Page 300 to 374 Thoughts and Information

Perry 1

Isaac Perry

Mrs. Vallier

ENG 4U

Sunday, Jan 9th/’11

            As Jimmy is lead around Paradice they eventually make their way to the labs where all the scientists are working. As they make their way around all the people working Jimmy begins noticing that all names are ones that were used in the game Extinctathon. When jimmy asks about this connection he is met with the shocking revelation that “these people are Extinctathon. They’re all Grandmasters. What you’re looking at is MaddAddam, the cream of the crop” (298). This is surprising to Jimmy because last time Crake showed him what MaddAddam really was, its members were working towards taking down the large corporations as opposed to working for them. Apparently once the members had started causing some serious damage to the corporations they had large bounties put on their heads. Crake knew that they would not last long so he quickly acted and gave them all an ultimatum. They could have a position at the new top of the line bio lab he was heading up, or they would be hunted down by the very same company.

            After meeting with all the MaddAddam members the pair continued their tour. Crake took Jimmy to the main project of Paradice. “That was his first view of the Crakers. They were naked, but not like the Noodie News: there was no self-consciousness, none at all. At first he couldn’t believe them, they were so beautiful. Black, yellow, white, brown, all available skin colours. Each individual was exquisite” (302). We now know that not only were the Crakers created in the bubble dome, but were literally created by crake himself. This is both shocking and expected. Their name is a dead giveaway, but it had seemed to be a name that Snowman gave them to remember his friend (much like all other species and wildlife had been name Children of Oryx) as opposed to literally referring to their creator. This has me wondering if it was also crake that brought upon the disaster that plagued humanity.

            The thought behind both projects was that once the planet is sterile, people would have to come to their company to have children. They would then be able to choose everything about their new child which would be a Craker instead of a human. Once this project went public, “whole populations could be created that would have ore-selected characteristics. Beauty, of course; that would be in high demand. And docility: several world leaders had expressed interest in that. Paradice had already developed a UV-resistant skin, a built-in insect repellant, and an unprecedented ability to digest unrefined plant material. As for immunity from microbes, what had until now been done with drugs would soon be innate” (304). This would solve a lot of problems, but what is ultimately happening is an effective replacement for the human race. The fact that no one is really opposed to this adds somewhat of a frightening tone to story from here in. There is no one really blowing a whistle and saying that maybe this is unethical or just wrong. It is a scary concept that they are all willing to go through with a plan like this.

            Not too long after getting settled into the facility, Jimmy finally met Oryx in person. While watching the monitors connected to the hidden minicams among the trees in the Crakers’ imitated habitat, “Jimmy saw her face. She turned into the camera and there it was again, that look, that stare, the stare that went right into him and saw him as he truly was” (308). This is a revolution for Jimmy as the one person he has been obsessed with throughout his life but has never met has now become a part of his life. However this is also met with the understanding that Crake has been obsessed with her over all these years as well. Unfortunately for him, Crake put the effort into finding her and is in somewhat of a relationship with her. This kills him inside but to his credit he puts an effort into staying away from her so that he doesn’t do anything to hurt Crake. This is later met by her throwing herself on him and then having a continuous affair with him. This part of the book seems strange because of how quickly it happens.

            The affair between the two then continues to get even more strange when she says stuff like “if Crake isn’t here, if he goes away somewhere, and if I’m not here either, I want you to take care of the Crakers” (322). This makes me think that she had a general idea of what Crake’s true plans were. But after reading what happens to her in the end, it seems more likely that Crake had asked her to seduce Jimmy and tell him to do these things for her. Either way, it just seems too coincidental that this happened so perfectly.

            After agreeing to this strange request, she then went to the store to get them pizza. “What did she have in mind? Snowman wonders, for the millionth time. How much did she guess” (323)? After being absent for longer than it should have taken, Jimmy begins to worry. However this is soon interrupted by the alarms going off in the control room. “At first Jimmy thought it was routine, another minor epidemic or splotch of bioterrorism, just another news item” (324). “Then the next one hit, and the next, the next, the next, the next, rapid-fire” (324). The pandemic spread throughout the globe and all Jimmy could do was watch from his monitor. Crake was out of the labs so “Jimmy tried phoning him on his cell, but he got no reply” (325). Oryx then called Jimmy and said that she was sorry and didn’t know what Crake had planned. “It was in the pills. It was in those pills I was giving away, the ones I was selling, it’s all the same cities, I went there. Those pills were supposed to help people! Crake said…” (325). This is where Crake’s true plan is realized. He had planned it out so that the trial pills they gave to the public all over the world would time a release of this virus or disease.

