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Oryx And Crake Analysis

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INTRODUCTION
My research question for this essay is “How can M.A.’s novel ’Oryx and Crake’ be seen as a critique towards modern society?” I have chosen to use this research question, because I find it interesting how literature can be used as a medium to warn society against what could happen, if we do not take action and just let things evolve. The book ‘1984’ written by George Orwell is similar to the book chosen here, since they both, according to how both novels fall into the post-apocalyptic genre, can be interpreted as a warning to our present society about letting technology take over, and letting technological development be more important than developing human qualities. This essay will investigate how the novel can fall into the …show more content…
The novel also makes use of a dark, twisted humor, as Jimmy and Glenn (Crake’s old name) often entertains themselves by viewing online executions/suicides or playing extremely violent games. Another way the dark humor comes into play is through splicing and gene-modification of animals, e.g. the Chickienobs; “’What the hell is it?’ said Jimmy. ’Those are chickens,’ said Crake. ‘Chicken parts’ … ‘But there aren’t any heads,’ said Jimmy. … ‘That’s the head in the middle,‘ said the woman. ‘There’s a mouth opening at the top, they dump nutrients in there. No eyes or beak or anything, they don’t need those.’” Here, the dark humor is used through the incongruity theory; “according to the incongruity theory, we laugh at things that are unrealistic, exaggerated, weird or surprising” . The incongruity theory also states, that “dealing with something that is weird and incongruent allows us to step back and look at the world around us” , and that is why the use of the theory in this book would be adequate, given that the purpose of the book, is to make us look at our world in a new

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