Explication

Explication of Georges Polti's Twenty-Second Dramatic Situation in "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood

Civilization as we know it and almost the entire human race are destroyed in “Oryx and Crake”; the events including and directly surrounding Crake's final decision to cause this destruction clearly constitute the climax of the story. I argue that the plot as a whole fits the mould of Polti's twenty-second dramatic situation, “All Sacrificed for Passion”. Polti states that the elements of this dramatic situation are a Lover, a Thing Sacrificed, and the Object of the fatal passion. By my taxonomy, Crake is plainly enough the “Lover”, though his passion may be loveless. Similarly, it has already been established that the “Thing Sacrificed” is humanity and the world of the present (our future). What is much more difficult to penetrate is Crake's reason for doing so—the “Object” of his passion.

Ironically, humanity is sacrificed, in a way, for Crake's lack of passion. He believes that humans are "'hormone robots ... only we're faulty ones'" (Atwood 166); he simply intends to follow the example set by his respected father ,who “believed in contributing to the improvement of the human lot” (Atwood 183), by observing the negative traits of humanity, logically inducing their causes, and addressing those causes by means of transgenic modification: his Paradice Project. Emotions never enter into it.

Ultimately, why Crake chooses to poison the human race with his BlyssPluss pill is never explained. He had his two-pronged strategy of the “Pill and the Project” (Atwood 304), which should have gradually corrected humanity's flaws; why did he need to end it all so soon? It could easily have been a mistake, as Crake never has to face the results of his decision; when Jimmy confronts him about it, Crake "[looks] at Jimmy, a direct look, unsmiling" (Atwood 329), kills Oryx, and Jimmy understands that Crake intends for Jimmy to kill him. While Crake is, on the whole, disappointed with the human race, it certainly seems out of character for him to make such an impulsive, possibly illogical decision. It should be noted, however, that the Paradice Project would have been designed to “incorporate any feature ... that the buyer might wish” (Atwood 304), and Crake believes that the wishes of most humans are terribly mistaken, so perhaps he needed more drastic action to correct the species. According to Atwood, “Crake ... suffered from Asperger's syndrome” (Elliott 824), so perhaps the “madness” of his autism is to blame.

Arguably the most likely explanation of Crake's behaviour is that Oryx has something to do with it. As Snowman says, “there were signs” (Atwood 320). Crake “had never been a toucher ... but now he liked to have a hand on Oryx” (Atwood 313), and Jimmy also observes that “Crake was in love, for the first time ever” (Atwood 309); Crake finally embraces the human emotions he condemned for so long. Both Oryx and Crake make Jimmy “'promise ... to take care of the Crakers'” (Atwood 322), and Crake predicts that “'If [Crake's] not around, Oryx won't be either'” (Atwood 321). The two of them probably didn't plan the destruction of the species, as Oryx claims, “'I did not know'” (Atwood 325), but Crake could have been inspired by his love of Oryx to quickly create the “'better place'” (Atwood 322) that she believes in so strongly.

In the end, Crake's decision is suitably enigmatic. Oryx and Crake become like gods to the Crakers, who think of all life as “the Children of Oryx, [and] the Children of Crake" (Atwood 96); this is paradoxical, because “Crake was against the notion of God, or of gods of any kind, and would surely be disgusted by the spectacle of his own gradual deification” (Atwood 104). In fact, there is further confusion when the Crakers create an image of Snowman to “'call [him]'” (Atwood 361); Crake, when making his designs on humanity, believes that “Symbolic thinking of any kind would signal downfall” (Atwood 361). The implication is that Crake, the consummate “numbers person”, has made a fundamental mistake in exterminating the human notions of art and love and meaning.

It doesn't matter why Crake chooses to eradicate humanity as we know it; whether it happened all at once or over the course of hundreds of years, humans would be eventually replaced by Crakers, who, as it turns out, are still imperfect. Atwood's cautionary theme, that science without passion does not hold the secret to all truths, is eternal, and the vehicle of having the avatar of science sacrifice all for his beliefs (mysterious as they are), only to be proven wrong, is a perfectly effective method of conveying this theme.