Oryx and Crake
As an ethical and moral issue…
Xenotransplantation in today’s society is
“…That’s all we need, more people with the not seen a typical moral issue. When the
brains of pigs”
idea of using animal organs first
-Jimmy’s Mother Pg. 56
originated, the initial thought was to use
our closest atomic match, the
As a developing science…
chimpanzee, but that is where ethical
“The main idea was to find a way of
issues developed. It is seen as a very new
replacing the older epidermis with a fresh,
science in the making, with very little
new one…”
actual procedures actually attempted. It is
Pg. 54
in the research stages. Australia has been
the main advocator of the new science,
As used in Oryx and Crake…
“…you’ve thought up yet another way to rip using pigs to grow human cells that could
then be used to develop organs. This
off a bunch of desperate people…”
would potentially solve the extreme lack
Pg. 56
of organs from donors.
Oryx and Crake
School
HelthWyzer High:
Both Jimmy and Crake graduate from HelthWyzer
High. When a student graduates, institutes bid for each student,
and the students get recruited away. Every compound school
creates smarter than average kids, but Crake was something
special.
Martha Graham Academy:
A dump of an art school in Jimmy’s eyes. He suspects
his dad of twisting the arm of the school’s president to take him,
so he does not even feel worth it at the beginning. He see’s his
time at Martha Graham as just the time before he gets a job and
becomes one of the faceless masses. Despite his morbid attitude,
these are probably the best years of his life.
Watson Crick Institute:
The Ultra Ivy-League school for the irregularly smart
geniuses society produces. Crake’s pride, and experiments reside
here. His questionable creations are his life, and both the
Crakers and BlyssPluss are his doing.
Oryx and Crake
The Internet and Technology
The internet
represents the smut
Technology is the
and perversion that
business, and science is
Atwood’s society
the ultimate money
revolves around. Oryx
making machine,
is introduced through
generating the
the internet, as is the
compounds, cross bred
boys knowledge of the
freak animals, and in the
outside world during
end, societies demise.
their childhood.
What is Happicuppa?
•Huppicuppa was developed by Helth Wyzer
•Coffee beans ripen at different times requiring them to be hand
picked.
•Happicuppa is a coffee bean that is designed to ripen
simultaneously with all of the beans.
•Reduces work needed for harvest.
•Huppicuppa beans were harvested and grown by machines.
•Growing Businesses close. People lose their jobs! (3)
•Loss of jobs creates panic.
•Forces coffee growing community into poverty like state.
•Mobs and riots break out world wide
•Happicuppa profits continue to raise
(2)
Happicuppa in Comparison to
Starbucks
•Starbucks consists of 7000 plus stores world wide
•Approximately 3 new stores are opened every day
•Net revenue of $335 million as of 2003
•26% of a total increase in net revenue each year
(1)
•One of the most popular franchises in the world
•Happicuppa vs. Starbucks (real world)
ChickieNob
(4)
“What they were looking at was a large bulblike object that seemed
to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came
twenty thick fleshy tubes, and at the end of each tube another
bulb was growing.” (3)
 What is a ChickieNob?
 Select chicken meat with high growth rate built in, no hormones
needed.
 The future of fast food?
Jimmy
•Jimmy is the character before the outbreak occurs and all the homo sapiens sapiens
die.
•Also is known as Jimmy up until he visits the Crakers for the first time and takes them
to there new home.
•Obsessed over Oryx before he knew her in person.
•Once he met Oryx, he was even more obsessed over her.
Snowman
•The character after the outbreak.
•Also from the point he visits and talks to the Crakers for the first time and takes them
to there new home.
•Takes care of Crakers
•Lives on the sea shore a short distance from the Crakers.
•Dreams and has visions of his past. Re-lives everything that’s happened to him through
dreams.
•Dreams of Oryx, thinking her spirit visits him once in a while.
Jimmy
 Mother and father worked for Helthweizer.
 Mother left him and his father when Jimmy was young.
 Best friend was Crake
 Went to school at Martha Graham and worked at AnooYoo upon graduation.
Then ended up working for Crake in Paradice.
 Wore fancy clothes, and owned fancy things.
 Went to pleebands to have a good time at bars.
 He loved Oryx.
Snowman
 Always dreaming
 Doesn’t wear any clothes anymore (Except for a bed sheet)
 Lives on little supplies.
 Drinks when he can, but has a shortage of alcohol
 He doesn’t want to do anything that may get him a disease or make him sick

