Film

Because there's no movie or film for this novel, so i thought of making one on my own. 

If i'm going to make the book "Oryx and Crake" into a movie. I will make the movie 3D and make it first person of view, makes it seem like as if the person who is actually in the movie. 

First I would try to give the viewer a brief background story of the city. Some thing like this:

Then i would try to find some famous handsome and beautiful actors to bring more view from male and female. 

Graphic of the destroyed future city would be my main focus, because that would really bring up the experience. I would also try to make the movie as realistic as possible to give the viewer an experience of the movie really happening round them. I will also add in lots of special effects to bring up the excitement. I would also focus on the future life style of society to bring a whole new life experience to people.

By Tian Xu

Connections

           The book "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood, is a story that talks about the future world where the wold has been controlled by a bio-technology made virus. This book has some connections to some of the other books. For example, the book "The Great Gatsby". Both books have a main character that at one point gets to the top of the society, and they get to that point through corruption. Gatsby bootlegs alcohol during prohibition while Crake sells pills to people that are supposed to help them. Also in both books, the main character that are at the top end up dying, meaning that they start at the top and end up at the very bottom.

Another example is "The Things They Carried". In both books the main character has to fight for their own survival in the wilderness. They are put in life threatening situations and are forced to take drastic steps to survive. Both authors in corporate a scene to thrilling suspense and a constant fight for the main characters own survival, making both books suspenseful at times. Also both books deal with desperate times where people may not think straight and may do things that they regret. For instance Jimmy's mother in a fugitive of the government due to her guilt, and in the things they carried a character named Rat Kiley in desperation shoots himself in the foot so he can shipped home. So both books have fleeting suspense and desperation.

If anyone has read "The Great Gatsby" or "The Things They Carried" and enjoyed those, I suggest you to try "Oryx and Crake". It is a great story. Hope you will enjoy it.

By Tian Xu

Connection to the political..

       Oryx and Crake, a novel written by a famous Canadian author Margret Atwood, discusses the issues of diseases, nature, and most importantly bio-technology. The world has always been thinking about these concepts. In Oryx and Crake, disease plays a multitude of roles. For example. disease is a marker of class through the segregation of urban areas. Those who have comfortable jobs with the major pharmaceutical companies live in disease-free, highly guarded compounds. Those who are not affiliated with such companies live in lands full of diseases. Residents who do not normally visit the area either avoid entering them or take special medicines to enter them safely. Just like our own world people tend to avoid diseases, as people get richer; they start to live in more organized and disease-free areas. On the other hand, poor families live in areas where mosquitoes, rats, and cockroaches spread quickly. However governments cannot really do anything about this issue. Also, disease is used as a cure to the problems of humanity. By inflicting a lethal disease on the world's population, Crake hoped to remove hunger, war, jealousy, crime, rape, and a host of other undesirable conditions of the human experience. Crake wanted to make the human perfect, to make the world free of bad attributes, but this is not the way to do it. He wanted to eliminate any human on earth and recreate another race called the "Crakers" which is perfect in his mind, but this is not the cure anymore, it is the destruction of mankind. I think, what our government should do is that teaching children at a young age, make sure every one of them goes to school regularly, find the best attributes in them. Some are good at sports, some are good at writing, some are good at painting. All of us have something in our bodies and minds; we just need others to find it. Also, media should limit the publicity of certain subjects, like theft, rape, and all other crimes. If kids do not know what the crimes are, they should not be able to do it at all. Nature means a lot to our world, as all countries on earth are trying to plant more trees and limit the use of gasoline. For example, China has a holiday which students and teachers participate in planting trees around urban areas, this should be widely spread across North America, and the government should make a holiday like this. Schools should teach students at a young age that the Earth is the only planet we can live on; on other planet in the Milky Way is suitable for human life. The issue of biotechnology is also great on Earth, as the creation of creatures and plants can destroy the nature of Earth, it can make certain species extinct or disappear. The government should limit the use of biotech, but right now most of the government is trying to develop more and more useful creatures or plants. Even though cross genetic plants can benefit our world well, but it also increases the use of pesticides by a lot.