            Jimmy evacuated who was left in the facility and stayed wait for a reply from Oryx or Crake. Eventually Crake came back to Paradice in a drunken state with Oryx slung under his arm. Talking through the airlock intercom Jimmy is told that the three of them have been immunized to the virus by the pills Crake supplied them saying that they were multivitamins. Jimmy opened the airlock to reveal “Crake’s beige tropical were splattered with redbrown. In his right hand was an ordinary storeroom jackknife, the kind with the two blades and the nail file and the corkscrew and the little scissors. He had his other arm around Oryx, who seemed to be asleep; her face was against Crake’s chest, her long pink-ribboned brain hung down her back” (329). Crake then told Jimmy he is counting on him and proceeded to slit her throat. Jimmy instinctively shot him as it happened but was too late.

            It is a sad way to end the lives of two main characters and leave the protagonist alone in the world. The tone becomes even darker and makes the reader sympathetic for Snowman. He is not a very likable character, but that could be from all the unjust situations he has been put in against his will. As a person he could be compared to Mariam from ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’. Both try to do the best with the hands they are dealt, but in the end there isn’t always a way to make a bad situation good.

            The story continues in the present. Snowman has finally made his way through the trials of the city and is now back in Paradice. Moving past the corpses of the only two people he truly cared for in his life, he makes his way into the labs. “He locates the medical-supply selves, roots around. Tongue depressors, gauze pads, burn dressings. A box of rectal thermometers, but he doesn’t need one of them stuffed up his anus to tell him he’s burning up” (335). The fact he endured this extremely torturous trip just for a few supplies and a gun is a real eye opener at how desperate he has become. He can no longer take advantage of anything at all which is the exact opposite of what everyone in the world did before this event happened.

            Back in Snowman’s memories, he recalls the weeks after the virus’ release. He stayed in the bubble until all the channels and stations went down. That was when he decided the power wouldn’t last much longer so it may be best to leave. Jimmy introduced himself to the Crakers as Snowman. “He no longer wanted to be Jimmy, or even Jim, and especially not Thickney. He needed to forget the part – the distant past, the immediate past, the past in any form. He needed to exist only in the present without guilt, without expectation. As the Crakers did. Perhaps a different name would do that for him” (348). He then proceeds to make up a mythology where he represents Oryx and Crakes as gods who created everything, and sent him to help lead the Children of Crake. They then follow him out of the dome and through the remains of the city and eventually make their way to a clearing in the forest in the clearing beside a river. It is here where they set up a home and continued to live.

            Snowman finishes packing up everything he has taken and begins his journey back to the Crakers. With a gun it is much easier for him to make his way back as he no longer has to worry about the wildlife. While making his way back he notices a large amount of smoke coming from the direction of the camp. Getting closer he is also met with “and unusual sound – an odd crooning, high voices and deep ones, men’s and women’s both – harmonious, two-noted. It isn’t singing, it’s more like chanting. Then a clang, a series of pings, a boom. What are they doing? Whatever it is, they’ve never done anything like it before” (360). Walking towards the group he can now see exactly what they are doing. They had created an idle of Snowman and were chanting for him to return to them. Despite Crake removing the function of their brain he said was responsible for religion and art, it seems that he was unsuccessful.

            During the greetings, it is mentioned that 3 humans came by. Snowman is shocked by this news. He is told which way they went and after leaving the village to go back to his tree, he grabs the newly acquired gun and pursues the small group that had passed by. Following their footprints he eventually comes across the trio sitting around a small fire a minute into the forest. Peering at them through the brush he starts to think about what exactly he should do. Going through different scenarios in his head he finds that the majority of them conclude without a peaceful resolution. “He could finish it now, before they see him, while he still has the strength. While he can still stand up. His foot’s like a shoeful of liquid fire. But they haven’t done anything bad, not to him. Should he kill them in cold blood? Is he able to? And if he start killing them and then stops, one of them will kill him first” (374). The reader is then left to wonder what he did, and what they would have done. The writing really nails how Snowman’s thoughts are all over the place. It also shows that he doesn’t know if to survive in this new world he will have to think like himself, or as Crake would.

