Style in Oryx and Crake

 

                                Margaret Atwoods Style

Now I have read one and a half of Margaret Atwood's books. There are definitely some similarities in style between The Handmaids Tail and Oryx and Crake. For starters there is lots of time jumping from the past to present. In The Handmaids Tail Offred shares her memories from the past. In Oryx and Crake we also read about the main character, Snowman's past.

These time jumps can sometimes be confusing, but also add a lot to the story. It makes it a lot more interesting to read, and it almost feels like you are reading two separate stories at once. The story talks about memories from Jimmy's life and also the current events in the main character Snowman (who was once named Jimmy before everything changed). These stories from Jimmy's life are often descriptive, yet Snowman often says he has trouble remembering his past.

While the past is stories about Jimmy's life, there are also clues that help us figure out the time period the stories take place. Some things about Jimmy's life seem to be in our time period now. While some we can tell are way in the future from us. For example, Jimmy's friend Oryx is talking about her life as a child and a man who bought her (because she was from a town where the children were sold). She remembers him talking about old music like Sinatra and Elvis. We consider this to be old music to us too.

While there are some similarities to our current time period and the book, there are also things that seem futuristic to us. An example of this is all the different animals that have been breed together to make new ones. This is something that we see within dogs, but in the story there are such things as rakunks or pigoons. 

Jimmy recalls one time when he saw a rabbit and said "It glows in the dusk, a greenish glow filched from the iridicytes of a deep-see jellyfish in some long-ago experiment." (95) This tells us that there has been a lot of experiments on animals to try and create new species.

Atwood also has a very descriptive style. Many things are described in full and probably have more information than  we actually need.  A good example of this is when Snowman is trying to sleep. "All around him are noises: the slurping of the waves, insects chirpings and whirrings, bird whistles, amphibious croaks, the rustling of leaves. His ears deceive him: he thinks he can hear a jazz horn and under that a rhythmic drumming, as if from a muffled nightclub." (105)

All of this description allows us to put ourselves in the characters place and really feel like we are there. At this point in the book Snowman has been on the Island of Oryx and Crake for a few years that we know of. He has to constantly live with his senses on high to make sure he isn't put in danger.