These questions ask you not only to demonstrate your comprehension of Oryx and Crake, but they ask you to apply other claims and ideas as well. Be sure to offer textual evidence (examples) with page numbers in parenthetical, like so (25).
Please post your initial response by Wednesday July 21 at 11:59 p.m. This is worth 3 points.
Once you have posted your response, please comment (100-150 words) on two of your classmates posts. Do so by Friday July 23, at 11;59 p.m. This is worth an additional 2 points.
Questions:
Historic Beginnings: The book has two epigraphs, one from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and one from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Why do you think these were chosen? What significance does each have for the projects in this novel?
The Future is Now: Oryx and Crake includes many details that seem futuristic, but are in fact already apparent in our world. What parallels were you able to draw between the events and surroundings in the world of the novel and those in your own? Consider, for instance, the issues on which Snowman’s mother hyper-focuses in “Hammer” (see p. 63).
Temporality: How is time addressed in this novel? If time is a human construct, then how does it function in the world of Oryx and Crake? Does it not matter any longer? Or does it matter differently, and if so, how? What forms of “slow violence,” as described by Rob Nixon can you identify in Oryx and Crake? What is the relationship between time, pacing of the narrative, and the fast or slow nature of forms of ecological violence? You might also consider how time affects the structure of this novel. For example, how do foreshadowing and flashbacks work differently in this novel because of its narrative structure?
Life Skills: In the Chapter “Nooners,” Snowman describes a Life Skills course he had to take in school (p. 42). Why would none of these skills still constitute Life Skills in the world of Oryx and Crake? How have certain kinds of knowledge become obsolete? Is there a distinction in this novel between practical knowledge and education? If so, why might that matter for how we understand this text?
Creating Gods: Snowman soon discovers that despite himself he’s invented a new creation myth, simply by trying to think up comforting answers to the “why” questions of the Children of Crake. In Part Seven in the chapter entitled “Purring,” Crake claims that “God is a cluster of neurons,” though he’s had trouble eradicating religious experiences without producing zombies. How do Snowman’s origin stories negate or enhance your understanding of spirituality and how it evolves in various cultures? Why might this belief system matter in the world of Oryx and Crake? Consider also the parallels between this aspect of Atwood’s novel and similar issues in The Island of Doctor Moreau. Why might the tension each author establishes between science and religion be a central issue for thinking about what constitutes humanity?
Eco-Dystopia: How does Allison Dunlap define an eco-dystopia? What is her argument about Oryx and Crake as an eco-dystopia? Why is the collapse of the human-over-nature hierarchy understood as utopian by some and dystopian for Atwood? Provide examples from the novel of the ways that an ecotopian vision bears negative consequences in the world of Oryx and Crake.
Private v. Public Power: In Oryx and Crake, a great deal of power is in the hands of large corporations and their private security forces. There are more private police forces in North America than there are public ones. Society is policed by powerful forces in the forms of the CorpSeCorps (shortened form of Corporate Security Corps). Provide a close-reading / analysis of how the control of society affects the characters’ relationships with the natural world. What are the advantages of such a system? What are the dangers? In your response, address the ways that government power policed the information shared with the world about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
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