Long Lost Kingdoms
“Long ago, in the days of knights and dragons, the kings and dukes had lived in castles, with high walls and drawbridges and slots on the ramparts so you could put hot pitch on your enemies, said Jimmy’s father, and the Compounds were the same idea. Castles were for keeping you and your buddies nice and safe on the inside, and for keeping everybody else outside.” – Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
The quote makes you think of powerful long lost kingdoms that we read about in our history books. A little idyllic village with beautiful white castles and large green fields where people are pleased and kind, just like a fairytale. The compounds have many similarities with those kingdoms, and just like castles they are surrounded by high walls made in hard stone.
Jimmy’s father tells him that it is good for their family to live on the inside of the walls, because the world on the outside is dangerous. That the people who live on the inside are better human beings and as he puts it: “They are our people”. Because everyone that lives in the compound work for the same company and have their own duties and responsibilities. This is also very similar to the castles where everyone living inside them had their specific place and tasks.
Even though the walls might protect its residents, it also keeps them locked inside. As Jimmy grows older he starts to think about the life outside the compound, something that his mother often talked about during his childhood. Jimmy thinks about the rumors he has heard, and that there are so many things that are impossible for the children to do inside of the Compounds, like having parties for example. The fact that Jimmy together with his friend Crake visits many awful websites, that often gives Jimmy nightmares, can be seen as a way to get a small sneak peek into the world that he is strictly kept away from.
Another aspect that is terrifying is that the Compound’s structure, with a huge corporation that owns and takes care of a small city where they for example control both cafés and the children’s education, is not a farfetched idea. We can already today see that this kind of privatization is beginning to take form, and companies control more and more parts of our society. The gasps between the ones producing products in developing countries and the consumers in the rich western world, is enormous. The segregation between different groups of people is increasing fast. It is therefore interesting to read about a future where Atwood takes problems that actually exist today, and draws them further to create a situation that might be a result of our actions today.
This book is a warning to the one reading it, that the humankind may be responsible for its own destruction. This specific quote and the connection with dukes and kings, reminds the reader that just as the powerful Kingdoms had a time of limitless glory it did not last forever. Just as these Kingdoms the compounds something happened to them, that made their time of glory to end and their empire to fall.
Author:
Karolina Lagercrantz
The quote makes you think of powerful long lost kingdoms that we read about in our history books. A little idyllic village with beautiful white castles and large green fields where people are pleased and kind, just like a fairytale. The compounds have many similarities with those kingdoms, and just like castles they are surrounded by high walls made in hard stone.
Jimmy’s father tells him that it is good for their family to live on the inside of the walls, because the world on the outside is dangerous. That the people who live on the inside are better human beings and as he puts it: “They are our people”. Because everyone that lives in the compound work for the same company and have their own duties and responsibilities. This is also very similar to the castles where everyone living inside them had their specific place and tasks.
Even though the walls might protect its residents, it also keeps them locked inside. As Jimmy grows older he starts to think about the life outside the compound, something that his mother often talked about during his childhood. Jimmy thinks about the rumors he has heard, and that there are so many things that are impossible for the children to do inside of the Compounds, like having parties for example. The fact that Jimmy together with his friend Crake visits many awful websites, that often gives Jimmy nightmares, can be seen as a way to get a small sneak peek into the world that he is strictly kept away from.
Another aspect that is terrifying is that the Compound’s structure, with a huge corporation that owns and takes care of a small city where they for example control both cafés and the children’s education, is not a farfetched idea. We can already today see that this kind of privatization is beginning to take form, and companies control more and more parts of our society. The gasps between the ones producing products in developing countries and the consumers in the rich western world, is enormous. The segregation between different groups of people is increasing fast. It is therefore interesting to read about a future where Atwood takes problems that actually exist today, and draws them further to create a situation that might be a result of our actions today.
This book is a warning to the one reading it, that the humankind may be responsible for its own destruction. This specific quote and the connection with dukes and kings, reminds the reader that just as the powerful Kingdoms had a time of limitless glory it did not last forever. Just as these Kingdoms the compounds something happened to them, that made their time of glory to end and their empire to fall.
