Oryx And Crake: The Effect Of Power And Control On Society
Have you ever wondered whether globalization will end global poverty and improve the lives of poor citizens or it is just a ploy by multinational corporations to expand their reach? Oryx and Crake novel portrays a society where an increasing power of corporations carries them on to a path where they emerge on the top. The corporations want absolute control where their authority goes on check. The novel is set in a fiction Utopian society that is marginally divided into the pleeblands and compounds and also the corporations. Outside of the compounds, law and order do not exist, and so corporations’ security enforcement services have been hired to protect the interests of the corporate while overlooking those of individuals. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood shows how corporations and individuals working for corporations practice power and control. The novel explores how extreme power causes injustice in society by discriminating, unable to create a myth world and being alienated. In the novel, because of the advanced technology concentrated in the hands of the rich, the rest of population ends up exploited by those in power. The government and the corporate appear to be intertwined since it is impossible to differentiate the interest of the state and that of the corporate. For instance, since the corporations were engaged in genetic modification as well as experimentation, environmental activist groups that include Good Gardeners were perceived to be subversive (Labudová, 2010). Moreover, those who protested against the corporations were executed on the charge of treason. Furthermore, the actions against corporations were treated as human crimes against the government. Because of this alliance, unregulated corporations were entirely unfettered when it came to their search for profit. They do lie blatantly when it came to advertising without fearing theta they were lying or being subjected to any consequence.
Consequently, they regularly carry out a test on their products using the sparse population. Therefore, when the products show adverse side effects, the leaders do not care, they ignore and move on. They are not afraid of exploiting poor people. For example, they offer poor people products this is supposed to make them younger, beautiful, and virile without conducting any test to prove that the products are safe and that they could work. What the novel shows is that the notion that globalization leads to a global community of equality is a myth. This is evident in the novel when the author gives a description of the health gap as well as living standards of the general population living in the corporate compounds where there are various research being done and the networks situated in pleeblands where the general population who do not have any intellectual use in science live (Irwin, 2009). The big gap between the rich and the poor is an excellent reflection of a similar condition in a globalized world that has been made obvious by the author’s creation of a barrier between the two societies. The myth that is having several technologies are going to create a great, as well as a unified world, is being disapproved in the novel since the presence of technology only favors the people who have money and power. The corporations can’t create a myth world even they controlled extreme rights. Power has been concentrated in the hands of a paramilitary organization that goes by the name of CorpSECorps as well as their genetic engineers who are working towards achieving immortality (Ku, 2006). Crake has an ambitious project that is known as Paradice method that is intended to create a completely human population. Crake has been successful in the alteration of the primate brain to eliminate what he calls destructive characteristics in his quest to come up with a model society. Crake is much obsessed with the idea of a perfect world. He wants a world that does not have any conflict. Ironically, his invention, the BlyssPlus Pill, eventually leads the world in a horrible apocalypse. The pill had a disease that was similar to Ebola that cleared the entire world’s population except for Jimmy, who was Crake’s friend. Jimmy is the only person that is liable to survive the epidemics that have been brought by Crake.
In the novel, the author reveals the fact that corporations only have their interest at heart and that they bring about inequality between classes in the process. In most cases, they do this in the pretext of globalization. As such, the novel shows how corporations, just like the state, come up with myths to control world populations so they can remain in power. In the story, there are several myths of beauty, sex, motherhood concerning the way through which people should eat, live, breed, and make love as well as a dream. As such, a society that is built on an obsession with myth is created as well as with the construction of the fiction to come up with a better reality. The main aim of the myths that are created by such corporations is to increase their wealth. In the context of the novel, the myths are working well since they make a lot of sense in the undeveloped flux of life, and they also give a sense of purpose as well as conviction. The myths can achieve this through the provision of images that portray an ideal life that could be made if people continue consuming the products that the corporations are offering. Each of the myth that is in the novel relates to the ideal result that could be accomplished by individuals if they have assets to act depending on their longing to adjust their lives to a myth suggestion. Such suggestions are practical since they are made up of various and beautiful images as well as devices that come together to produce an order of things that appear be compelling enough since they resonate well with the affective dimensions of norms and values. Therefore, to control the population, it is productive to consider appealing to a myth that focuses on what is already being desired culturally. What this means is that old tales should follow new myths but then giving them new extremes. Therefore, in the novel, the author takes cultural themes to the extreme so that they can perceive myths that exist in the current culture. Living in a society where natural human treats have long disappeared, Jimmy and several other characters suffer from loneliness, emotional, psychological pain himself in between the governing elites and the gardener who are powerless, he was born in a genetic engineering family and lived in the wealthy family, and so he lived in the wealthy compounds. It is at this place that he managed to be the friend of Crake. Therefore, he had to put up with his inability to follow the requirements of the corpse corps system.
Jimmy is considered neurotypical, which implies that he does not have the genius gene. Therefore, he has always considered himself an outcast. As a child, has tried hard to get friends while in school and so he decided to win over some friends buy entertaining them in school using a hand puppet where he used some of the dialogue of his parents to be applauded. While growing up, Jimmy felt that he was powerless since he could not make his mother’s depression disappear.Consequently, he felt like he was victimized (Labudová, 2010). It is through Jimmy that Crake’s power and control are demonstrated because he was the one who decided what they would both watch. Crake would also judge some the programs that Jimmy was watching and this forced him to hide some of his preferences from Crake so he could not expose his weak points. Dues to his nature, Jimmy was caught up between the literature of Shakespeare and the modern world of virtual reality. This fact was evident when he disapproved of practical chess. He could not understand why they could not just play the game using the real set. Moreover, at one time, he asked Crake when they were going to play some chess with “the old kind. With plastic men” (Atwood, 2003). Even though Crake was adamant that there was no difference between the two types of the game, Jimmy needed to confront Crake personally and not through the virtual world. However, as an adult, Jimmy has no interest in human relationship. “Every week there was a Compound social barbecue, a comprehensive ratfuck that all employees were expected to attend. These were dire occasions for Jimmy. He lacked the energy to work for the crowd. He was fresh out of innocuous drivel; he loitered on the edges gnawing on a burned soydog and silently ripping apart everyone within eyesight” (Atwood, 2003). This was then followed with some events of disillusionment with his family, an examination by the corpse corps concerning his mom, who had vanished and his sexual undertakings with meaningless women. He liked being alone. Later, when he was asked by Oryx to care for the Crackers, he showed that he had no individual will and responsibility. He understood that he had no possibility of communicating with humans and so he chose to satirize anything that indicated his real emotions. He had been victimized as well as manipulated by other people, including Oryx and Crake. Since he was an outcast that came from various people and emerging from a broken family, he could not have any genuine relationship. This forced him to control more rights and let him create a mythical world.
Therefore, Oryx and Crake is a novel that shows extreme power causes injustice in society by discriminating, unable to create a myth world and being alienated. Based on the examples given above, the corporations managed to practice their ability mostly among the poor masses. They were untouchable, and they took everything that they wanted. The employees of the corporations were also considered authoritative, and so they were able to control the poor majority in their daily interactions.
