Wilderness Survival: Future Natures in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

Abstract

Oryx and Crake is a novel that explores many themes of environmental importance, in particular biotechnology, and their consequences for nature and society as a whole. The novel extrapolates on certain tendencies present in contemporary society to portray a gloomy end-vision of the world. This vision is portrayed through references to advances in biotechnology that render the world strange, as, for example, the milk of the spliced¹ spoat/gider used in bullet proof vests in the novel alludes to the BioSteel innovation by Nexia Biotechnologies as reported in Science (cf. Squier). Recourse is also taken to myths and central stories of Western civilization, most obviously the Bible. The title’s rhythm echoes Adam and Eve: In the novel, we see a transformation of the myth of Genesis (creation) into a myth of destruction—which would make Oryx and Crake apocalyptic—or, alternatively, we can foreground the utopian aspects of the text by reading the myth of creation is transferred onto a post-human species, the Crakers. This chapter shows the nature of Oryx and Crake to be a nature that is deeply influenced by ideas associated with wilderness: This conviction arises from its position in Margaret Atwood’s oeuvre as well as from the representations of nature in the text.