International Journal of English

and Literature (IJEL)

ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028
Vol. 4, Issue 6, Dec 2014, 25-32
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

REPRESENTATIONS OF NATURE IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S ORYX AND CRAKE

AMBIKA BHALLA1, JAP PREET KAUR BHANGU2 & MANMOHAN SINGH3
1

Research Scholar, Department of Management & Humanities, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology,
Longowal, Sangrur, Punjab, India
2

Professor, Department of Management & Humanities, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology,
Longowal, Sangrur, Punjab, India
3

Associate Professor, Department of English, Punjabi University Regional Center, Bathinda, Punjab, India

ABSTRACT
Dystopian fiction is a mode of resistance to the repressive regimes and the societal dementia which they beget.
Canadian dystopian fiction varies from traditional dystopian owing to its central reliance on thematic concern of nature.
Usually, the dystopias do not relate to nature for depicting or reprehending social, political, or even technological tyranny.
Contrarily, Canadian dystopian literature provides us an insight into societal discord reflected through its association with
nature. This paper is an attempt to explore the representation of nature in Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel Oryx and
Crake (2003). The natural world appears as a victim in this novel as Atwood engages in an against the grain discourse to
crack-up the common but hegemonic conventions. This paper investigates how Atwood explores several dystopian
traditions to emphasize the importance and presence of the natural world in fiction.

KEYWORDS: Atwood, Canadian Dystopian Fiction, Nature, Resistance, Victimization

INTRODUCTION
Dystopian fiction is a mode of resistance to the repressive regimes and the societal dementia which they beget.
This kind of fiction depicts a conflict between the protagonist and the power-hungry administration that ultimately ends
with the annihilation of the protagonist. Nevertheless, Canadian dystopian fiction varies from traditional dystopian owing
to its central reliance on thematic concern of nature. Usually, the dystopias do not relate to nature for depicting or
reprehending social, political, or even technological tyranny. Typically, the dystopian writers base their writings around the
social order instead of the natural world, inspite of the fact that the word dystopia actually means the bad place,
suggesting that the setting could have a significant function in dystopian fiction (Gottlieb 86). Contrarily, Canadian
dystopian literature provides an insight into societal discord reflected through its association with nature. This paper is an
attempt to explore the representation of nature in Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel Oryx and Crake.(2003) The natural
world appears as a victim in this novel as Atwood engages in an against the grain discourse to crack-up the common but
hegemonic conventions. This paper investigates how Atwood explores several dystopian traditions to emphasize the
importance and presence of the natural world in fiction.
Atwoods engagement with the natural world reflects itself through the multi-layered texture of her fiction,
involving various dystopian traditions and ecocritical and ecofeminist models. Ecocritics like Patrick Murphy and James C.
McKusick argue that the setting of Atwoods Oryx and Crake educes ecological and ecocritical concerns that differentiate
Atwoods dystopia from traditional dystopian fiction. In "Different Shades of Green," Michael Bennet says, the new wave

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Ambika Bhalla, Jap Preet Kaur Bhangu & Manmohan Singh