Paranoid of catching a virus he can’t cure (such like the one Crake created)
"Jimmy went in to
see the Pigoons"
Pic 1
"Snowman wakes
before dawn" Pic 2
"Enter Oryx"
Pic 3
"Snats don't
squeak; they
hiss" Pic 4
Society around Science
 Compound Life – Life is the compounds revolved around




science and technology.
Crakers – These people were created “perfect” by man, so that
when known civilization was wiped off the face of the earth,
they could repopulate and make the “perfect” society.
Blysspluss – This was the miracle pill
Crake – Crake was the father of the Crakers, and the reason for
the fall of mankind.
Crake’s Father – was thought to have been murdered for his
knowledge of this these types of sciences before, and was not
the only one.




Compound
Life



Tall walls surrounding the houses, a gated area where there
was searchlights and security outside, were compounds.
Outside of the compound walls, things were unpredictable.
The compounds were created for people living in them to
be safe from world like diseases and outbreaks.
The idea of the compound was the same as a castle with
drawbridges which kept the people inside safe and the bad
out.
Inside the compounds there was night patrols, curfews, and
sniffer dogs after drugs.
Each compound is different from one another.
HelthWyzer





It was more striker than other compounds.
Security was much tighter at the gates were guards were ruder
and suspicious of everyone who came along.
Their phones and e-mails were bugged, and they had spies that
were disguised as house cleaners that would come twice a week
to each home.
It was also one of the bigger and newer compounds.
RejoovenEsence


One of the most powerful compounds of all.
With twelve foot high walls that were electrified and it was very
clean, well landscaping, having a expensive look.



It was known as the cities.
There are tall and short buildings, endless streets and billboards,
and neon signs.
Lots of vehicles and people hurrying and rioting in the streets.




The public security was weak and not well controlled.
The kids were wild and run in packs all over the place:







Spitting on the sidewalks
Walking and talking close to one another.
They would trash places and things
Overdose
waste themselves from loud music, toking and boozing.
People who didn’t know there way around the pleeblands, it was
known to them as a ultra-hazardous place. The compound people
didn’t go to the pleeblands unless they had to but they never went
alone.
Crake referred the pleebland as a Petri dish with lots of things
happening and contagious diseases.
The air was a lot more hazardous with a lot of objects blowing in the
wind and with a few whirlpool purifying towers around.
There is a variety of different people that lived in the pleeblands.



The rich
The poor
The hookers.
Pleeblands
Paradice Project Dome
Paradice Project Dome

Crakes Project, he was working on immortality


His concept and agreed to actualize it.
The Paradice dome was located at the far right side of the RejoovenEsence Compound.

It had its own park around it

Dense climate controlling plantation

Very tight security around the park.

The dome was made out of mussel-adhesive/silicon/dendrite formation alloy, ultra-resistant.

It could recon form itself after pressure and automatically repair any gashes.

It had the capacity to both filter and breathe but required a solar-generated current to do so.

An airlock was used in case it had to be sealed off from fanatics, toxic attacks, or hostile bioforms.

The staff in paradice were the top of the line from MaddAddam.

The population in the dome was ultra secret. No one was allowed out the complex.

