways that do not include technology and/or technological innovations? Both Bergthaller and Atwood suggest that we have no other choice. But in my opinion, if you’re about to turn to your smartphone and ask Siri for the answer, then I think we already have our answer.
Bergthaller, Hannes. “Housebreaking The Human Animal: Humanism And The Problem Of Sustainability In Margaret Atwood’s Oryx And Crake And The Year Of The Flood.” English Studies 91.7 (2010): 728-743. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Feb. 2013.
So, one of the most interesting parts of the overpopulation types of arguments in favor of reducing the human birth rate is the prevalence of racism, classism, and colonialism in that goal. Right, it’s never that WE (white, middle class people) are having too many babies – it’s those people in Africa and Asia who have terrible, controlling husbands, outdated cultural customs, and a lack of access to birth control. And, that narrative is scary too. Women around the world (esp brow women) are absolutely subjected to sterilization and reproductive control by the state/their country’s government. Technology is controlled by people who have all these terrible biases.
I think maybe Crake had that (human’s curiosity) in mind when he set off to make the Crakers. Instead of killing everyone off and just putting a group of humans in the wild, he had to engineer an entirely different race that, supposedly, wouldn’t make the same “mistakes.” I doubt that Atwood’s threat is that the world is forever ruined by humans but that was one of Crake’s motivations. In the scene where the Crakers start praising Crake and Oryx the reader starts to see the breakdown of Crake’s vision (he did not want them to believe in a god). Are the Crakers still too human? Will they ever change, in this aspect or the one you raise in your post? Does a COMPLETELY different species have to be created in order to not have these problems? I believe Atwood’s intention is to have her reader think about ecological, environmental, and societal issues more closely, but how effective is change in a human when an altered one still makes the same mistakes?