of ecocriticism is interested in the interconnections between urban and non-urban space, humans and interconnection,
interconnectedness and experimental genres, as well as the impact of race, class, gender, and sexuality on how we use and
abuse nature (207). In the Bennets words, it can be postulated that Atwood is the harbinger of ecological aesthetics in
literature. The setting of Oryx and Crake reminds us of Atwoods engagement with the association between the humans
and the non-humans and of her concerns with the cruel treatment and exploitation of the natural world by an authoritarian
social order. Susan Hawthorne suggests that the ecofeminists like Noel Surgeon and Vandana Shiva remind us of the latest
versions of ecofeminist criticism. As Hawthorne argues the exploitation of the land is accompanied by the exploitation of
women, and that masculinist perceptions of women and their bodies often reflect similar views on land and nature
(Hawthorne 181). Atwood purposefully models the panorama of her feminist dystopia on the devaluation of women and
the natural world. For this purpose, she modifies and re-works various dystopian traditions in the text.
Traditional literary dystopias portray the writers vision of the worst possible world and offer nihilistic views
about the present and future societies. However, most of the terror and chaos portrayed in dystopian fiction, results from
utopian aspirations. In Oryx and Crake, Crakes Paradice Project does not result in the establishment of dystopian or a
hegemonic system dominating the world. His utopian vision generates societal chaos, obliterates earths populace, and
most importantly, reforms a novel scientific social order that transforms nature into an unruly, dystopic organism. Crakes
utopian community destroys and deforms the natural world. The physical environment of the novel becomes more and
more perilous with Crakes scientific interference in nature in the form of various utopian experiments. The following
passage illustrates this precarious situation:
[Bobkittens] were introduced as a control, once the big green rabbits had become such a prolific and resistant pest.
Smaller than bobcats, less aggressive . They were supposed to eliminate feral cats, thus improving the almost
non-existent songbird population. All of which came true, except that the bobkittens soon got out of control in
their turn. Smaller dogs went missing from backyards, babies from prams; short joggers were mauled. (Atwood
192-193)
The consequence of the natural worlds transformation and the perilous environmental anomalies resulting from
Crakes utopian biotechnological experiments is extremely disastrous. Crake and his co-scientists have to alienate even
themselves from the natural world because of its metamorphosis into a drastically unpredictable, erratic and violent world.
They do not care for the evil results of their experiments on the ecosystems as Atwood succinctly puts it:
The rakunks had begun as an after-hours hobby on the part of one of the OrganInc biolab hotshots. Thered been a
lot of fooling around in those days: create-an-animal was so much fun, said the guys doing it; it made you feel like
God. A number of the experiments were destroyed because they were too dangerous to have around- who needed
a cane toad with a prehensile tail like a chameleons that might climb in through the bathroom window and blind
you while you were brushing your teeth. (Atwood 57)
Similarly, Crake claims in chapter eight that the walls, bars and CorpSeCorps safeguarding Watson-Crick and
other scientific Compounds are there for a reason (Atwood 242). Snowman explains that the entire planet has turned out
to be, one vast uncontrolled experiment (Atwood 267) and that human interference with nature has destroyed it to such a
point that its survival is at stake among green rabbits, hazardous rakunks and hailstorms that produce frozen raindrops of
the size of golf balls (Atwood 248). Atwoods engagement with survival theme is central to Oryx and Crake as in many
of her other fictional works. Crakes experiments change nature into a wild creature that frightens mankind from the
Impact Factor (JCC): 4.0867

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

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Representations of Nature in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake

