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Week Thirteen: Literature and Speculation - Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (# 6 points)

 


   The world behind Oryx and Crake is quite familiar to us. Environmental pollution has destroyed a significant part of nature, and animals and plants are facing extinction every moment. Humans acquired innovative technology and science, and continuously create new life forms and try to modify our bodies to obtain youth and eternal life through genetic manipulation. The novel begins with the human, Homo Sapiens nearing extinction, and the story reveals the reason why the human reached extinction by following the only human Snowman's story.

    The thing that caught my eyes was the game called ‘Extinctathon’. The writer continues to try new word combinations and constantly gives characters and objects nicknames like Oryx, Crake, and Snowman. I feel like the writer used this book as a kind of an encyclopedia for extinct things. To record and remember raccoon, skunk, wolf, dog, pig, cormorant, Oryx and Crake, the author chose combined names of pre-existing names rather than new fancy names for the new species, like Pigoons(Pig+Raccoon), Woolvog(Wolf+Dog), Rakunks(Raccoon+Skunk), and Snat(Snake+Rat). I think the Extinctathon is the author’s warning about all extinctions. 

    These unconventional names blur the boundary between extinction and evolution as well. For example, the birth of the Rakunks feels like the extinction of the raccoon and skunk and can be an evolution of them at the same time. Languages have diversified, misunderstood, extinct, and evolved their meanings according to the environment in which users are located. 

    In the cities of the future and the climate and environment of the future, the language is bound to be changed. This story shows how language changes in the future, how language becomes a way of survival for the last human beings left alone, and how language becomes religion and art for new generations. 

    In fact, several warnings that scientific achievements may rather contribute to the extinction of humans are now approaching us with more real signs beyond the stage of imagination. Climate change catastrophes are proof. The novel ‘Oryx and Crake’ may be a near future that we have to face.

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