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Oryx and Crake
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Oryx and Crake - Chapters 12 - 15 (October 2013)
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Sophia
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Oct 04, 2013 05:42AM
What do you think motivates Crake in the work he does? Why does he contaminate the BlyssPluss Pill?
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It's a good question, and I'm not sure there's an adequate answer. I saw some revenge motif at play - especially when Crake mentioned having the runaway scientists thrown off an overpass. There's also the consideration of the 'Blood and Roses' game mentioned in the previous thread. It's not so much that Crake knows he has won (which is also true), but that there is little chance of winning by trying to make the world a better place. A rather bleak and nihilistic view, yes, though there is a certain logic to it.
The games are definitely worrying. I wonder if they set this world up, such that the people who win them - or invent them - are the ones bound to succeed and to rule any new world order?There's definitely a dichotomy between the arts and science in this novel. Susan Squier suggests that the novel distinctly illustrate how education that separates scientific and aesthetic ways of knowing produces ignorance and a wounded world. Which rather begs the question, but surely this is how things are now?
Is Atwood suggesting that our educational system means that we are doomed?
Typically pursuits that boiled down to numbers are favored. Math, numbers, chemistry, something quantifiable, but the arts are much less favored. What are the first programs to be cut from schools? Art, music, recess...Snowman feels like a moron in his youth because he's not a numbers person. He feels as though everyone around him is disappointed in him because of this.
What Crake tries to do by removing humans and replacing them with the crakers is try to remove the passion from the world. The crakers were not intended to have a capacity to wonder, to create art, to speculate.
What kind of life is that?
Some of the earlier threads suggest that there is a lot more to discuss about the Crakers without the constraints of spoilers, so I'm going to do a bit of highjacking here (sorry Sophia) and bring up that theme in this final thread.I'm not quite sure how to put my thoughts into words, but I found it fascinating that the Crakers weren't trusted with scientific knowledge. Why that is would make for an interesting discussion in itself, but what piqued my interest was how the sentience of the Crakers demanded a reason for everything. In the absence of science, a deity (Crake) became the default explanation. Perhaps this is Jimmy's fault, making it an example of how even the best intentions are thwarted by the middleman (see i.e. theories that St. Paul twisted the message of Jesus), but I still found it fascinating how Atwood positioned the god factor in terms of the Crakers.
Daniel wrote: "Some of the earlier threads suggest that there is a lot more to discuss about the Crakers without the constraints of spoilers, so I'm going to do a bit of highjacking here (sorry Sophia) and bring ..."A lot of people I know who read this are fascinated by the crakers.In part, I think Snowman does it to annoy Crake. The other part, I think, is trying to explain to them things that we've known since childhood.
Think about it. When did you first learn what a car was? Or a television? Or an airplane? Or sickness?
Mostly, the crakers freak me out because I think of them as a visualization of the tree falling in the forest riddle. If they can't grow, learn, evolve, explore, and discover, then how are they different than a squirrel? At least a squirrel can evolve with a changing environment, it seems to be the crakers were intended not to (because the capacity to evolve with the environment leads to evolving mentally and socially?).
Sophia wrote: "What do you think motivates Crake in the work he does? Why does he contaminate the BlyssPluss Pill?"What comes to mind is "Don't get mad, get even."
I mentioned in a previous comment that Crake strikes me as a psychopath with a god complex. He seems to think it is his right, almost his duty, to pass judgement on the human race and deal with it as he sees fit. Through the whole book Crake coldly calculates the "problem" and quietly pursues a "solution". This is not a character for whom messy human emotions like fear, guilt, and regret play a significant role.
The fact that the BlyssPluss Pill (promising sex without consequence) is used to transmit the virus reminds me of how in horror movies the teenagers who sneak off to have sex are often (always?) the first to die. As if sexual interactions mean you have sinned somehow and deserve what you get.
Daniel wrote: "It's a good question, and I'm not sure there's an adequate answer. I saw some revenge motif at play - especially when Crake mentioned having the runaway scientists thrown off an overpass. There's a..."I was curious about this in the previous thread...why this assumption that Crake has won the game? Crake is dead. There are still humans alive. Jimmy (the Roses side, I assume) is still alive...
Heather wrote: "Typically pursuits that boiled down to numbers are favored. Math, numbers, chemistry, something quantifiable, but the arts are much less favored. What are the first programs to be cut from school..."Yes. What kind of life? And the elites in this novel (the scientists) are also not free by any means. They seem like prisoners.
Angelina wrote: "... the elites in this novel (the scientists) are also not free by any means. "Does the concept of freedom exist in a world like this? Does Plebeland offer more opportunities?
Sophia wrote: "Angelina wrote: "... the elites in this novel (the scientists) are also not free by any means. "Does the concept of freedom exist in a world like this? Does Plebeland offer more opportunities?"
Pretty much anywhere in this world is terrible. The pleeblands are dangerous (wait til book 2), and the compounds are basically Stepford.
Angelina wrote: "Sophia wrote: "What do you think motivates Crake in the work he does? Why does he contaminate the BlyssPluss Pill?"
What comes to mind is "Don't get mad, get even."
I mentioned in a previous comm..."
TVTropes put forth something I went back and read a second time to check out. Go back and read the chapter where they graduate now that you know what blyssplus does. Crake's mother died of a horrible, unknown disease, and his stepfather was SERIOUSLY TERRIFIED of him by that point. The trope mentioned is "Self-Made Orphan."
Heather wrote: Go back and read the chapter where they graduate now that you know what blyssplus does. Crake's mother died of a horrible, unknown disease, and his stepfather was SERIOUSLY TERRIFIED of him by that point.Yes, I pretty much suspected Crake when I read it the first time. Nothing quite as scary as an extremist.
Angelina wrote: "Heather wrote: Go back and read the chapter where they graduate now that you know what blyssplus does. Crake's mother died of a horrible, unknown disease, and his stepfather was SERIOUSLY TERRIFIED..."I wouldn't call him an extremist. Really, the only way I can some up this world and everything in it is "world of hipsters and yuppies."
Yes, but a yuppie with a mission. And what a mission. If things had gone according to plan what did he envisage?
What's scary is, aside from the crakers showing a capacity for higher ideas, I think he did.
