Comparing Atwood's Oryx And Crake

"If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must feel free to follow wherever the search may lead us," (Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.). Throughout the book Oryx and Crake, written by Margret Atwood, many experiments and scientific discoveries have not turned out the way the creator(s) have intended them to. There are handful examples throughout the story that shows that knowledge is a double edged sword. These examples include: the Crakers, the Pigoons, and the BlyssPluss pill.

To begin, the Crakers are a symbol of man not being able to control everything and nature's ability to change. The Crakers were genetically modified humans that were created by Crake and were given animal traits; which makes them more durable and Crake added his own additions so they would not make the same mistakes that humanity made throughout history. Even though the Crakers were made not to make the same mistakes that humanity has, that have displayed human traits that Crake did not intend them to have. One example is one of the Crakers Abraham Lincoln, displayed leadership qualities and appears to be more outgoing than the others but Crake did not want the Crakers to develop a society and government …show more content…
The pill was created by Crake in the RejoovenEscense Compound. Crake claimed that the pill was to give the user immortality by eliminating external causes of death such as aging. However, this was not the case because the pill was designed to cause mass murder due to the pill being encysted with a virus. The side effect of the pill was high fever, bleeding from the eyes and skin, then the breakdown of organs followed by death. A drug that was thought to increase mankind's life span caused mass murder throughout the world. Even though Crake had the knowledge and resources to create such a pill he used that pill to attempt to exterminate the human