beginning to the end of the book. Crakes utopian fantasies will no doubt be temporarily beneficial for mankind in
providing it more comfort and faster development, but ironically the natural world ultimately becomes more and more
unpredictable. Here Oryx and Crake varies from the traditional literary dystopias. The utopian dreams finally lead to
devastation of nature and formation of a disclosed and treacherous landscape.
Snowmans unfolding of his personal story through flashbacks suggests primarily the utopian basis of his social
order and an idealistic search for progress. He begins the story of Crakes most significant utopian achievement with this
description: theyre amazingly attractive, these [Crakers]- each one naked, each one perfect, each one a different skin
colour- chocolate, rose, tea, butter, cream, honey- but each with green eyes. Crakes aesthetic (Atwood 8). He further
focuses on his family, which primarily appears to have advantaged from the utopian experiments done by OrganInc Farm
and the security offered by CorpseCorps to the scientists. Nevertheless, at the middle of the narrative, Snowmans recap of
his social order and family changes immensely. The idealism and innocence of his past flashbacks transform into sadness
and hate as his community turns out to be more fanatical and changes nature into a dystopian biosystem. Further, he
depicts various natural destructions and ecological calamities and recollects the escalation of activities that are destroying
the planet and annihilating nature. Snowman recapitulates his discussion with Crakes novel experiment that created
ChickieNob:
Those are chickens, said Crake. Chicken parts. Just the breasts, on this one. Theyve got ones that specialize in
drumsticks too, twelve to a growth unit.
But they arent any heads, said Jimmy. He grasped the concept- hed grown up with sus multiorganifer, after
all- but this thing was going too far. At least the pigoons of his childhood hadnt lacked heads.
Thats the head in the middle, said the woman. Theres a mouth opening at the top, they dump the nutrients in
there. No eyes or beak or anything, they dont need those.
This is horrible, said Jimmy. The thing was a nightmare. It was like an animal-protein tuber. (Atwood 238)
The above passage discloses Snowmans rising focus on the putrefaction of nature and Crakes exploitation of the
natural world. The literary dystopias of contemporary times deal with issues like dread of bio-terrorism, bio-piracy and
eco-terrorism. These threatening developments include, [g]lobal warming, black holes, global pollution, rapidly
accelerated continental drift, the shift of the earths axis, collision with comets, overpopulation and global
terrorism(Mourby 33). Oryx and Crake illustrates these observations and alerts against the dangers seldom discussed in
traditional dystopian fiction but obvious in present societal order. Atwood alerts us about the commercial exploitation and
uses of hazardous bioforms. Another contemporary concern dealt within this book is bio-piracy. Atwood imagines a
genetic engineering corporation called HealthWyzer that produces and disseminates diverse kinds of bacteria and trickily
sells cures and medicines to pollute populace with the ailments that it produces as described by Crake in the book. Atwood
tells that, HelthWyzer [puts] the hostile bioforms into their vitamin pills- their HelthWyzer over-the-counter premium
brand, they embed a virus inside a carrier bacterium, E.coli splice, doesnt get digested, bursts in the pylorus, and
bingo! (Atwood 247-48). The author further exposes this satanical network by describing that, once youve got a hostile
bioform started in the pleeb population, the way people slosh around out there it more or less runs itelf. Naturally they
develop the antidotes at the same time as theyre customizing the bugs, but they hold those in reserve, they practise the
economics of scarcity, so theyre guaranteed high profits (Atwood 248).

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Ambika Bhalla, Jap Preet Kaur Bhangu & Manmohan Singh

Atwoods description of natures destruction in Oryx and Crake is seldom seen in traditional dystopian fiction.
She warns mankind against the deadly angle of mans self-aggrandizing commercial and technocratic social orders
alongwith the eco-catastrophes that these trends are supposed to bring about. Oryx and Crake depicts a landscape that is
changed into a perilous and violent biosystem because of human advancement and dangerous biotechnological
experiments. In her book entitled Wilderness and the Natural Environment, Roth asserts that environmental movement
speaks of the ecological crisis because the (technological) interference of human beings with ecosystems has reached a
degree of irreversible destruction in many areas. Environmental problems are not merely a recent phenomenon, but the
issues which are now of major concern are global in scope- ozone depletion, climate change, loss of wilderness areas and
of biodiversity (Roth 38).
Oryx and Crake discloses the results of the major ecological crisis, the green house effect on nature in the form of
alarming eco-disasters. Describing the unusual natural events and severe climate changes in the book, Atwood refers to an
environmental danger that is fundamental to the environmental catastrophe and is caused chiefly by industrial waste.
Several scientists classify this trend as the greenhouse effect. Carolyn Merchant describes it as follows: the hot air of the
greenhouse gases [carbon dioxide and other gases] threaten atmospheric chemistry balance. [] With the greenhouse
effect, winters would become stormier, summers hotter and drier. Seas could rise one to three feet over the next half
century; hurricanes would become more powerful as the oceans warm (Merchant 19).
The greenhouse effect brings universal turndown in mankinds living circumstances in the novel, as climatic
changes generate more plagues, more famines [and] more floods (Atwood 298). Snowman tells about the scarcity of
foodstuff as a result of the drastic effect of greenhouse gases: the weather had become so strange and could no longer be
predicted- too much rain or not enough, too much wind, too much heat- and the crops were suffering (Atwood 136).
The level of contamination is clearly visible equally on ecosystems, the physical landscape and natures cycle in Oryx and
Crake. Here March becomes hot as hell. February turns into a warm humid season spawning twisters, and June sees
thunderstorms and rain (Atwood 203). Atwood depicts this climate change to alert about the impending environmental
catastrophe. She has described the perils involved with these processes and cites the examples of soil, air and water
pollution in various pages of the book. The opening page depicts a landscape polluted by commercial waste. On the
eastern horizon theres grayish haze, lit now with a rosy, deadly glow the distant ocean grinding against the ersatz reefs
of rusted car parts and jumbled bricks and assorted rubble sound almost like holiday traffic (Atwood 3). This clearly
exemplifies the gravity of contemporary environmental disaster. Atwood endeavors to warn the inter-relation of
environmental catastrophes and contamination that can lead to harmful results on nature.
Various ecological problems emanating from mankinds reliance on industries and science might threaten the
natural world as well as mans capability to exist among junk and toxins. Oryx and Crake warns about ecological
contamination that can affect mans lifestyle and threaten human existence. These cautions are exemplified in the living
conditions of Crake as well as other characters in the novel. Crake had nose cones , the latest model, not just to filter
microbes but also to skim out particulate. The air was worse in the pleeblands, he said. More junk blowing in the wind,
fewer whirlpool purifying towers dotted around (Atwood 338). This deepens the seriousness of universal environmental
catastrophe and Atwood cautions about the destruction humanity is about to face. The author describes environmental
crisis that administers the, shock we need [] to open [our] eyes before such catastrophes actually annihilate all
(Kerridge 244). Similarly, the extreme images of contamination decay and dilapidation in Oryx and Crake displays an