Two major projects that are within the Paradice dome:

The Blyss Pluss Pill

The Crakers(The main project in paradice
Development of Crakers
 Crake decided to make a new race of “humans”
 They would be perfect
 Crake was going to eliminate all other humans who
were not good enough according to him
 He had many “ingenious” ideas about how they should
work
 He made them completely non-human
Features of Crakers
 They eat plants
 Have bug repellant in their skin (citrus scented)
 Have sunscreen in skin
 Believe anything they are told
 Are completely lacking in artistic skills because Crake
thought art was useless
 Unaware of the “old” world
 No sense of fear or danger, think everything is good
 Purring to cure others
Mating Ritual
 Rather than having sex whenever, which Crake
thought was pointless, Crakers would only have sex to
make babies.
 Women’s stomachs would turn blue
 Men would dance around her
 She would choose 3-4 men to mate with
Animal Crossbreeding in Oryx and
Crake
 Rakunks
 Friendlier than a raccoon
 Less smell than a skunk
 Wolvogs
 “bred to deceive” (314)
 Cute like a dog
 Dangerous like a wolf
 Snats
 Rats with green scaly tales and fangs
 Pigoons
 Organs could be customized
 Cheaper than cloning
http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=3695&display=photoshop
Purpose of crossbreeding
 Remove genetic weaknesses
 Create new breeds
 Prevent inbreeding
 Save endangered species
Playing God
“Create-an-animal was so much fun, said the guys
doing it; it made you feel like God” (72).
“‘I thought you didn’t believe in God,’ said Jimmy.
‘I don’t believe in Nature either,’ said Crake” (315).
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York:
Anchor Books, 2004.
Works Cited




Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: Anchor Books, 2004.
Picture 1. Compound
<http://picasaweb.google.com/jlschroder/Zambia/photo#5097211192366085490>
Picture 2. 8 Beautiful cities at night: Boston <http://picdit.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/8beautiful-cities-at-night/>
Picture 3.The Domes one of
three.<http://blog.lib.umn.edu/dress005/kimsblog/2007/05/the_domes_one_of_three.ht
ml>
Work Cited
 Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. 1st. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
 Pic 1- Jason Courtney, Jimmy with the pigoons, Oct 3, Jimmy went to the pigoons, Mar. 1
2008,
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.perdador.com/fall06/oryx%26cra
ke02.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.perdador.com/f6update/Oc3.html&h=689&w=1024&sz=
167&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=iPBWuY5cGxlKDM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=150&prev=/imag
es%3Fq%3Doryx%2Band%2Bcrake%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
 Pic 2- Jason Courtney, Snowman sitting on a tree, Oct 3, Snowman walks before dawn,
Mar. 1 2008 http://www.perdador.com/fall06/oryx&crake02.jpg
 Pic 3- Jason Courtney, Oryx, Oct 3, Enter Oryx, Mar 1 2008
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.perdador.com/fall06/oryx%26cra
ke02.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.perdador.com/f6update/Oc3.html&h=689&w=1024&sz=
167&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=iPBWuY5cGxlKDM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=150&prev=/imag
es%3Fq%3Doryx%2Band%2Bcrake%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
 Pic 4- Jason Courtney, A rat and snake mix, Oct 3, Rats don’t squeak they hiss, Mar. 1
2008
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.perdador.com/fall06/oryx%26cra
ke03.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.perdador.com/f6update/Oc3.html&h=768&w=593&sz=1
52&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=-ms4XmXBiG6PM:&tbnh=142&tbnw=110&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522Snats%2Bdon%2527
t%2Bsqueak%253B%2Bthey%2Bhiss%2522%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den
Sources cited
1. (1)Workforce management.com. 2008. Workforce Management.
March 3, 2008.
http://www.workforce.com/section/02/feature/23/52/96/
2. (2) Mensa-Barbie. Com. March 3, 2008. Mesa-Barbie. March 3, 2008.
http://mensa-barbie.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html
3. (3) Atwood. Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: Random house inc.
2003
4. (4) News letter archive.com. May 2, 2007. News letter archive. March 3,
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