Journal 4

"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood, Final Reflection

This book has humbled me. Atwood is an undisputed master of irony.

Atwood uses ironic devices to unify the work as a whole. For example, when Snowman is considering the Crakers, he imagines an "earnest aid worker in a khaki jungle outfit, with netting under the arms and a hundred pockets" (p 118), and calls her a "Condescending self-righteous cow". When Jimmy has to confront the Crakers for the first time, he wears "a set of standard-issue Rejoov khaki tropicals, with mesh underarms and a thousand pockets" (p 348). Perhaps this is to illustrate that Jimmy is a hypocrite, or to show that Crake and those at RejoovenEsense think too highly of themselves, or simply as a coincidence which makes Snowman's thoughts more relevant to the real world.

To me, one of the most beautiful ironies is the paragraph "What happened then was a slow-motion sequence. It was porn with the sound muted, it was brainfrizz without the ads. It was melodrama so overdone that he and Crake would have laughed their heads off at it, if they'd been fourteen and watching it on DVD" (p 326). This metaphor perfectly offers the connotations of the situation (since Jimmy and Crake's experiences are discussed in philosophical detail earlier in the novel); the irony lies in the fact that something with familiar qualities is alien and terrifying. Smoking weed and watching porn was once Jimmy's release and it defined him and now the same spiritual significance is directly related to the climactic scene when Oryx and Crake die; this represents understanding Crake's terrible plan for humanity, the death of everyone Jimmy loves and the understanding that he never had any control of the situation: "Did he set up the grand finale as an assisted suicide, had he intended to have Jimmy shoot him because he knew what would happen next and he didn't deign to stick around to watch the results of what he'd done?... Could it be that Uncle Pete, and possible even Crake's own mother, had been trial runs?... Had he been a lunatic or an intellectually honourable man who'd thought things through to their logical conclusion? And was there any difference?" (p 343). The page 326 reference creates unity by linking the initial complication of the plot (meeting Crake and watching porn) to the climax (the same bloody bodily significance, only now it's the end of all happiness).

The climax, specifically when Jimmy kills Crake, was terribly exciting, and I'm sure it fits a Polti situation: Supplication (but is Jimmy begging Crake to be merciful, or Crake begging Jimmy to end it all?), Deliverance (Oryx delivered from Crake? Crake delivered from life?), Rivalry of Kin, Self-sacrifice for an Ideal (though it's tragic), Necessity of sacrificing loved ones, Erroneous Judgement (though Jimmy is happy with the decision), even Conflict with a God (Crake being the God... he does have a religion amongst the Crakers...)? I want to discuss this scene heavily in my project.

Interesting to note that an experience with familiar qualities in an unfamiliar context is so horrifying for Jimmy, but his greatest joy came from Oryx; who had unfamiliar qualities ("What did she have in mind? Snowman wonders, for the millionth time. How much did she guess?", p 323) in a "familiar context" (that is to say, she was an affectionate female lover, and Jimmy admits to being a sex addict who had had many similar previous experiences). I guess this also isn't particularly surprising since we are more likely to be tolerant of change (unfamiliar properties) when we are comfortable (familiar context), and to be fair, when we are uncomfortable we are wont to suspect anything, even that which is familiar.

I'm shocked and disappointed that Jimmy was such a minor character in the end. He was kept in the dark by his love and his best friend and never had any true influence after all. It's astonishing because I became so attached to him; I pitied his awkwardness, admired his persistence, respected that he didn't really understand why he was put through the whole adventure.

I like how the epigraph from Gulliver's Travels connects so intimately to Jimmy. Throughout my reading I've commented on how Snowman/Jimmy is so direct in his discussion he "[chooses] to relate plain matter of fact in the simplest manner and style". He generally just states the facts and avoids the airy hypothesizing of a lot of the other characters, particularly Crake. I just realized that he has one important and deep philosophical reflection, on page 85:

"When did the body first set out on its own adventures? Snowman thinks; after having ditched its old travelling companions, the mind and the soul, for whom it had once been considered a mere corrupt vessel or else a puppet acting out their dramas for them, or else bad company, leading the other two astray. It must have got tired of the soul's constant nagging and whining and the anxiety-driven intellectual web-spinning of the mind, distracting it whenever it was getting its teeth into something juicy or its fingers into something good. It had dumped the other two back there somewhere, leaving them stranded in some damp sanctuary or stuffy lecture hall while it made a beeline for the topless bars, and it had dumped culture along with them: music and painting and poetry and plays. Sublimation, all of it; nothing but sublimation according to the body. Why not cut to the chase?"

This explains a lot, come to think of it. If the body is most important, no wonder Jimmy's always doing drugs and having sex. No wonder he leaves all the thinking to other characters. No wonder he's disillusioned with both art and science. This belief, while it offers him release and freedom (for example, "Crake's sexual needs were... not intriguing, like sex with Jimmy", p 314), seems to be Jimmy's central flaw as well; from a practical perspective, he's either too drugged or unwilling to think/feel on a nonphysical level to get any work done. In another frame, he can't penetrate Crake's "intellectual web-spinning" or Oryx's "[refusal] to feel what he wanted her to feel" (p 191); instead he's confused and upset most of the time. Weird, maybe the three central characters can be described as Crake-Mind, Oryx-Soul and Jimmy-Body. Maybe they all experience their tragedies because they cannot understand/communicate with/respect each other properly (Crake tells Jimmy he needs to grow up, Oryx says Jimmy is silly, Jimmy fears Crake and is mystified by Oryx, and Crake seems to dominate both of the other two). I think this is thematic, but I hope I'm not getting too ahead of myself and overanalyzing.

I associate Oryx and Crake in many ways with Frank Herbert's Dune, possibly my all-time favourite novel. Both are science-fiction concerning human evolution, both discuss the application of logic to emotions and the power and danger inherent in that. Crake's philosophy reminds me of the Missionaria Protectiva of Dune. The critical difference that puts Oryx and Crake apart is the heavy discussion of the body and naturalistic thinking (just about everything Jimmy thinks) and their place/misplace in life. I feel the exposure to these ideas has been beneficial to my own "kinaesthetic" intelligence.

Way to go, Margaret Atwood!