Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2014
Poster Presentation
The MaddAddam Trilogy, Humanity, and Other Species
Seth Bleuer
Faculty Mentor: Everett Hamner
English
The world we live in today is a fast-paced one, where the science and technology of
tomorrow can become yesterday’s news in the blink of an eye. This paper examines the
futuristic world created by Margaret Atwood in her recent MaddAddam trilogy. In Oryx
and Crake (2003), Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013), Atwood creates a
world using real science and biotechnology, social trends, global climate change, and
many other aspects of daily reality to probe the very nature of what it means to be
human. By developing complex characters of different backgrounds, species, and social
circumstances, and forcing them to struggle to survive together, Atwood asks hard
questions about the role of mankind in Earth’s future. After detailing the science that
backs up the fiction, I will focus on the main factions we are left with by the end of the
trilogy: the MaddAddamites, the Painballers, the Pigoons, and the Crakers. Taken
together, these groups’ humanity and their inhumanity challenges both our definitions of
these terms and our sense of humanity’s future role in this world.