The book oryx and Crake suggests many themes and ideas. The reading introduces ideas such as a perfect world and a utopia society. A world with no mistakes, crime or human imperfection. This closely relates to the events of the novel “Uglies” by Scott Westerfeld. In “Uglies” the general population is brainwashed into thinking that they need to get operated in order to fit in with the rest of society. This operation once done removes freedom of thought and adds to them a pretty face.
These two books employ the thought of a utopia and how these utopias are more negative than good. In “Oryx and Crake” presents many examples. One being that they’re splicing the genes of certain animals to make new species. Many people in the modern world would say that this is unethical behaviour. Also to spawn this perfect society Crake creates his own plague and his own people to create a new society.In hopes to restart from scratch and make humanity perfect from what it used to be. In the uglies they sacrifice their freedom of thought and thinking to be care free, happy and beautiful. These two books show that there are sacrifices when creating a perfect society which demonstrate that big social alterations leads to big sacrifices.
These two books show how a utopia can actually be a dystopia. That society could not be so perfect. In “Oryx and Crake” there are many skills that Crackers dont have like being good at art or being creative. Some people hold close to those values. Likewise, in “Uglies” the people sacrifice their freedom of mind and creativity for a life full of partying and being care free at the cost of their thinking. Some people would say that this is inhumain because what makes us humain and different is art and creativity.
How would you personally like to live? A life with no worries and luxury or a life with free expression and all of life’s chalenges? This could be a hard decision to some and a very easy one to others.
References:
Westerfeld, Scott. Uglies. Random House, 2012.
Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. Vintage Canada, 2003.
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Pleeblandia 
February 28, 2017 at 8:15 pm
I find it very interesting how you relate the theme that you have presented to a book. I haven’t heard of the novel “Uglies” although it seems to be an interesting one. You have mentioned that in the novel, individuals are brainwashed and their freedom of thought has been removed. As I read that, I asked myself what would a life be like without having the ability to think for oneself. As I deeply thought about it, I came to realize that it would be as if we are only physically living and mentally we aren’t. Our bodies would be present but our minds wouldn’t. We would basically be like robots since people would be controlling us and we wouldn’t be able to control our thoughts.
If I were to answer your question about how I would like to live I would probably answer the following: I would like to live a life without having to worry about anything. Not having to worry about the future, the present nor the past. Just living of a life with no worries which wouldn’t create any stress. I believe that having no worries would lead to having no stress. On the other hand, I would also like to live a life with challenges but challenges somehow lead to worrying which is somewhat contradicting.
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