By Steven Ruan

Freebie~

                  It is definitely a pleasant experience reading Oryx and Crake. I love reading fictions especially Science Fiction. When I first read a Sci Fi, I would kind of having a picture of what might going on in the story. However Oryx and Crake really blowed my mind. I have never read a book that is so eye-opening. In the novel, the creation of genetic modified animals such as Pigoon and Bobkitten is both wild and inspiring. It alerts me if animal like Pigoon actually exists and bioscientist is actually doing experiments on transplanting human-tissues onto a pig host. The world would be out of order. Bu t for now, it is just a bold imagination of Margaret Atwood. The book constantly mentions about sex which kind of shocked me. The book constantly talking about porn, pornography site and child pornography. "Jimmy" and his friend "Crake" watch child porn at home when they are free. These plots make me feel a bit embarrassing. Author's description of the near-future society is also eye-catching. I have read a lot Science fictions in the view of mechanic technology development which draws a picture of advanced driving vehicle, wired shaped aircraft etc. However, in Oryx and Crake, I experienced the view of bio technology development. Bio technology is so well developed in this society. People can have certain pills in order to enhance themselves making them stronger. With the help of genetic therapy, people can have certain kind of superpower, and ultimately they find a way to make themselves have immortality. Via different views, I can have a clear picture of the near-future society, not only in mechanic view but also in bio view. Anyway, I think this book is great however I do not recommend this book to kids because there are so many sex references in it and some may be disturbing. I had a really good time reading this book, if you are interested in this book, go grab one and start to read!!

By-Gary Jiang

Conflict 《Oryx and Crake》

Conflict

  Every great novel tells a great story,  and every great story has one or more conflict which makes the story be a great story.
  "Oryx and Crake"  by Canadian author Margaret Atwood is a science fiction talking about the ruined world after a horrible catastrophe created by a virulent genetic pandemic that nearly makes every single human being die. Indeed it's been said as a great novel which tells a great story including several conflicts.
  Firstly, there's a huge conflict of the society. In the world created by author, most of human have been longing to the immortality of life, therefore, bio-scientists have been pursuing the so-called immortality such as organ transplant and drugs to rejuvenate aging bodies. However, the immortality of life violates the rule of nature, and over-developed bio-tech only lead human to calamity, but they still refuse to obey the rule. Accordingly, at this duration, Crake, as the apex of the bio-tech realm, carry out his wicked plan which spread the deadful pandemic into the world in order to make everyone die. Instead of  studying more about the way to immortality, Crake creates new human-like species to replace existing human beings because in his perspective, the desire to immortality is come up by tthe fear to death, if  he can insturct new beings that lack of interest of art, worship to great man, inablity to read, and no fear to death, the search of immortality would be eventually extincted.
  Beacuse of this conflict, the story begins and tells us how the tragedy being made and finally come ture.

By Claude hu
 
  

Characterization

In the novel “Oryx and Crake”, there are three protagonist; Crake, real name is called Glenn, renamed to Crake because of the game Extinctathon, Jimmy, later renamed himself to Snowman, and lastly, Oryx, was both Crake and Jimmy's lover. There are also many sub characters as well; Jimmy's parent, Crake's parent, the Crakers, CorpSeCorp.....

Firstly, Crake was Jimmy's childhood friend, they pretty much did everything together, went to school, played Games, surfed the internet. Crake was a brilliant student at school, compared to Jimmy, Crake was like a genius. After he finishes high school, he attended the prestigious WatsonCrick Institute. Crake was a smart boy, but sometimes being too smart is not always the best. He was turned from a brilliant teenager into a mad scientist, who created the Crakers and a virus that destroy the entire world. 

Secondly, Jimmy, the main protagonist in the novel. The story were mostly tell by his point of view. Jimmy's father worked as a scientist, involved in the Pigoons project and his mother, used to be a scientist, but quit her job. Jimmy had been through a lot of conflicts with his parent resulted in doubting their love for him. Unlike his friend Crake, Jimmy's talent were ignored in his world, which had frustrated him as he is unable to connect with anyone else. 

Lastly, Oryx, she was a mysterious character, her characteristic were based on Jimmy and Crake's point of view. According to Jimmy, Oryx's mother sold her to a travel business man, she was forced to sell flowers on the street. Later on, she participated in pornography movies. Jimmy once asked her if its true about her past, and her answer was yes. 

All three of the protagonist had their own tragedy. Each of them dealt it with their own ways, and it made them strong. However, those problems were brought back up later on the story, and had been the reason of everything that happened.

 

by Tony Li 

Theme

 

In the novel “Oryx and Crake”, written by Margret Atwood, the theme were mostly immortality and diseases. To achieve immortality, people harvest organs or new skins on the pigoons for replacement for the aged ones. However, for Crake, he created the Crakers, children of crake, aimed for the recreation of human, changing it from inside out, curing humanity. People were feared of death, they wanted to be young, healthy and live for a very long time and the only way for that to happen is to be immortal. 

