Oryx And Crake Character Analysis

Oryx and Crake written by Margaret Atwood is a story which focuses on the main character, Snowman, who’s real name is Jimmy, and is set during a post-apocalyptic pandemic. It goes back and forth between past and present. In the past, it centered on two characters, Oryx and Crake, and their interactions with Snowman, while in the present it’s about Snowman and his interactions with Crake’s creations, living humanoid creatures. Atwood wrote Oryx as an intangible character, who has no personality, to make it easier to identify her as a God-like figure in the book.

Oryx’s tragic past is what drew Jimmy/Snowman to her. He wanted to save her and this caused him to dehumanize her. Her past as a child sex slave who starred in child pornographic
He saved a photo of Oryx for years. It was a photo of her when she was in child pornographic videos. This photo allowed Jimmy/Snowman to build up an image of her before he met her. Whether or not Oryx was that little girl in the photo (the book didn’t explicitly answer this), he saw Oryx as that little girl, who had looked right into the camera and glared right at him through it. There was also this one girl who had been locked in the basement who Jimmy/Snowman saw on TV that he believed was also Oryx. This caused him to fixate on her, or two girls who he had believed to be her. His fixation lead to him building her up in his mind throughout the years and once he had her, her personality isn’t there because it was overshadowed by Jimmy/Snowman’s perception of her as the person he wanted her to be, which was as a victim who needed to be rescued. Jimmy/Snowman had thought he had understood her which lead to him putting her on a pedestal too as shown by this quote, “he thought he understood her vagueness, her evasiveness.” (Atwood 138). He had attributed the “vagueness” and “elusiveness” to Oryx being damaged and not wanting to talk about something that hurt her. By putting Oryx on a pedestal, Jimmy/Snowman, caused her to lack any depth and have two dimensional personality. She became a construct of Jimmy/Snowman’s mind. A sexual object who he desired and did nothing more than fulfill his desires, either
Having no personality makes it easier for Jimmy/Snowman to deify Oryx and for the reader to identify her, not as a person but more as a god-like figure. Jimmy/Snowman doesn’t know her age, her real name, where she’s from and other things most people know about their loved ones. Oryx doesn’t know these things about herself either. These missing pieces of Oryx are what allows her to be a God to the Crakers. If she wasn’t missing these pieces, it’d be harder for her to come across as a God. If the reader got to know Oryx as a real living person it would clash with her ethereal nature and would make her come across as a sham. A fake. It’d be forced to see her as a god, if we knew more about her as a person. That’s not to say that the book is completely devoid of instances where her real personality shines through. When Oryx was asked about what she was thinking as a child in the picture that Jimmy/Snowman kept of her, she says, “[...] if I ever got the chance, it would not be me down on my knees” (Atwood 111). It’s a moment that stands out in stark contrast to the established character of Oryx. It’s shocking when it’s read because she’s been portrayed as a forgiving, optimistic person so far in the book. A person would think while they read it, did Atwood make a mistake, was she not on top of her game when she wrote this character or did she have another idea about how the character was