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Conflicts and Relationships in Oryx and Crake: Analytical Essay
Even from a young age Jimmy noticed that Crake seemed disinterested in girls and claimed that he received no signals telling him what kind of girls Crake was into (Atwood, 73). In fact, Crake thinks that sex is a messy and convoluted way of reproduction and sees it as a downfall of human engineering. Things such as jealousy, sexual assault, relationship maintance, etc are seen as unnecessary and debilitating side effects of an ineffective species. “‘How much misery,” Crake said one lunchtime – this must have been when they were in their early twenties and Crake was already at the Watson-Crick Institute – “how much needless despair has been caused by a series of biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones?
Resulting in the fact that the one you love so passionately won’t or can’t love you. As a species we are pathetic in that way; imperfectly monogamous. If we could only pair-bond for life, like gibbons, or else opt for total guilt-free promiscuity, there’d be no more sexual torment. Better plan – make it cyclical and also inevitable, as in the other mammals. You’d never want someone you couldn’t have.”’(Atwood, 166) Crake see’s humans and their habits as ineffective and inefficient, believing that he knows better ways for the human race to function. This results in him eventually creating the Paradise Project in which he creates a new species of humans which others call the Crakers. Crake begane with altering ordinary human embryos until the Crakers began reproducing themselves. This new type of human was void of any racism, hierarchy, or need for territory (Atwood 305). They ate nothing but plants, went into heat at regular intervals to eliminate sexual torment, and had no need for things like tools, weapons, houses, money, etc.
They are a representation of what Crake believed humans should be, perfectly self sustained with all the little issues and kinks engrained in original humans ironed out until a perfect species was made. Crake’s preference towards science goes beyond just developing a new species of humans. In fact, Jimmy mentions that he thinks it may be possible that Crake killed his own mother and step father while formatting the virus that would eventually be released through the BlyssPluss pill in order to eradicate the original human race. This is a basic relationship, between parent and child, that Crake seemed to have little use for or interest in. Enough so that he eliminated them in order to pursue his scientific research.
The only person besides Jimmy that Crake has any sort of relationship with is Oryx. However, as stated before, she tells Jimmy that sex with him is mechanical. It seems as though even when he is having sex he isn’t doing it for the intamcy or to be close to another person, but simply for release. Likely understanding that he is also apart of the ineffective human race and therefore has basic needs that need to be satiated. Despite that, he sees no point in complicating the matters further than that, in creating a formal relationship or glorifying sex with any unnesesary details. It is suggested by Jimmy that Crake may have eventually become aware of Oryx and Jimmys relationship but whether or not he actually cared is unknown. Crake had previously spoken about jealousy and how, in a perfect species, that would go away. So it’s possible that Crake was simply unbothered by it. Oryx was helping him satisfy needs that he had and beyond that cared very little about who else she saw. However, it is also unclear if Oryx and Jimmys relationship had anything to do with his subsequent murder of Oryx and his own death in response As mentioned before, the Crakers that Crake genetically created dont contain any level of romantic or intimate relationships with one another outside of pure reproduction. Their is no courtship or fighting over mates, jealousy, or sexual assault.
Crake has accomplished this by programming the Crakers to go through mating cycles like many other species. In that way, romance and sex will bever be a problem and will never get in the way. This shows exactly how Crake feels about interpersonal relationships and intimacy. He sees them as purely unnecessary and something that is just in the way of a more productive and efficient human race. It is also mentioned more than once by Jimmy that the Crakers are simply boring. He claims they often sit around and do nothing and yet seem completely satisfied. From this we can see that Crake puts a lot more weight on productivity and the effectiveness of a species than on entertainment, relationships, or anything similar. He thinks in strictly scientific aspects and gives them a value that greatly exceeds anything else. With the crackers we see the conflict between love and science fade away. Relationships and science have both been eradicated, the Crakers feel no need to court one another outside of mating at the intended times or in the pursuit of knowledge. Family, marriage, religion, art, science, all of it no longer holds any use. Therefore, the intense battle between humanity and science that was so prevalent throughout the novel seems to become nonexistent, useless even as the Crakers would lack the knowledge to understand such a problem.
Oryx and Crake is filled with conflicting viewpoints about which is more important, scientific progress or the ability to form intimate connections with other humans. Sharon vs Jimmy’s father, Jimmy vs Crake, Jimmy vs Oryx, protesters vs big corporations, all show the constant battle. All need to decide whether they value the ability to further themselves scientifically, to make life easier and to strive for immortality, or interpersonal relationships, the ability to connect to one another on a deep level and to care for one another. It seems that by the end of the novel that science has prevailed. The original human race has been eradicated by Crakes virus and the only human society left is the Crakers who have no use for such philosophical problems. This leaves the readers with the question of what they would choose. It is no longer an important question to the characters by the end of the novel because neither option is possible anymore, but to the readers it is. However, thankfully, Atwood leaves the readers with some semblance of hope. The novel ends with Snowman, Jimmy, finding out that other original humans have stumbled across the Crakers and are in the general vicinity (Atwood, 364). The last pages narrate Snowman’s indecision on how to approach the others, whether to offer a white flag in hopes of peace or to potentially attack them. The readers never get to see what Snowman decides to do, nor what the response of the others is. But it leaves a sliver of hope that the conflict between science and humanity may be reborn, or perhaps that the latter will prevail after all.
Works Cited
- Atwood, Margaret. “Oryx and Crake”. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2003.
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