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.0867

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

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apparent drift in the dual motive of the book unlike the conventional dystopian fiction. Oryx and Crake intends to alert
humanity about environmental consciousness emphasizing contemporary global annihilation and invoking action to
safeguard mans existence and the planets renewal.
Atwood has introduced the main subject matter of ecological literature, namely the association between man and
the natural world, in the book but in a negative way. In fact, the association between man and the natural world is
epitomized by images of environmental disorder and mans exploitation of nature. In the eighth part of the book, Atwood
imagines a corporation specializing in coffee bean production named Happicuppa that nuk[es] the cloud forests to plant
[their bushes] (Atwood 210). Likewise, in the beginning of the book, OrganInc Farms burn many cows and sheep in a
bonfire to stop spread of natural bacteria and destruction of genetic experiment conducted by it. These episodes stress the
destructive result of mans supremacy and mistreatment of the natural world. According to Theodor Adorno and Max
Horkheimer, the exploitation and abuse of nature of humans began to take form as soon as different didactic human myths
created a logic of domination, maintaining that the world [is] subject to man (77). Religious and classical texts, such as
Genesis, reinforced the belief that man incontestably had dominion over all the earth and that Mans likeness to God
[consisted] in sovereignty over existence (77).
Man is associated with the natural world just for his benefit and supremacy. The characters of this work of fiction
have least respect for nature. This static and mechanical nature, instead of an environmental and spiritual one, arouses an
inert association between man and nature. Furthermore, it destroys the variety of nature also. Atwoods message of this
mechanistic idea of nature is apparent in the landscape victimized by Crakes utopian pursuit of immorality that puzzles
fantasy and actuality leading to mistreatment, metamorphosis and finally the destruction of the natural world. Crake and his
fellow scientists interaction with the natural world is relevant to Vandana Shivas biological reductionism precisely as
they define the natural world only in biological terms. According to Murphy the ecological tales such as Atwoods dystopia
do not stop at describing the natural history of an area, but instead, or in addition, discuss the ways in which pollution,
urbanization, and other forms of human intervention have altered the land and environment (14).
The human and non-human world of Oryx and Crake is endangered by the greenhouse effect, worldwide
contamination, global warming, deforestation and polar ozone holes. Snowmans shelter is damaged by unusually violent
storms, sea has washed away the coastal cities, Florida grape-fruit have dried up like raisins and lakes have shrunk to,
reeking mud puddles. Atwoods purpose is to focus the aftermaths of harmful anomalies on environment and human
existence. Lawrence Buell in his Writing for an Endangered World discusses the notion of toxic discourse arguing that
this concept is the hub of environmental literature because it deals with the key instance of the rhetoric and ethics of
imagined endangerment, which [this author] take[s] to be the most distinctive ground condition of present-day
environmental reflection (27). Atwood also employs this notion in Oryx and Crake as the land is under threat of
ecological catastrophe. Oryx and Crake is replete with environmental perils and eco-disasters caused by capitalist
corporations thus evoking environmental themes. Various capitalist corporations like HelthWyzer create innumerable
environmental problems like the pigoons, the glowing rabbits with gigantic teeth, the microbes that eat the tar in asphalt,
the tiny parasitic wasps, the rakunks and the snats. Atwoods purpose is to highlight environmental problems created by
capitalism. The presence of eco-disasters and ecological problems differentiate Atwoods novel from standard dystopian
novels.

