Some may not be brave enough to tackle this topic head on, but I recognize it as an important part of the characters and their relationships, so I’ll give it a glancing blow. It is also interesting that the entire book has only spanned about 2 days of Snowman time; this makes me wonder how much time has passed since the big event if only two days have passed in this whole narration.
Oryx
I’ll start with Oryx and get the character that will be the least comfortable to talk about out of the way first. If you do not want to hear the backstory of a child porn-star, then I’d suggest skipping this one. To preface the backstory, Snowman questions, “[h]ow long had it take him to piece her together from the slivers … There was Crake’s story about her, and Jimmy’s story … and … her own story about herself, which was different from both” (114). The following story is broken up by sections of a conversation Jimmy and Oryx have regarding her past, but it is not clear whose version of the story is being told (I suspect it is Snowman’s recollection of Oryx’s story).
Oryx grows up in an unknown region of Asia and is sold out of her home village at a young, unknown age (around 5 years old we suspect) to a questionable salesman, Uncle En, who, while one of the fairest individuals by this version of the story, says that the children may come back if they work in the city for a while when, “things were better,” but, “no children ever came back” (121). She worked by selling flowers, then by being pedophile bait (not to put them in jail mind you, just to take all their money). Later, Uncle En shows up dead in a river and Oryx gets taken to San Francisco to where she becomes the Oryx Jimmy and Crake see. She makes a deal with Jack the camera man to learn to read English in exchange for sexual treatment.
The most interesting part is how comfortable she can talk about her past and how she does not appear traumatized by the experience; to her, it was just her childhood. In fact, “[i]t was less boring … to make the movies than to do what they did the rest of the time … “ (139).
Other than her childhood, the only information we know about her is that she is the goddess of the animals in the weird religion that Snowman teaches to the Crakers.
The Main Character
Jimmy
Surprisingly, Jimmy is one of the least interesting characters in the novel. His role seems to only be a tool to develop the other characters in the novel and to provide an exposition of the setting (oh yea, and also to become Snowman). Because of this, I there is some more elaboration on him in the other analyses.
One role Jimmy takes is Crake's foil. He is not a numbers person, whereas Crake is, and his responses are primarily emotional instead of cold and objective like Crake’s. Also, Jimmy goes to an arts and literature school but Crake focuses on the sciences.
Jimmy also plays an important role in contrasting Oryx’s thoughts on her childhood. Jimmy recognizes what happened in her childhood as terrible and continues to ask Oryx questions about it when she answers them as if her life was like any other child’s.
Snowman
Snowman is the present tense version of the main character. At some point in the transition period between the old world and the new, he dropped the name Jimmy, but he always looks into the life Jimmy, despite regretting it every time. Snowman is slowly dying and he takes an alarming amount of time to do something about it (or at least it feels that way; it has only been two days).
To the Crakers, Snowman is Jesus, telling stories of Oryx and Crake. He builds a religion centered around these two people: Crakers are the Children of Crake, and the animals are the Children of Oryx. Interestingly enough, he builds up Crake as God, but he likes to see him be wrong, such as the very idea that the Crakers accept this religion he is teaching them, and, “[m]aybe he’ll endow Crake with horns, and wings of fire, and allow him a tail for good measure,” (104) to make Crake match his idea of evil (ironically the Crakers wouldn’t understand that any of these features characterized the devil). During a drunken fit, his hatred of Crake continues to build. He thinks, “[w]hat’s his life worth anyway … He’s served his evolutionary purpose, as fucking Crake knew he would. He’s saved the children” (107). This begs the question of why Snowman survived when Crake didn’t.
Crake
Unlike Jimmy, Crake is a numbers guy. He thinks very objectively and carefully determines the best way to accomplish a task, especially when beating Jimmy at the games of their youth. “Crake would get fixated on a game, and would want to play it and play it … until he was sure he could win, …” (77). He becomes very condescending during their college years. When Jimmy brings up art as a justification for not making a Crake’s perfect species, Crake says, “’I guess they still do a lot of jabbering about that, over where you are” (167). He even goes as far as to say that, “[p]eople can amuse themselves any way they like. If they want to play with themselves in public, it’s fine with me’” (167) in comparison with “art-and-creativity” (166).
Crake’s communist beliefs materialize before Snowman goes on his journey; he notices that one of the Crakers is “getting to be a bit of a leader, … Watch out for the leaders, Crake used to say. First the leaders and the led, then the tyrants and the slaves, then the massacres” (155). Crake seems to believe that everyone must be equal in a perfect society, but this amplifies the issue of lack of creativity; if there is no desire for being better than someone, then why do anything extra? Maybe for the purpose of survival, it is optimal, but for advancement Jimmy’s “art-and-creativity” may play a role!
The Children of Crake (Crakers)
Snowman oversees a village of Crakers, the genetically engineered species that Crake created, to make sure they do not get hurt (or so he thinks). They are supposed to improve on all of humans’ flaws and have gone through many revisions testing different traits. Crake develops them like a product for consumers and doesn’t consider their lives as meaningful in the testing phase, which supports the message criticizing the overuse of genetic engineering.
Even though they are supposed to be better than humans in every way, Atwood criticizes these improved traits through Jimmy’s character. Jimmy says that, “[a]ll that [relationship] mismatching you talk about. It’s been an inspiration, …” (166). It begs the question of what the cost of a perfect species may be. It may mean that nothing is left over, because, “art is all that’s left over” (167) of a population.
Final Thoughts on Characters
Overall, these characters are intertwined in a way that is not clear yet and all of our knowledge seems to be filtered through the decaying mind of Snowman so we may not know what is reliable and what is not. Throughout the novel, Snowman is always trying to remember parts of his youth but doesn’t always do so with complete success. Why should these stories about Crake, Jimmy, and Oryx be any different?
Good discussion of characters, Kevin. It's interesting that when I think of this book, the pornography is not a strong memory. I suppose it's because of some of the other elements I remember, other elements that relate because of how they negatively depict humanity, the horrible things we will do to others. Perhaps this is why Crake doesn't want a leader for the Crakers, because with leaders comes power and the corruption that can come with power.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you're right to be a bit confused still. The novel builds toward a very specific scene/event that clarifies all of Snowman's conflicting emotions about Crake and Oryx.