Oryx And Crake

2206 Words5 Pages

Margaret Atwood’s science fiction novel, Oryx and Crake, can more accurately be referred to as “speculative fiction.” Dystopian speculative fiction “takes what already exists and makes an imaginative leap into the future, following current sociocultural, political, or scientific developments to their potentially devastating conclusions” (Snyder). Atwood utilizes her novels in order to share her views on politics, feminist and modern society. She creates these dystopias to distinctly mirror aspects of modern society that are threatening to women. Consumerism within the modern world diminishes the possibility of gender equality, when society degrades and exploits women. By creating characters such as Oryx, Atwood emphasizes how easily women …show more content…

She believes that her femininity in a drastically misogynistic society is an advantage because of her ability to use her sexuality and body to benefit monetarily from her situation. Oryx even chastises Jimmy for implying that the man who bought was a bad man. She comments that “if it [weren’t] for him, [she] wouldn’t be here. You should like him!” (Atwood 316). She then proceeds to encourage Jimmy to like him. Atwood’s use of situational irony allows her to emphasize that sex work is the product of a corrupt and commercially driven society, giving young women no other alternatives. Atwood uses Jimmy and Oryx to juxtapose the gender gap in their society when Jimmy cannot fathom Oryx’s life because it varies so drastically from his own. To highlight Jimmy’s ignorance to the oppression Oryx has faced and give an objective point of view of their society, Atwood purposefully narrates the novel in a male perspective. In her other novels, Atwood is most known for her “use of first-person narrative to explore female imagination, consciousness and creativity” (Showalter) to chronicle the struggles of women through victimization and oppression. By telling the story through the eyes of Jimmy, rather than Oryx, Atwood shows the inherent inequality between men and women. The abuse of the female identity that is dominant in modern society becomes apparent in the narrative through Atwood’s juxtaposition of the polar points of view. Oryx believes that being bought and sold as a sex object has improved her life, giving her a means of survival when there were no other alternatives for women like her. In such a society, women are able to use their sexuality to their advantage over men. When Jimmy and Crake first encounter the video of eight-year old Oryx, she produces an immediate and powerful effect on them. While watching the video “the

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