Doomed to Hope? Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.

Abstract

Oryx and crake (2003) is set in the near future in a world ruined by global warming, pollution and the abuse of scientific knowledge. It belongs to the tradition of dystopian fiction, envisioning a bleak future in which science and global capitalism have displaced any sense of moral agency in daily life.

There is a link between the bleakness of traditional dystopian fiction and the idea of apocalypse, which etymologically means disclosing the end. Apocalyptic motives prefigure the end of humanity and apocalypse is linked to excess, to human attraction towards crossing all moral, scientific and economic boundaries. My aims in this essay are, first of all, to analyse the apocalyptic elements in the scientific practices described in the novel as well as to explore the main characters’ apocalyptic identities, that is to say, their drives towards excess, transgression and selfdestruction. Atwood does not indulge in dystopian pessimism, but subverts it by presenting a protagonist that suffers a personal catharsis in the course of the story and emerges as a morally responsible human being. The novel’s open ending suggests the possibility of a new opportunity for mankind, a new beginning.