Author:
Karolina Lagercrantz
A not to far away dystopia
“He speeds up, breaks into a jog. Then he spots the other group through the gateway up ahead, eight or nine of them, coming towards him across No Man’s Land. They’re almost at the main gate, cutting him of in that direction. It’s as if they’ve had it planned, between the two groups; as if they’ve known for some time that he was in the gatehouse and have been waiting for him to come out, far enough so they can surround him.”
This passage of the book shows the extension that science has gone to in the novel and the fact that this is a well possible nonfiction future makes it somewhat frightening. We do already in our society use pig organs for transplants to humans and mutating crossbreeds between humans and pigs, as the pigoons in Oryx and Crake, for the harvesting of organs could be seen as just another step in the direction towards a longer life for humanity. A connection that can be made between the book and today’s society is this pursuit of a longer life, of immortality. In Oryx and Crake this pursuit leads to huge economical disparities between the compounds people and the plea lands. The production of the organs and pills that will increase your lifetime is not provided to all equally and the market of the highest bidder becomes the steering factor. Now this could be Margaret Atwood’s way of warning our generation that continuing along this track could lead to a society like the one we see in Oryx and Crake and ultimately to the extinction of human kind. Maybe we are in need of more firm boundaries since the science seems to otherwise continuously be pushing them forward in phase with new discoveries and breakthroughs. An example of this is the fact tat we started patenting living organisms, something very controversial since we are in fact patenting life… Without boundaries scientific discoveries could have unknown future consequences and lead to the creating of a new enemy, just like the pigoons became a new human created threat towards Snowman.
Author:
David Gumpert Harryson
This passage of the book shows the extension that science has gone to in the novel and the fact that this is a well possible nonfiction future makes it somewhat frightening. We do already in our society use pig organs for transplants to humans and mutating crossbreeds between humans and pigs, as the pigoons in Oryx and Crake, for the harvesting of organs could be seen as just another step in the direction towards a longer life for humanity. A connection that can be made between the book and today’s society is this pursuit of a longer life, of immortality. In Oryx and Crake this pursuit leads to huge economical disparities between the compounds people and the plea lands. The production of the organs and pills that will increase your lifetime is not provided to all equally and the market of the highest bidder becomes the steering factor. Now this could be Margaret Atwood’s way of warning our generation that continuing along this track could lead to a society like the one we see in Oryx and Crake and ultimately to the extinction of human kind. Maybe we are in need of more firm boundaries since the science seems to otherwise continuously be pushing them forward in phase with new discoveries and breakthroughs. An example of this is the fact tat we started patenting living organisms, something very controversial since we are in fact patenting life… Without boundaries scientific discoveries could have unknown future consequences and lead to the creating of a new enemy, just like the pigoons became a new human created threat towards Snowman.
Author:
David Gumpert Harryson
On the difference in the beginning
”He too is a castaway of sorts. He could make lists. It could give his life some structure. But even a castaway assumes a future reader, someone who’ll come along later and find his bones and his ledger, and learn his fate. Snowman can make no such assumptions: he’ll have no future reader, because the Crakers can’t read.”
This is an important passage in the book because it describes clearly that there is something fundamentally different with this new kind of people. In our society today, reading has played a significant part in its development and is a corner stone for almost all communication. Newspapers, signs, emails or text messages – all rely on the prospect that the population can read. illiteracy is not an option but a disability. This is the situation today, but what this quote displays is that these new types of people, the Crakes, cannot read, that none of them have the ability. This fact alone, the fact that an entire population of human beings have ceased to use one of the most fundamental pieces of our society today, shows the magnitude of the change from our time to this dystopian future.
Author:
Lovisa Gullbrandson
This is an important passage in the book because it describes clearly that there is something fundamentally different with this new kind of people. In our society today, reading has played a significant part in its development and is a corner stone for almost all communication. Newspapers, signs, emails or text messages – all rely on the prospect that the population can read. illiteracy is not an option but a disability. This is the situation today, but what this quote displays is that these new types of people, the Crakes, cannot read, that none of them have the ability. This fact alone, the fact that an entire population of human beings have ceased to use one of the most fundamental pieces of our society today, shows the magnitude of the change from our time to this dystopian future.
Author:
Lovisa Gullbrandson