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Ally Gao
Mrs. Mann
AP Literature - Block 1
10 December 2014
Canonicity in Oryx and Crake
German Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer once said, Do something
wonderful, and people may imitate it. In the art world, imitations are created by the influence of
innovative, provoking, wonderful works of art. The Literary Canon shelves those wonderful
works, paving way for other artists to model their own literary compositions after those originals.
The works present on this metaphorical bookshelf need to be universally relatable, and, more
importantly, distinct from other works, to obtain their place. This brings into question
contemporary novels, such as Margaret Atwoods Oryx and Crake, and their eligibility, despite
its recent publication date compared to that of other deemed classics. Margaret Atwoods
dystopian novel, Oryx and Crake, focuses on the dangers of all-consuming corporate control and
excessive genetic modification, bringing forth caution regarding the fate of humanity as a whole.
However, though Oryx and Crake is focused on more contemporary issues than previous
dystopian novels, it lacks the depth in character analysis and originality necessary to become a
true classic of the Canon.
A central theme of Atwoods contemporary novel surrounds the topic of genetic
modification. The protagonist of Oryx and Crake, Snowman, who also goes by Jimmy in his
memories of the past, recalls: Thered been a lot of fooling around in those days: create-ananimal was so much fun. . .it made you feel like God (Atwood 51). Using Snowmans memory,
Atwood created a society dominated by scientific corporations, generating products with benefits
long sought after by others -- nooskins, to replace old skin with new skin, pigoons,

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organisms grown with multiple organs suited for seamless organ transplants, a pill, BlyssPluss,
that was created to prolong youth, and more (294). These products, prevalent in Jimmys
childhood and adult life, show a society completely given to its scientists. Lee Rozelle, in his
academic article Liminal Ecologies in Margaret Atwoods Oryx and Crake, summarizes
Atwoods actions as having remanufacture[d] traditional philosophical categories of authentic,
synthetic and real in light of millennial scientific and environmental advance. Heather Humann
takes it one step further, describing Oryx and Crake as more of a warning on the potential
ethical and environmental dangers of such a society. As a dystopian novel, Oryx and Crake
poses its own problem of a prevalence of genetic modification in our own society, fueled by
consumer desires. With Atwood naming the companies -- OrganInc, RejoovenEsence,
CorpSeCorps -- and their products, she shows how such irony can be lost in a world dominated
by a search to be perfect through genetic modification.
The effects from such a society is shown in Snowmans present situation; left with
Crakes genetically modified humans -- Crakers -- with a world of rabid genetically modified
animals constantly endangering him, Snowman is used as a symbol for the future of humanity.
Jane Elliot, in her scholarly novel, states that Oryx and Crake is a story of genetic engineering
gone awry[;] it critiques the manipulation of nature, the dangers of scientific progress, and the
damage utopian designs do to the salutary chaos of human life (349-354). Chaos may be the
perfect word to describe Snowmans present situation; Snowman, left to retell and modify
language and history to the Crakers in an effort to rebuild humanity, leaves himself in constant
turmoil over what the truth of his past was. The general tone describing Snowmans present state
is bleak, depressing and gives little space for hope within the story (Chang). Atwoods Oryx
and Crake depicts the future of mankind, if continued down the path of genetic engineering, to
be lifeless -- both literally and figuratively -- in the sense that genetic modification has both

