Cloning for a longer life?

As I read Oryx and Crake, I realized that the story was very similar to a movie I had seen called “The Island” (2005). This movie opens in a strictly regulated compound where everyone is dressed the same way, they all eat healthy food, they perform medical tests everyday and there are guards watching their every move. From the very beginning, this looks a lot like the environment people live in, in Oryx and Crake. They are told that the world was contaminated by a disease world wide, that they were the only survivors and that the compound is the only place that is not contaminated. In Oryx and Crake, humanity also died from a disease world wide. The hope of everyone in this compound is to win the lottery. When a person wins, he is sent to “the Island” which is described as paradise land and also the only part of the world that was not contaminated. The main character questions his life and decides to investigate. He soon realizes that he is a clone. Rich people in America pay millions of dollars to have a clone created for them. Anytime these people need a face-lift or a transplant, they take what they need from the clones; they can even get babies from their clones. Obviously, this is very similar to the the pigoons in Oryx and Crake. 

When the doctor presents the project to potential buyers, he lies and says that they are in vegetative states, so they never reach consciousness, they don’t feel anything, they don’t suffer. The doctor wants them to think that they are products which don’t ever think or reach consciousness so they won’t feel bad about it. As soon as the doctors describes the clones, a public relations guy comes in and tells them that it’s the best and smartest investment they will ever make and that they will live 60-70 years longer. Like, in Oryx and Crake, it is not only about the science but also the business side of it. At the end of the movie, the main character meets his sponsor, the one who had him made, to tell him the truth about the clones. The doctor wants to kill the clone because he is a threat, but since the sponsor and the clone look exactly alike he doesn’t know which one is the clone. This is a major theme in Oryx and Crake, at some point, they don’t know what is real and fake anymore.

Description of the clones in the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDzcwvdu0GY

It seems that all the creations in Oryx and Crake are very futuristic and a little far-fetched, but after a bit of research, we realize that some of their inventions already exist nowadays. I can’t help but wonder if we have crossed some sort of line here. Will our world ever resemble what we see in science fiction? If you had the opportunity to create a clone of yourself, like people are doing in this movie, would you do it? 

A Controlled Society

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell remains a classic dystopian fiction novel about “the terrifying vision of a totalitarian future in which everything and everyone is enslaved into an [absolute sovereignty].” Margaret Atwood calls it one of her favorite books: “I read it again and again”.

Orwell wrote this novel in the late 1940’s, his goal was to give his readers a clear image of what life would be like if a free country was ran by a totalitarian government. The novel is set in London, a depressing city, where there is not enough food to go around for anyone, or enough clothes to put on your back. The city is pretty dilapidated, except for these giant pyramids shaped buildings that are above the landscape. The government, “Big Brother”, runs these buildings where every move is being watched. The social hierarchy differentiating power is much like the difference between the Compounds and the pleeblands. In Oryx and Crake, the science innovators and their families live in these beautiful secured compounds, whilst the rest of the society (the crazies, beggars and paupers) lives poorly in the cities.

            Both Oryx and Crake and Nineteen Eighty-Four foreshadow an extreme circumstance of the possible ending of humanity. Nineteen Eighty-Four rests towards the idea of a society that is controlled and manipulated primarily by the government. Each move, thought, and action is watched, recorded and punished, accordingly. There is no such thing as “being in love”, freedom of speech, or even though processing. The “Thought Police” can intrude into your thoughts due to hidden cameras and microphones placed into people’s homes, and if something seems out of line or risking government authority, you can be severely punished and tortured. When Winston Smith, the protagonist of the story goes against government rules, he is brutally punished, leading to “victory towards himself. He loved Big Brother” (311). They manipulated his mind and soul to such an extreme that he was left believing Big Brother was out there for the good of him, and that he will always obey this force.

In Oryx and Crake, we are also introduced to a society that is enclosed and controlled by a higher power. There are securities everywhere, you are not allowed to step foot out of the Compounds, unless you are being accompanied by a guard. If you fail to obey these rules, they will kill you. The people who live in these Compounds are so manipulated that they believe invasion of their privacy is needed and should be reinforced. When Jimmy’s mother, Sharon tells her husband that “their phones and e-mail were bugged” and that the cleaning ladies are undercover spies, his answer was that “she was getting paranoid, and anyway they had nothing to hide, so why worry about it?”(54) They are so brainwashed that they agree with these measures.

