storyline

• The turn of the 21st century marked advances in science and technology which changed how we talk about the future of culture
• The importance and prestige of the humanities has declined as STEM fields have become more and more profitable and influential
• Corporate influence over public policy has also been on the rise, and scientific research and consumer culture together have created an environment where commodification is intensifying
• Oryx and Crake is widely considered to be an extension of these efforts, an extrapolation of current trends to imagine where those trends might lead
• The novel

  • Split into two storylines
  • First follows Snowman's endeavors after the human population of Earth has been wiped out by a massive deadly plague
  • Second follows Jimmy (Snowman's name before the plague) and describes how the Crakers, the plague, and Snowman's lonely existence came to be
• Snowman's daily routine

  1. Eats scavenged food

  2. Hears voices from the past

  3. Interacts with the Crakers
• Crakers

  A genetically manipulated group of beings who are similar to but not the same as humans and survive easily in this environment
• Oryx

  A mysterious woman who appears to Snowman's hallucinating mind in his loneliest moments, is the Crakers' caregiver and creator of all animal life
• Jimmy's childhood

  • Grew up inside a "Compound"
  • Compounds are cordoned off from an outer world called the "pleeblands"
  • His mother quits her job in disgust at corporate corruption and greed and experimentation on animals
  • His only childhood friend is Crake
• Extinctathon

  A game Jimmy and Crake play that involves cataloguing the long list of extinct species
• Jimmy and Crake's lives after college

  1. Jimmy obtains a job writing pamphlets for a corporation

  2. Crake invites Jimmy to work at the prestigious RejoovenEsense compound
• Snowman must make his way back to the RejoovenEsense compound

  Because he knows there will be weapons, food, and other supplies there and he is starving to death and has no protection from predators
• Crake's project at RejoovenEsense

  • A two-part initiative to eliminate human suffering
  • First is a pill called BlyssPluss, which increases libido and energy to eliminate sexual frustration but also contains an undisclosed contraceptive to reduce overpopulation
  • Second is a project involving the manipulation of human embryos to create the genetically modified Crakers
• Crakers

  Genetically modified humans, perfect and strikingly beautiful creatures with bright green eyes, with plant and animal traits bred into them to make them sturdy and to ensure that they reproduce infrequently and experience no lust, attachment, or sexual frustration
• Oryx distributes BlyssPluss pills

  The plague had been in the pills and wiped out most of humanity
• Jimmy

  • Talented with words, not a gifted scientist
  • Plagued by various addictions throughout his youth
  • Despises what Crake has done but cares for the Crakers and worries about their welfare
• Crake

  • Prodigiously talented scientist with a mysterious demeanour
  • Obsessed with creating a biologically optimal human and breeding curiosity, humanism, love, and emotional turmoil out of the human condition
  • Believes humanity as we know it is irreversibly flawed
• Oryx

  • Both Jimmy and Crake are in love with her
  • Her identity is ambiguous, possibly representing several different people
• Crake


  Believes humanity is irreversibly flawed and becomes obsessed with creating a biologically optimal human
• Rationality


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• snowman


  after the apocalypse, jimmy renames himself as snowman after the abonminable snowman as the creature was something that exists but also doesnt
• Crakers


  crakers were the creation of crake meant to be the 'next generation' after crake killed off the entirety of humanity - they were perfect with green eyes and many nonhuman features

  
  

  No sense of malice

  Perfectly adjusted to habitat

  Could consume their own excrement

  Only ate grass

  No sexuality issues

  Couldn't see skin colour

  No hierarchy

  UV resistant skin

  Insect repellant

  Immunity from microbes

  Digest leaves and grass

  Enhanced bonding

  
  

  they also have blue dicks and a blue dance ritual
• pigoons


  pigoons are modified versions of pigs to grow incredibly quickly with human organs
• mango chapter


  wakes near ocean, authentic red sox cap, zero hour clock, pisses on grasshoppers, mangos and sveltana
• flotsam chapter


  crakers in water, ask snowman what objects are, ask about his beard

  
  

  He was a bird who's forgotten how to fly and his feathers fell out and he's cold and needs second skin to wrap himself up

  He's cold because he eats fish and he's cold

  He wraps himself up because he's missing his man thing and doesn't want the children to see, that's why he doesn't go swimming

  Snowman has wrinkles because he once lived underwater

  Snowman is sad because the others like him flew away over the sea and now he is all alone

  
  

  asks crake if crakers could have beards w/ his watch, crake says no and snowman tells them to piss off
• voice chapter


  snowman watched animal programs as a kid and he immitates it, he gets vision of woman fawning over him, he curses out crake
• bonfire chapter


  jimmy was five, ducks with boots and their eyes, sheeps being burnt, jimmy's hair, woman collars, mother's lecture
• organ inc farms chapter


  jimmy's dad worked for organinc, pigoons, andre bristo, ramona
• wolvogs


  wolves that look and act like dogs and then when luring another creature in they pounce
• jimmy


  snowman's name as a child
• organ inc


  the compound jimmy's father worked at
• Andre's Bistro


  the resturant serving employees at organ inc
• ramona


  jimmy's father is in love with her, she is his lab assistant who is very pretty and tries to be motherly with jimmy after his mother disappears
• Jimmy's mother


  she met jimmy's father at organ inc before quitting, she strongly disapproves of the organization's actions and has depression, she ultimately runs away with jimmy's pet killer
• Dolores


  she was jimmy's nanny who left after he started going to school
• Rakunks


  a mix of a raccoon and a skunk, they are domesticated
• Ms Stratton Call-Me-Sally


  she is one of jimmy's teacher whose voice he hears
• Oryx


  oryx is a girl who was initially a prostitute, she was sold from a poor village to a rich man, the man used her for flower selling and for a game of catching pedophiles and exploiting them, she ends up as crake's partner in the craker partner and ultimately killed by crake to get jimmy to shoot crake
• Killer


  jimmy's pet rakunk he originally wanted to name bandit but changed to killer as his mother suggested he call it bandit
• NooSkins


  jimmy's father's new job was at nooskins, an organization which involved using pigoons to create new skin for individuals wanting to look younger