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taken out the natural quality of humans and animals, leaving behind a spiritless, lethargic society
of one.
Though Atwoods focus in Oryx and Crake is clear, with an over-arching theme that
applies to present-day, the focus is often lost when pinned toward her characters. Told from a
third person limited perspective of Snowman, we are able to observe his past -- from when he
was given a pet rakunk, by his father, to when he answered the Corpsman[s] questions on
his mothers leaving, and then to when he watched, frozen with disbelief. . .[as Crake] slit
[Oryxs] throat. . . (Atwood 49, 63, 329). Through Snowmans memories there is clear moral
development, as Humann categorized it as -- from his young stages, remembering his mother
and pet, to when he faced harsh reality in knowing of his best friends desire to perfect humanity
through eliminating what was deemed imperfect. With the help of this limited, third person
point of view and glimpses into Snowmans past life as Jimmy weaving into descriptions of
Snowmans present situation, the protagonist of Oryx and Crake seems to have undergone a
revolution of sorts, mentally, from innocence and ignorance to blinding reality; this identifiable
mental revolution supports Atwoods novel in terms of literary merit in the development of the
main character.
But, with that in mind, it is also imperative to look at Snowmans past supporting
characters, over which the novel was named after: Oryx and Crake. Joan Smith, in her newspaper
article in The Guardian, states that the two main characters apart from Snowman, Oryx and
Crake, named after extinct species, remain two-dimensional. Tied between Snowmans present
life and his past life controlled by genetically modified products and large corporations, the
descriptions of side character Oryx, and her childhood as a prostitute, seem to stray from the
novels main idea (Smith). Crake, in Sven Birkertss New York Times article, was described as
the man who would play God, but needs to be something more than a knowingly enigmatic

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figure conjured onto the page. Both were set at a distance from Jimmy in his memories,
without clear feeling toward or against our protagonist. What is left in Snowmans situation in
humanly interaction is toward the Crakers, but even in these characters there is a distance,
created by his own inner turmoil of the past. Lee Rozelle additionally presents a viewpoint of
other reviewers on the Crakers as most generally agreeing that it is hard to take these
purring, multi-colored, blue-bottomed, blue-penised, excrement-eating, perimeter-pissing,
citrous-scented creatures seriously. . . This description of the Crakers is nearly comical and
brings into question how such characters relate to Atwoods message, besides being a figure
conjured onto the page, as Birkerts similarly described about Crake. Though Oryx and Crake
displays development of its protagonist, its supporting characters remain lost in a readers
response to them -- instead, they seem like side stories, sometimes humorous, that seem to act as
disruptions from Atwoods warning of the future of humanity, and Snowmans present actions as
the only true human left.
In critiquing a contemporary dystopian novel, other than looking at its supporting
characters and character development, there is also a need to compare the contemporary to the
older works that have gained credit to be worthy of the Canon. Hui-Chuan Chang of the
Tamkang Review defined the term of critical dystopias as the label attached to dystopian
works after the 1980s. He describes the past novels containing central themes on the brutal
negative collectivism of mass paleotechnic collectivism to now, as shown in the predominance
of the apocalyptic in Oryx and Crake, as being more directed toward the growing tide of. .
.sentiment in both genre fiction and mainstream cultural analysis at the turn of the present
century. This contrast can be made between Oryx and Crake, the critical dystopia, and 1984,
by George Orwell. A key similarity to bring into discussion is of both characters, Snowman and
Winston Smith, facing flashbacks of the past within the books -- of those flashbacks, both lose

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their mothers. In Winstons memory as a child, the setting is somewhat morbid, with his
continuous hunger and the fierce sordid battles at mealtimes with his mother and sister. In
his memories, Winston faced the selfishness of the desire of chocolate, after it had been rationed
to his family. He, with a sudden swift spring. . .snatched the piece of chocolate out of his
sisters hand. . . and then was fleeing for the door (Orwell 134-135). After this, Winston
never saw his mother again (Orwell 135). In contrast to Jimmy of Oryx and Crake, and his
memory, Jimmys memory is more childish and carefree:
One day Jimmy came home from school and there was a note on the kitchen table. . .
Dear Jimmy, it said. Blah blah blah, suffered with conscience long enough, blah blah, no
longer participate in a lifestyle that is not only meaningless in itself but blah blah. She
knew that when Jimmy was old enough to consider the implications of blah blah. . .A
decision not taken without much soul-searching and thought and anguish, but blah. She
would always love him very much (Atwood 60-61).
The blah blahs show Jimmys blatant disregard for his mother, uncaring of her last words to
him. Instead, Jimmy grew distinctly angry at his mothers leaving -- specifically that she had
taken his pet rakunk named Killer. In this, we see two distinct memories of dystopian novels
from different time periods. As Chang stated, 1984 presented a brutal, negative outlook on
ones selfishness, whereas Oryx and Crake was more of a commentary on the mainstream
culture we have today. Atwoods character faces a selfishness even after his mothers leave, a
selfishness driven by the corporate domination of his society and one of their products -- a
rakunk. Effectively, these two starkly different novels show how time can change literary focus
from one more built with ones human conscience to one including todays culture. Specifically
in Oryx and Crake, the driving force is almost too focused upon todays culture -- pointedly on
the culture present in the first world countries of today -- and the recent genetic modification

