Oryx and Crake Consolidation
Revision of Oryx and Crake should reconnect the novel's two timelines, its worldbuilding and its ethical questions. The novel is in copyright; use your own copy for short quotations.
Rights note. Margaret Atwood's novel is in copyright. This packet does not reproduce its text, and the Oryx and Crake packet supplies analysis and scaffolds, not passages.
The novel at a glance
| Element | What to retrieve | A claim to test |
|---|---|---|
| Publication and genre | Published in 2003; speculative fiction; the first book in the MaddAddam trilogy. | The novel uses extrapolation to make the present feel implicated in the future. |
| Two timelines | A post-pandemic present with Snowman and the Crakers; a remembered past with Jimmy, Crake and Oryx. | The structure makes the reader investigate causation rather than receive an explanation. |
| The world | Compounds and Pleeblands; corporate power; genetic engineering; Extinctathon; BlyssPluss. | Worldbuilding is a form of argument about who controls life. |
| The plan | Crake creates the Crakers and the pandemic; Jimmy is drawn into the project; Oryx teaches the Crakers. | The novel connects personal desire to a global catastrophe. |
| The ending | Crake kills Oryx; Jimmy kills Crake; Snowman cares for the Crakers; signs of other humans remain; the novel stops before he decides. | The open ending refuses the consolation of a new beginning. |
Worldbuilding names
| Name | What it is | What it helps you analyse |
|---|---|---|
| Pigoons | Pigs engineered to grow human organs. | The commercialisation of the body and the blurring of human and animal. |
| Wolvogs | Wolf-dog hybrids bred as guard animals. | Security culture and the creation of new dangers. |
| Rakunks | Raccoon-skunk pets. | Consumer novelty and the commodification of nature. |
| Bobkittens | Smaller bobcat hybrids, bred to control feral cats and rabbits. | Biological control with unintended consequences. |
| BlyssPluss | A pill promising happiness, health and population control; it causes sterilisation without consent. | The gap between a commercial promise and an ethical reality. |
| Paradice | The project behind the Crakers. | Utopian naming and the desire to design a better human. |
| Extinctathon | An online game about extinct species; Crake recruits players from it. | Play, competition and the normalisation of extinction. |
| Crakers | Engineered humanoids created by Crake. | Creation, consent and the question of what counts as a person. |
Three readings
| Reading | What it notices | A question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Biopolitical | Who controls life, reproduction, health and consent. | Who is treated as a body to be managed rather than a person to be consulted? |
| Eco-critical | Extinction, engineered animals, environmental damage and the fantasy of control. | What does the novel suggest about the cost of treating nature as a resource? |
| Genre | Speculative fiction, satire, dystopia and the uses of extrapolation. | How does the invented world make a familiar practice visible? |
Common errors
- Treating Crake as a simple villain rather than a product of his world.
- Ignoring Jimmy's narration and treating his memory as neutral fact.
- Listing invented animals without explaining their satirical target.
- Ignoring Oryx's exploitation and the novel's critique of it.
- Expecting a tidy ending or a clear moral.
- Confusing the first novel with the rest of the trilogy.
Retrieval questions
- Why does the novel begin after the catastrophe rather than before it?
- How does Jimmy's memory shape the reader's understanding of Crake?
- What does the novel gain by making the Crakers gentle and attractive?
- How does a name such as BlyssPluss or Paradice do satirical work?
- What is the effect of the novel's final uncertainty?
- Which ethical question in the novel is hardest to answer, and why?
Read the plot and structure, worldbuilding and satire and science and ethics pages for more detail.