Oryx And Crake Critical Essay

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The famous novel, Oryx and Crake which was written by Margaret Atwood was published in 2003 and acclaimed a great success among the critics and general readers. The novel was first published in 2003 by Mcclelland and Stewart. In the same year, the book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the next year for the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction. This novel is the first part of MaddAddam Trilogy. Though some classify the novel as science fiction, Atwood claims that this novel can be called as speculative fiction rather than science fiction because the term itself suggests that the story is rooted in ideas, concepts and events that are already present in the contemporary society. Atwood started writing the novel from the inspiration that she got when she found herself in the Northern region of Australia, bird watching with her partner. When she watched the red-necked crakes, which are water birds belonging to the family Rallidae, she was hit with the inspiration for the story. She also explains that the work is something that was the outcome of the ideas that she always had in mind and also because of spending a great time with scientists throughout her childhood. She states that: Several of my close relatives are scientists, and main topic at the annual family …show more content…
She also wrote that, “Tonally, ‘Oryx and Crake’ is a roller-coaster ride. The book proceeds from terrifying grimness, through lonely mournfulness, until, midway, a morbid silliness begins sporadically to assert itself, like someone, exhausted by bad news, hysterically succumbing to giggles at a funeral”. The American writer, Joyce Carol Oates, made a note of the novel as “moral ambitious and darkly prophetic” (2009)comparing with the Atwood’s another popular novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Oates also called the work as an "ambitiously concerned, skillfully executed performance".

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