            

Before Oryx and Crake came… Slaughter-House Five

Since there are so many blogs about comparisons to Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I thought I would introduce a new discussion topic. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, which we are all familiar with at this point in time, has a distinct resemblance to the war related novel Slaughter-House Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut.

Incase you haven’t stumbled upon it yet, Slaughter-House Five is a novel about a war soldier who was present during the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany and survived this historical period, and trying to re-tell his story in an antiwar novel.

Just like Oryx and Crake, the book is written in the first person point of view.

In Slaughter-House Five, we are introduced to the author, Vonnegut who witnessed the war, yet because he cannot seem to write up anything about his memory, he makes up a fictitious character, Billy Pilgrim to fulfill his empty spaces. Billy reminds me a lot of Jimmy from Oryx and Crake for many reasons. They are both put in situations where they have to act like heroes or soldiers, yet they have the complete opposite characteristic of a hero. They also inhabit an unknown place.

There is a sense of fantasy in both these novels; “The Crakers” which are a scientific creating of Crake “each one naked, each one perfect, each one different skin color […] but each with green eyes”(8) and “the Trafalmadoriens”, aliens shaped like toilet plungers, each with one hand containing an eye in its palm. Both these imaginative creations are a possibility of an “improved” society, and when these protagonist travel back to these worlds, they become a different person. Jimmy is now Snowman and Vonnegut is now Billy.

There is also a similarity in the structure of writing; there is no beginning, middle or end. The story unfolds at a random time, without a given ending. Vonnegut foreshadows and exposes the beginning and ending of the story in the first chapter “it begins like this: Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. It ends like this: Poo-tee-weet?” (22) While Atwood begins like this: “Snowman wakes before dawn” and ends like this: “Zero hour, Snowman thinks. Time to go.” Both novels unleash no particular information in the end of the story, as if it has not really ended.

Although there are many differences in the moral of these two novels, the ideas bore similarities hard to ignore. They both depict a place in time where the end of the world is a possibility, and they both theorize scientific creations. Do you believe we are driving our world to an apocalypse or world war? If so, is there any way to stop it? It seems we are so caught up in our own lives we do not take the time to look around and acknowledge what is going on around us. I would love to hear your opinions!

Pigoons: Future Lifesavers

Before I start, I should probably begin by providing you readers with an explanation to what a “pigoon” is. Pigoons are fictional characters created by Canadian bestseller Margaret Atwood, first introducing them in “Oryx and Crake”. As you read in the book, “The goal of the pigoon project was to grow an assortment of foolproof human-tissue organs in a transgenic knockout pig host – organs that would transplant smoothly and avoid rejection […] and fend off attacks by opportunistic microbes and viruses”(23).

"Organ-Oink Farms"

The book, preferably described by its author as being speculative fiction (and not sci-fi), offers the readers an insightful preview of what and where our world is heading. Corrupted societies markedly separated into either “rich” or “poor” classes, corrupted government, mega corporations (also corrupted) holding the future of society in the palm of their hands, and the growing, evolving branch of science are all things we must expect in the future if keep going down that path.

This “path” I speak of involves scientific advancements and breakthroughs having to do with xenotransplantation, genetic engineering, bringing back to life extinct animals, cloning, and so on. Also, all these buttocks injections and anti-wrinkle/anti-aging creams are something to consider as well. Indeed, in the book, Atwood mentions experiments in which “The main idea was to find a method of replacing the older epidermis with a fresh one, […] a genuine start-over skin that would be wrinkle- and blemish-free” (55). However, even in the book there were no effective methods found yet, and the volunteers came out looking like the “Mould Creature from Outer Space” with a greenish tone and peeling skin.

Anyways, pigoons are a perfect example of xenotransplantation – the transplantation of nonhuman tissues or organs into human recipients[1]. Although I am reluctant to the idea of making such experiments on animals only to dump them when we’re done with them, I actually like the idea developed in “Oryx in Crake”. In the book, the host does not get destroyed when their extra kidneys and livers are taken away; in fact, they keep living and grow more organs. Thus technically, no one gets hurts and lives are being saved. But does this make it ethical? Does it make it “okay”? And instead of keeping these “pigoons” locked up in a top-secure building and put them in an environment that suits them better, would any of you have anything to say against this kind of science?