Oryx and Crake Through a Postmodern Lens

In interpreting Atwood's Oryx and Crake through a postmodern lens, I chose to examine the manner by which the character of Snowman serves to construct reality for the Crakers through his fictitious lore. I turned to Lyotard's concept of metanarratives, which he states "exist to explain and reassure, but are really illusions fostered in order to smother difference, opposition, and plurality" (96). The mythology that Snowman offers the Crakers is a metanarrative means to explain to them their surrounding world. He refers to the Crakers as "blank pages on which he could write anything he wanted". They accept without question anything he says; essentially their reality is defined by whatever random explanation he spouts.

The Crakers are first introduced in the second chapter of the novel titled "Flotsam". Their interaction with Snowman mirrors that of a teacher-student relationship; they asking questions about the unknown, he providing answers that they readily accept as true. He is an entity unlike themselves with a certain mysticism about him, it is for this reason that they trust his insight regarding the unknown. They have no reason to believe he is deceiving them; though in fact they can't, as they have no knowledge of "deception" period - they have never experienced it amongst their fellow Crakers. It is this lack of firsthand experience that enables Snowman to serve as a prophet of sorts, weaving the Crakers' perception of the world around them, or their reality, as he sees fit.

An example of the elaborate fictions Snowman crafts in order to explain the world to the Crakers may be found in the creation story he tells. He claims that Crake made man out of coral and mango, and that all words and animals in the world came from Oryx's eggs (34). While this seems absurd in the context of Snowman's reality, with his knowledge of the past, this fabrication seems completely acceptable to the Crakers because, as Snowman comments, "He's the only one left who'd known Crake face to face, so he can lay claim to the inside track. Above his head flies the invisible banner of Crakedom" (96). Another example of this would be Snowman's response to "What is toast?" (98). He reflects on the literal meaning of 'toast' as he came to know him, then transforms the definition in to something disengaged from the past which he can offer to the Crakers. Myth becomes reality when those receiving the false information possess no means, or the case of the Crakers even desire, to refute it...