Topic > Authentic Love in an Artificial World

Margaret Atwood creates a corrupt, futuristic world in Oryx and Crake that places all the emphasis on technology and science, thus devaluing the role of emotion and connection in society. Those who work to pursue scientific discoveries are considered elite, while others who are better suited to artistic work and have a talent with words are less valued. These two different types of people are demonstrated by the characters of Jimmy and Crake: Crake is the representation of the ideal scientific prodigy, while Jimmy symbolizes someone who is more emotional and artistic. They have drastically opposite views on the value of emotions and approach relationships in different ways, but despite these differences, both characters ultimately experience love. Despite the lack of emphasis on emotional connection in Oryx and Crake's technologically based society, love proves to be an essential and irreplaceable aspect of the human experience for the novel's characters. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Oryx and Crake, characters demonstrate an innate desire to feel emotions. As teenagers, Jimmy and Crake spent their time watching explicit videos on the Internet, such as child pornography and people being tortured. Looking back on this, Snowman says, “Shortcircuit.com, brainfrizz.com, and deathrowlive.com were the best; they showed electrocutions and lethal injections. Once real-time coverage was made legal, the executed boys began to rant in front of the cameras” (Atwood, 83). This passage shows how desensitized kids are to gruesome content. They view these morbid videos as funny or mediocre, whereas in our society they would be considered difficult to watch. The fact that this content has been legalized in their society reveals that desensitization is not just happening to Jimmy and Crake specifically, but that it has happened to everyone. This is because creative expression and emotions are considered useless in the complexes where the scientific elite reside, so these people do not have an outlet to express their feelings. In essence, they are becoming robots forced to pour all their energy into scientific research and mathematical calculations. This lack of emotional stimulation leads them to seek an alternative way to feel something powerful. Therefore, they turn to graphic content. Even if these videos evoke feelings of disgust, fear, or sadness, they still evoke some sort of emotion, which is better than feeling nothing. The more gruesome they are, the more emotional they are and so Jimmy and Crake turn to extremely violent videos to feel. This shows that people living in complexes will not voluntarily succumb to the flattening of affect and struggle to feel emotions. Even though emotional feelings are devalued in their society, these people are unable to simply turn off the aspect of themselves that harbors the desire to feel. Therefore, it is clear that the experience of a powerful emotion is what makes us human and what prevents people in the complexes, especially Jimmy and Crake, from losing their humanity. Because love is a powerful emotional experience, it proves to be an intrinsic human characteristic. desire in the novel. This is demonstrated most effectively throughout Crake's character, because in the novel he is more scientifically driven and adamantly against emotions. He views humans as "defective hormone robots" and sees no value in anything unless it serves a distinct evolutionary advantage. However, even he is not immune to love. When Crake first introduces Jimmy to Oryx, Jimmy notes, “Crake was in love,.