Empathy In Oryx And Crake

In the novel, Oryx and Crake, empathy is shown to convey the author’s truth about abandonment in someone’s early life. Empathy is used to identify what a person is feeling in many different situations including traumatic events. The protagonist Jimmy has found out that his mother has left him and his father and is going through many emotions in his head, trying to cope of what has happened. “Maybe she had loved Jimmy, thinks Snowman. In her own manner. Though he hadn’t believed it at the time. Maybe, on the other hand, she hadn’t loved him. She must have had some sort of positive emotion about him though. Wasn’t there supposed to be a maternal bond?” (Atwood 72). This quote has the device of empathy as it identifies how Jimmy is feeling after he learns the news that his mother has left him. He is going through many different emotions like confusion by asking questions like, “Maybe she loved Jimmy?” and “Wasn’t there supposed to be a maternal bond?” and depression as he is mourning the loss of his mother. Identifying what a character is feeling plays an important role of finding the traumatic event in someone’s early life to foreshadow how they will feel in their adult life. When a mother decides to abandon their child, they are left to feel many emotions mentally and psychologically and grieve for a long period. In Genevieve van Wyden article, Mother
The protagonist Jimmy does not have much luck towards women as he faces rejection to numerous women he sees, beginning with being rejected by his first crush Wakulla Price. Being rejected by her has changed his emotions on dealing with rejection when he is an adult as he feels aggressive, angry and is obsessed with having sex with someone. This is shown when he is suddenly rejected by a woman who is having an affair with Jimmy who loves her husband more instead of