Oryx And Crake: Chapter Analysis

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While reading Oryx and Crake, I found myself confused as I read through the first few chapters. The chapter that brought it all together for me was chapter five. After reading this chapter I feel like it brought the whole plot together. In the chapter titled “Fish” and “Bottle” it is explained that Crake has genetically engineered the Crakers and Snowman is here to contribute to building their moral and philosophical universe. Prior to this chapter I was confused as to what role snowman was playing in this story. Now that I had a better understanding as to the childhood of the characters and their roles in society now, it made me wonder, what if this was real life? What if in today’s world we were all genetically modified to look how we desired? …show more content…

In this weeks TED Talk, Paul Root Wolpe spoke on the stages of evolution and where we stand today. We now have the ability to clone animals so we can prevent extinction, we genetically modify animals for human benefit, we have the technology to wire cameras into animal’s brains and control their every move. With all this being said, if we can do this to animals, it’s only a matter of time before we can do it with humans. I don’t know where I stand on bio-engineering and the idea of genetically modifying our offspring to guarantee them a better healthier life. I am completely against the idea snowman presented in chapter five where everyone looked the same, no wrinkles, or any sort of flaw. I’m against it because I believe that’s what makes us humans, humans. I find beauty in the flaws, beauty in the imperfections, why would anyone ever want to make us all look “perfect”. I put perfect in quotes because who is to even say what perfect really is? Your version of perfect can be insanely different from my version of perfect. The idea of using bio-engineering to expand one’s life expectancy and better the lives of everyone around the world is something I don’t mind paying interest

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