In year of the flood many themes and ideas are expressed. It makes the reader more engaged with the story and makes the story more interesting. In The Year of the Flood the main character Ren and Toby are fighting for their lives trying to survive this epidemic that Crake caused. So throughout the novel we see a lot of survival tactics which I found interesting. We could relate such tactics to the Native Americans and their traditions.
In the year of the flood we see that mainly Toby uses many tactics and strategies to keep her and the other characters alive and well. One example is when she uses a home aid remedy to help out Ren. She ends up using maggots which is an old way of curing people in the book. Native Americans also used such remedies. Native Americans used leaves and sometimes even food to cure their sick. So we see a relation on how Toby and native Americans use old tactics for survival. Also Native Americans would usually be in tribes. A relation of this is what we see is in the book. We see this from the gardeners, there like a tribe because they support each other and stick with one another. We see how this is also another important technique for survival and dates back to the Native Americains.Margaret Atwood made Toby a lot like an native American in the book Year of the flood. Maybe this was a way of showing the reader that age old traditions are not only important to remember because of history and culture. But also because it could help us when it seems like there is no hope left for survival.
This theme and idea is very thought provoking. Do you think that age old traditions are important to hold onto for survival benefit? Also do you think that people will someday completely move onto old traditions?
For further reading:
Park, Alex. Do You Know These 25 Native American Survival Skills? Survival Life, 2017, https://survivallife.com/essential-native-american-survival-skills/. Accessed 4 April 2017.
Native Americans. Indians.org, 2017, http://www.indians.org/articles/native-americans.html. Accessed 4 April 2017.
Native American Legends. Legends of America, 2003, http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-remedy.html. Accessed 4 April 2017.
Atwood, Margaret. The Year of the Flood. Vintage Canada,2010.
Pleeblandia 