Page 200 to 300 Thoughts and Information

Perry 1

Isaac Perry

Mrs. Vallier

ENG 4U

Sunday, Jan 9th/’11

            Between pages 200 and 300 we start to make many more connections between past memories and current revelations. Jimmy and Crake are now graduated from high school and attended different institutions. Jimmy is taking classes at a washed up art college in the pleeblands, while Crake is enrolled in one of the most prestigious universities of science and physics a few hours away. They did however continue to email each other and met up every once and a while.

            Not many interesting or relevant experiences occurred at Jimmy’s college so the majority of his memories from that time are during talks or visits with Crake. One in particular is his first trip to see Crake at his university. “Compared with Martha Graham, Watson-Crick was a palace. At the entranceway was a bronzed statue of the Institute’s mascot, the spoat/gider – one of the first successful splices, done in Montreal at the turn of the century, goat crossed with spider to produce high-tensile spider silk filaments in the milk” (199). Here Crake took him on a tour of the different labs and facilities where he showed off the different species and projects being created. Some of these projects, such as the bodiless chicken breasts, seemed to be crossing the natural line a little too much even in Jimmy’s opinion. “He grasped the concept – he’d grown up with sus multiorganifer, after all – but this thing was going too far. At least the pigoons of his childhood hadn’t lacked heads” (202). Though this may not have an impact on the environment, it is going to put a lot of people out of work.

            These scientists are only thinking about profits when creating new products or species and disregard the long term consequences or effects that don’t impact themselves. Another example of this is the man made wolvogs. They are a ferocious creature bread only to kill. They may be effective for what they are designed to do, but there is no thought put into the concept of them getting out. When asked about this, the reply was “That would be a problem. But they won’t get out” (206). There is so much confidence in their work that they don’t create buffers in case something actually does go wrong.

            On the final evening of Jimmy’s stay, Crake asks him if he would like to play the game from their childhood, Extinctathon. Though he wasn’t a huge fan of it, he agrees and crake shows him what he found after years of playing. After jumping through multiple portals and links in the game, he came to a screen where multiple screens of terrorism like vandalism appeared. It turned out that the game was a way for an anti-corporation group to recruit new members with talent in bioengineering. It was a lot for Jimmy to take in so he asked if it was real. To his dismay Crake said no. “I thought at first they were just another crazy Animal Liberation org. But there’s more to it than that. I think they’re after the machinery. They’re after the whole system, they want to shut it down. So far they haven’t done any people numbers, but it’s obvious they could.” It is clear that this group is serious and will have some part in the story later on in Jimmy’s life.

            During these hundred pages, Snowman is making his way through the city to the bubble dome. He needs to obtain supplies from it because his resources have been exhausted and he will die without more. Unfortunately the way back has become crumbling buildings with savage animals infesting them. Being back in the city is also causing a collage of memories to come back to Snowman. He remembers details that help the reader slowly piece together the events leading up to society’s collapse.

            He scavenges through buildings, deals with manmade animals that have been released and even has to survive a tornado that touches down close to the city. The pigoons were especially difficult to deal with. They did not have any brain function removed when they were created and as such turned out to be very smart. One encounter he had with them they used his “garbage bag as bait. They must have been able to tell there was something in it he’d want, that he’d come down to get. Cunning, so cunning” (271).

            During his adventure through the city, Snowman stepped on a piece of glass. This wouldn’t regularly be a problem, but he doesn’t have shoes and has few things that he can cover the wound with. While taking a rest he receives a “jabbing sensation, like a thorn” (275) and is faced with the worrisome fact that it will soon be infected. Unfortunately this can be a deadly situation without proper care, of which he has no access to.

            After tending to his foot, he takes a rest and begins to have flashbacks to a time after college. While going into work late at the job he has been stuck with for years and continues to hate, he notices that for once no one tells him off for missing the scheduled time. As he is wondering what is going on, a group of people come in to congratulate him on his new job. Apparently Crake had pulled a few strings at his high level job and gotten Jimmy work at a new facility he was heading. He wasn’t sure what the job involved, but it must be big he thought “as he sat in the sealed bullet train. The train had been arranged for him, and so had the move – a team would arrive, they’d pack up everything, they were professionals, never fear. He barely had time to contact his various lovers, and when he did he discovered that each one of them had already been discreetly informed by Crake personally, who – it appeared – had long tentacles” (291).

