Oryx and Crake

Knowledge is power and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I know it’s cliche, but in an age of increasing technology and wealth inequality, it could not be more relevant. For when technology combines with the advance of capitalism and greed, this gap between the rich and the poor will only continue to grow. In the novel Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood explores this concept, commenting on how technology has changed our culture and lifestyle while putting forth a grim vision of our future through the eyes of Jimmy, one of the only survivors of a catastrophic world of technology. As he navigates the chaos which has consumed his world, Atwood ponders the advantages and disadvantages technology has brought to human beings.

In the novel, scientists live healthy and affluent lives in corporate compounds and work on various projects while communities in the pleeblands are left marginalized, suffering from disease and lacking access to the technology of those in power. In this system, corporations control all the power. They even create diseases and other harmful products so they can sell the vaccines, all for the sake of profit. In fact, governments don’t seem to exist at all, epitomizing what happens when corporations are allowed to run rampant - the pinnacle of capitalism. This knowledge of science and marketing, combined with the vast surveillance system they have created through technologies claiming to provide safety, enables corporations to perpetually grab more and more power until the separation between the two classes is beyond reversible, revealing the complete authority they have achieved in the ruling public’s lives. Thus, with the invention of these products, corporations have merely found more covert ways of securing their power, remaining in constant control over every aspect of life.

This extreme segregation of society reflects the same situation we are seeing in our globalized world, where mental and physical barriers are already being made between communities. For example, the compounds the upper class live inside in Oryx and Crake are simply an expansion of gated communities. These communities do not succeed in solving crime, but instead move it to different areas, just as it is moved to the pleeblands in the novel. It is simply, then, a piece of technology followed through to its logical and possibly inevitable conclusion for better or worse. This becomes a common theme in Oryx and Crake, for though not all of the technology it presents exists today, it always has its roots in reality. It is, therefore, a form of speculative fiction, exploring the possibilities of our future based on today’s reality. However, considering its catastrophic endings, it goes beyond merely speculation.

Oryx and Crake is a warning against a future of technological overreach fueled by soulless capitalism and corporate greed. Yet it is also an indictment. The charges? Lack of compassion, lack of empathy, loss of humanity. The accused? Humans, particularly societies in the west which continue to perpetrate and tolerate violence, exploitation, and degradation even as they achieve increasingly stunning advancements in every field of scientific and intellectual study that would allow for its prevention. This indictment, however, uncomfortable as it is to admit, is addressed to all of us - including you, dear reader.

If we continue to permit the Crake’s of this world to go unchecked, secretly and perhaps unknowingly bringing about the destruction of the world as we know it, we are in dire trouble. Something has to change. It’s intriguing, then, to consider why Jimmy is the protagonist of this story. Although he is flawed and vulnerable, he does his best to succeed in the world he was given. As a reader, we don’t always like him, but we relate to his struggles and identify with his deepest desires, that of acceptance and love. Consequently, when he is left alone in the aftermath of Crake’s pandemic, we also identify with his feelings of helplessness and despair as he contemplates his role in humanity’s destruction. In this way, Jimmy represents the everyday man/woman - an individual that could have acted, but didn’t. From this, it is clear that Atwood suggest social change begins with the individual, but if Jimmy is culpable, then so is everyone else who sacrificed empathy for a comfortable life.

The injustices of every age arise from ignorance, as those in the pleeblands know, and a lack of empathy, apparent in the upper classes. It would seem that empathy is easy to give up for selfish gains, but in the modern age, ignorance is hard to sustain. With the onset of the internet, it takes considerable effort, for reality has a way of getting through the cracks no matter how hard we try to ignore it. Nonetheless, once someone has given up on empathy, the facts are of little importance, for what does the suffering of other people matter when you no longer see them as equally human. And what impact, then, can one person - one individual - have on the whole of society? Jimmy may have been able to change things on a small scale, but when it comes to the big picture, not so much. After all, he only has control over his own actions. But perhaps that’s the point.

Change doesn’t come quickly and it doesn’t occur because one person demands it - unless, of course, that person destroys humanity with a disease - rather, change stems from the combination of individuals, each effecting change on a small scale which together goes on to affect the big picture. In other words, you change the world by changing yourself and your own behavior.

To be honest though, most of us can’t be bothered. We can’t get past the idea that big-picture events are beyond our control. Instead, we do what Jimmy does. We become rigid. We follow the path of least resistance. Renewable energy? Sounds expensive. Going vegan? Sounds inconvenient. Voting? Yeah right, nothing is going to change. The real costs of all these things don’t affect us directly, just as the costs of all the injustices in the world of Oryx and Crake don’t affect Jimmy. That is, until he meets Oryx, someone who was affected by them. Maybe we should worry more about when we will meet an Oryx of our own, rather than complaining about the minor inconveniences compassion entails.