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Earl G. Ingersoll first noticed the environmentalist concerns in Atwoods Oryx and Crake. In his article Survival
in Margaret Atwoods novel Oryx and Crake, he mentioned Atwoods journey to the Arctic where she observed
evidence of the shrinking polar icecap, stimulated the writing of her dystopian novel (164). Atwoods environmentalist
themes highlight mans supremacy over nature and the destructive effects of such a devastating attitude. Atwoods work
focus various themes of eco-catastrophes found in nature-oriented fiction as that type of fiction which, extrapolate[s] on
certain tendencies in the contemporary environmental crisis to project [a world] on the verge of ecological chaos and
self-destruction (Murphy 39-41).

CONCLUSIONS
It can be concluded that Oryx and Crake best illustrates Atwoods environmental awareness. According to
Nathalie Cooke, Atwoods love of the natural world, of the wilderness, is quiet obviously rooted in her childhood and
that her working experience linked her respect for the wilderness with a growing social conscience (79). Atwood is
shocked by the dilapidation of wilderness areas, commercial waste and disrespect of ecological ethics. Consequently, she
creates a dystopia that alerts mankind against the various disasters that might emerge from mans exploitation of
environment. Her Oryx and Crake is an ecological dystopia depicting environmental problems and eco-disasters along with
ecological issues addressing socio-political chaos.

REFERENCES
1.

Adorno, W. Theodor and Horkheimer, Max. (2000) "The Logic of Domination." The Green Studies Reader from
Romanticism to Ecocriticism. Ed. Lawrence Coupe. New York: Routledge. 77-80.

2.

Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. (2009) London: Virago Press..

3.

Bennett, Michael. "Different Shades of Green." (2004) College Literature Journal, 31, 207-219.

4.

Buell, Lawrence. Writing for an Endangered World: Literature, Culture, and Environment in the U.S. and
Beyond. (2001) Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

5.

Cooke, Nathalie. Margaret Atwood: A Biography. (1998) Toronto: ECW Press.

6.

Gottlieb, Erika. Dystopian Fiction East and West. (2001) Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

7.

Hawthorne, Susan. Wild Politics: Feminism, Globalization, Bio-Diversity. (2002) North Melbourne: Spinifex
Press.

8.

Ingersoll, G. Earl. "Survival in Margaret Atwood's Novel Oryx and Crake." (2004) Extrapolation Journal, 45,
162-75.

9.

Kerridge, Richard. "Ecothrillers: Environmental Cliffhangers." The Green Studies Reader from Romanticism to
Ecocriticism. (2000) Ed. Lawrence Coupe. New York: Routledge. 242-249.

10. McKusick, C. James. Green Writing: Romanticism and Ecology. (2000) New York: St. Martin's Press.
11. Merchant, Carolyn. Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World. (1992) New York: Routledge. Mourby,
Adrian. "Dystopia: Who Needs It?" (2003) History Today Journal, 53, 25-36.

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.0867

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

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12. Murphy, D. Patrick. Farther Afield in the Study of Nature-Oriented Literature. (2000) Charlottesville: University
Press of Virginia.
13. Roth, Buhler, Verena. Wilderness and the Natural Environment: Margaret Atwoods Recycling of a Canadian
Theme. (1990) Zurich: A. Francke Verlag Tiibingen and Basel.
14. Shiva, Vandana. Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. (1997) Boston, Massachusetts: South End
Press.

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