            Once Jimmy gets to the bubble dome research lab (aka Paradice) Crake fills him in on what exactly they are developing. They are working on what has been dubbed the BlyssPluss Pill which “was designed to take a set of givens, namely the nature of human nature, and steer these givens in a more beneficial direction than the ones hitherto taken” (293). This pill “would protect the user against all known sexually transmitted diseases, fatal, inconvenient, or merely unsightly; would provide an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess, coupled with a generalized sense of energy and well-being, thus reducing the frustration and blocked testosterone that led to jealousy and violence, and eliminating feelings of low self-worth; would prolong youth” (294). There is also a fourth effect that would not be advertised. “The BlyssPluss Pill would also act as a sure-fire one-time-does-it-all birth-control pill, for male and female alike, thus automatically lowering the population level” (294). This is something that seems to be not only taking science further than it should go, but also is impeding on people’s rights to choose. By not telling the consumers of this product that they are going to be sterile because of it they are effectively controlling a part of other’s lives.

            The theme of how far should science be taken is now branching off. Atwood seems to be asking the reader how much free-reign these scientists should have. They don’t seem to have to answer or check with anyone but their corporate high ups when starting new projects and it is to be having consequences on all the consumers. One is lead to wonder why the government does not have any say in the matter and if there is even a government remaining.

Critical Article Summaries

A Thousand Splendid Suns

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=2&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Khaled+Hosseini&TI=A+Thousand+Splendid+Suns

Afghanistan's True Darkness

            -Successfully shows us an unfamiliar setting and drives the emotions home

            -Puts you in the events of life during war so you are drawn into the trials characters face

            -By blending two narratives together the reader is more connect to the protagonists

            -Tragedy is met by more loss for Mariam and it rarely gets better throughout her life

            -Both women accept their fate of being with Rasheed but later leave together.

            -Brutal rape, punishments, lashings, and killings are described and create a dark tone

            -Somewhat of a love story with darker trials faced before finding happiness

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=4&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Khaled+Hosseini&TI=A+Thousand+Splendid+Suns

Afghan Secrets

            -The west has been fascinate with afghan women recently and have wanted to learn more

            -Little is known by most outside of new reports which only paint vague pictures of war

            -Women are the main focus of the book and their lack of rights is emphasized

            -The perspective comes from citizens of the country so it feels unaltered by other cultures

            -Follows the shift in dynamics between men and women and how they interact

            -Elegantly portrays the chaos of the female’s lives in his writing

Oryx and Crake

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=false&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=8&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Margaret+Atwood&TI=oryx+and+crake

The end is nigh

            -Follows the main character through the rollercoaster of his life

            -When something good happens to him there will soon be something bad to follow

            -Doesn’t want to be put in these situations but is thrown in without options

            -Many problems arise for Snowman right away such as lack of food and hostile animals

            -He tries to do the best he can but is constantly set back by unforeseen complications

            -Many boundaries in science are crossed and make life more difficult for him later on

            -Oryx is all Jimmy ever wanted but is taken away by his best friend in an ironic scene

            -Without anyone else he upholds his promise to Crake regardless of what had been done

            -Jimmy continues to struggle with life and continues to uphold his promises  

Page 100 to 200 Thoughts and Information

Perry 1

Isaac Perry

Mrs. Vallier

ENG 4U

Sunday, Jan 7th/’11

            This hundred page interval drags on a bit because it is setting up connections and informing the reader about different parts of the characters lives’ that do not have a great impact on the story but is needed to explain how they ended up in their current positions. I was however able to glean a few things from it.

1)         Oryx is has gone through a lot in her life. She was born in a seemingly third world country where she lived in a “village with trees all around and fields nearby, or possibly rice paddies” (115). “This village was a place where everyone was poor and there were many children” which lead to them resorting to selling off some of the children whenever there was an offer for them. Once her father had died there was no more income for the large family, so “then the raw materials of life had to come from somewhere else” (116). A man came for her and the others he bought, he “was the same man who always came” (117). All the kids he bought went with this man across the world to his mansion in the city. From here they were used as street venders and child porn actors. She was eventually sold to wealthy man as a servant. This took place for a while before she was taken away in a police raid.

            This story of Oryx's childhood takes up about 40 pages which is a long time to be in a single time period for this book. This could be to get across how much snowman thinks about her and the trials she faced during her life.

2)         As Snowman considers his options in terms of available resources, he decides he should go back to the bubble-dome (code name: Paradice) where he apparently was a guard. This doesn't seem odd at first, but then a voice in his head starts to whisper “You don't want to go back there, do you?” (152). This gives a creepy impression of Paradice, and makes me wonder what had happened there.

