humans and animals theme Flashcards
pigoons
their partially human makeup makes it so that people are uncomfortable with the idea of eating them- seems vaguely cannibalistic
The Crakers
most distinctive blend of humans and animals
colour-changing sex organs like a baboon, a digestive system like a rabbit and the smell of a citrus plant
Jimmy
he sometimes compares himself to animals, which grows out of his feelings of inferiority given that he’s not scientifically gifted
“he thought of the pigoons as creatures much like himself”
Crake
thinks that Human ingenuity and scientific curiosity is actually an inferior, animal trait- “monkey brain”
also thinks that traits like art, love, language, self-awareness and knowledge of mortality are an evolutionary mistake
“love was undependable”
invents the Crakers
who he considers them to be “superior” as they don’t have human intelligence or sexual desire
difference of life
Oryx and Crake wonders about the difference between human and non-human life- indicative of Atwood’s environmentalism
disregard for religion
“God is a cluster of neurons”
set in
a post-apocalyptic world, the novel explores what the human condition might be like after the fundamentals of existence have been erased
ustopia
in the fact that almost the whole human race has been annihilated but the Crakers are a small dystopia
a combination of dystopia and utopia in one novel
Year of the Flood
God’s Gardener’s are an embedded utopia within the dystopia
it is debated whether
the surviving group of humans represent a dystopic threat to the tiny utopia of the Crakers