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uprising, that its universality as a classic is compromised, as opposed to that of 1984, and its
broadening theme of human emotion and self-indulgence.
Further comparisons of Oryx and Crake to other renown works of the past show how
Atwoods novel is more of a follow-up novel or even parody of other works, as opposed to
standing alone as an original work worthy of the Literary Canon. Atwood focuses on the widely
debated issues of today -- genetically modified organisms, monopoly of economies -- and gives
her novel merit in its hyperbolic warning of mankinds future. But in the same instance,
Atwoods novel seems to also have followed the generic outline of dystopian novels that it seems
oddly cliched with its lack of governmental control and prediction of what could cause the
demise of human society (Elliot). Lee Rozelle adds to this with the claim that the characters,
Oryx and Crake, are clearly influenced by Richard Mathesons I Am Legend, published in
1954 with its similar death of mankind by disease plotline, and works to modify the already
present dynamic between last man and group of post-apocalyptic creatures. Once more,
Rozelle continues in stating that Crakes most telling literary progenitor is. . .Gore Vidals
Kalki, a book published in 1978, with a religious idol turned eco-saboteur who renders the
human race extinct with lotuses laced with. . .deadly bacterium. . . This description is almost
paralleled in Crake, and his invention of the BlyssPluss pill with the appearance of lengthening
ones life but in actuality induced a worldwide plague that seemed to have killed off all but his
own inventions, the Crakers, and Snowman. These clear similarities and influences in Oryx and
Crake show how older, canonical works can give birth to other novels, a process that renders the
influenced work as one of the outcomes of a classic, as opposed to the canonical stance of
propagating others.
Oryx and Crake focuses on a popular environmental topic of today, genetically modified
organisms, projects images of an obliterated society as a warning, and displays a turn in

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dystopian novels to todays issues. But simultaneously, Oryx and Crake has holes in the
development of its side characters and holds strong similarities to previous dystopian novels that
labels the work as more of a parody of other works, as opposed to an original work worthy of the
metaphorical bookshelf of the Literary Canon. Margaret Atwoods Oryx and Crake, though
lacking in this regard, poses itself as a significant warning to us, for the society we live in today,
to leave us with a question of what legacy, and memories, we would like to leave behind.

Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: Anchor Books, 2003. Print.
Birkerts, Sven. Present at the Re-Creation. NYTimes.com. The New York Times Company. 18
May 2003. Web. 29 November 2014.
Chang, Hui-chuan. "Critical Dystopia Reconsidered: Octavia Butler's Parable Series and
Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake as Post-apocalyptic Dystopias." Tamkang Review,
41.2 (2011): 3-19. Web. 22 November 2014.
Elliott, Jane. "The Return of the Referent in Recent North American Fiction: Neoliberalism and

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Narratives of Extreme Oppression." Novel, 42.2 (2009): 349-354. Web. 24 November
2014.
Humann, Heather Duerre. "Margaret Atwood: The Robber Bride, the Blind Assassin, Oryx and
Crake (Review)." Studies in the Novel, 43.4 (2011): 508-510. Web. 29 November 2014.
Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1949. Print.
Rozelle, Lee. "Liminal Ecologies in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake." Canadian Literature,
206 (2010): 61-121. Web. 23 November 2014.
Smith, Joan. And pigs might fly TheGuardian.com. Guardian News and Media Limited. 10
May 2003. Web. 29 November 2014.