3)         The theme of the book seems to be shifting more towards warning of the chaos science can bring about. An example of this comes in a memory Snowman has of the time bobkittens were introduced to the wild. “They were supposed to eliminate feral cats, thus improving the almost non-existent songbird population. The bobkittens wouldn’t bother much about the birds, as they would lack the lightness and agility necessary to catch them” (164). The animal did end up leaving the songbirds alone, but soon after their release “small dogs went missing from backyards, babies from prams; short joggers were mauled” (164).

The point behind the stories of different human creations is that they all have consequences. They make something to serve one purpose but it ends up creating more problems than it solved. Unfortunately society is not learning from these mistakes and continuously fixes the problem they created the same way it was brought about. This creates a never ending cycle that makes the people creating these things rich and the ones buying them poor.

Page 45 to 100 Thoughts and Information

Perry 1

Isaac Perry

Mrs. Vallier

ENG 4U

Wednesday, Jan 5th/’11

“When Jimmy was ten he'd been given a pet rakunk, by his father” (49). Over about 50 pages after this flash back the story switches to Snowman's memory of when he was a kid. It follows 10 year old Jimmy through the trials of his childhood, all of which have a major impact on his life in one way or another.

At first things begin to look up for Jimmy as he gains a new best friend in the Killer, the rakunk his father gave him. Unfortunately, not too long after it starts to get bad for him. His mother, who had been slowly losing her grip on life, finally tips over the edge. While Jimmy was at school and her husband at work, she set her plan in motion. After leaving a note for Jimmy that vaguely explained her need to do this, she then proceeded to destroy the work related computers and leave the compound with Killer to liberate the animal. This left Jimmy in a very vulnerable state. His mother had just left him and in the process his best friend was taken from him as well. He didn’t know what to think. “Maybe she had loved Jimmy, thinks Snowman. In her own manner. Though he hadn’t believed it at the time. Maybe, on the other hand, she hadn’t loved him. She must have had some sort of positive emotion about him though. Wasn’t there supposed to be a maternal bond?” (61) A few decades and an apocalypse later he still didn’t know what to think of the situation.

“A few months before Jimmy’s mother vanished, Crake appeared” (69). Crake eventually became Jimmy’s best and only true friend. This helped him get through the loss of killer, and comforted him with his mother’s departure. When his mother left, “Crake didn’t say much. He didn’t seem surprised or shocked. All he said was that some people needed to be elsewhere” (70). Regardless of how impassionate and blunt Crake’s words were, Jimmy still appreciated that he had someone to talk about the situation with.  The pair continued to bond and stick together over the rest of their school career.

They would play computer games, look at all types of porn, and watch snuff videos on their computers together. They did other activities that involved going outdoors and more social events, but the times they spent surfing the net in each other’s rooms is what Snowman remembered the most vividly.  Extinctathon was the game that stood out the most from all the gaming experiences. It was “an interactive biofreak masterlore game he’d found” (80) that involved a variety of obscure species that Jimmy had never hear of. Despite not fully understanding the game, he seemed to recall the rules and lingo the most out of all the games they tried. It’s not yet clear why this is important to Jimmy, but the description of it seems to be foreshadowing something. It could just be put in to describe a better time in his life, but so far everything he has been remembering and thinking about has had some relationship to later events in his life.

Watching different types of porn also had an impact on Jimmy’s life. They cruised around different sites that had different gimmicks and styles while smoking a joint and casually commenting on the obscene images they were looking at. One site in particular stood out to Snowman all these years later, HottTotts. “It claimed to show real sex tourists, filmed while doing things they’d be put in jail for back in their home countries. Their faces weren’t visible, their names weren’t used, but the possibilities for blackmail, Snowman realizes now, must have been extensive. The locations were supposed to be countries where life was cheap and kids were plentiful, and where you could buy anything you wanted” (89). The site stood out because of a single girl he had noticed performing on it. “This was how the two of them first saw Oryx. She was only about eight, or she looked eight. They could never find out for certain how old she’d been then. Her name wasn’t Oryx, she didn’t have a name. She was just another little girl on a porno site” (90). After finishing and wiping the whipped cream from her mouth, “she looked over her shoulder and right into the eyes of the viewer – right into Jimmy’s eyes, into the secret person inside him” (91). Crake then hit pause and printed an image of what they had just witnessed, then handed a copy of the picture to Jimmy. This image would both physically and mentally stay with him for the rest of his life.