The book used flashbacks to change in and out of Jimmy and Snowman. In Jimmy's time, the people were obsessed with their appearance. They don't want to age and get old. Living young forever were like their most important goal in life. Therefore, Pigoons were created. In everyday life, appearance droved the economic market for beauty product crazy. Companies all made their moneys on this global desire. The need to look good was necessary like everyday life was live broadcast, and they just needed to look their best. 

The other theme were diseases. Disease was one of the most important theme to the novel “Oryx and Crake” due to its overwhelming existence. For example, played the role as a marker of class, separated the upper class and lower class due to those who have comfortable jobs lives in diseasefree areas meanwhile, those who don't, lives in places where are infected with diseases. Also, as a powerful weapon that destroyed the world, mankind, but to crake, it was a cure, a cure for humanity; hunger, war, rape, jealousy, crime and others. Crake was not the only one that used diseases as a weapon, many companies had created diseases, infecting people, but at the same time, inventing a cure in order to invest in their company. 

Those two theme were the ones I think its most important because of the roles they played in the novel and mostly importantly, they were the problems that led mankind to almost extinction, only a few people survived.

 

by Tony Li 

Connections to economic systems

Connections to economic systems

Hello, everyone! As you guys know MsKwan recently has instructed to read a book,so we've been reading the science novel named "Oryx and Crake" which talks about the only man -- Jimmy  survives after the terrible doom caused by the calamity of one unstoppable pestilence around the whole world. The reason is the overdeveloped biotechnology. Biotechnology is the most crucial element in this book, and most readers are interested in what exactly it is. "What effects would this technology bring to world economic issue?" is one of hot questions people want to ask. Well, fortunately, this is what am I going to talk about today.

  First of all, lets define what biotechnology is. Biotechnology, the use of living cells and bacteria in industrial and scientific processes. Military, agriculture, medicine and environment are all the fields biotechnology able to be involved. This mysterious technology has the ability to intensify our lives markedly while it brings the society great deal of improvement of finances.

  In military, various useful weapons would be invented based on bio-tech, then produce and sell. I'm sure other countries that have lower tech. would offer an acceptable price.

  In agriculture, biotechnology can increase the efficiency of producing and make up more kind of fruits and vegetables, which couldn't be good ways to make much more benefits?

  Especially in medical realm, bio-tech would bring unprecedented improvement of finances. Lets make a easy example: as you know, clone is one of technology under bio-tech, and we're also able to clone organs! That means once people get serious disease on one of organs or lose one part of their body such as arm or lag, doctor can clone a new one totally same as the old one in order to replace the broken one by bio-tech. I think no matter how overstate the price is people are still willing to pay for it, which we can know how horrible the benefits the hospital will get.

  In conclusion, undoubtedly, biotechnology will bring us countless economic benefits, which can make our lives better. But, however, things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme. Flaws of this tech are obvious as well as its advantage. Bio-tech may lead human to destruction if we use this great power in inappropriate way.

  

By Claude

Setting

               In Oryx and Crake, written by Margaret Atwood, there are various settings. However, there are two main settings which are near future society where "Jimmy" lives and post apocalypse wasteland where "Snowman" lives. 
               The book starts off with the main character "Snowman" wakes up at the tree near a beach with no one beside him. The setting of wasteland simply shows the emptiness of the world caused by the genetic technology and the almost "extinction" of real humanity. Although in the book we can see that there are inhabitants live on this wasteland however they all have been genetically modified. "Crakers"-which looks like human but it is genetically enhanced super human. Animals such as "Pigoon"and "Bobkitten" do not behave like what the original "carriers" which are pigs and cats. These once tamed animals are becoming aggressive to inhabitants live on the land and also to "Snowman".
               In the near future society where "Jimmy" lives is a lot different from the wasteland "Snowman"lives. Jimmy lives in a society where Bio genetic technology is rapidly developed, however without consideration of consequences. The best way to look at this is the creation of "Pigoon". The goal of this project is to grow human tissues on a pig host. This is simply not ethic. In addition, entertainments such as pornography is almost available to everyone in the society and it is really simple to skip the age restriction. Suicide and execution are standard viewing materials.
               Setting plays a huge role in this book. Through settings, we are able to picture the characteristics of everyone and how and why they behave like this. Also, settings in this book help to promote the plot and theme of this wonderful story.

By Gary Jiang