Extra credit presentation given by one of my students, Katey Dager, at the beginning of lecture 18 for students in English 165EW, "Life After the End of the World," winter 2013 at UC Santa Barbara. Posted here with Katey's permission. Course website: http://patrickbrianmooney.nfshost.com/~patrick/ta/w13/

1. Are the Crakers Human?
The nature of Humanity in Oryx and Crake
A presentation by Katey Dager

2. Snowman and the Children of Crake
● “Existing and not existing, flickering at the
edges of blizzards, apelike man or manlike
ape.” (Atwood 7-8)

3. Their Transgenic Predecessors
Copyrighted picture removed before
posting to the web; it can be found at:
http://www.perdador.com/fall06/oryx&crake01.jpg
Courtney, Jason. Jimmy went in to see the pigoons. 2006. www.perdador.com. Online.

4. Their Transgenic Predecessors
● “[The bobkittens] were supposed to eliminate
feral cats, thus improving the almost non-
existent songbird population. . . except that
the bobkittens soon got out of control in their
turn.” (Atwood 164)

5. Their Transgenic Predecessors
● “If you could tell they were fake. . .it was a bad
job. These butterflies fly, they mate, they lay
eggs, caterpillars come out.” (Atwood 200)

6. The Beginnings of the Crakers
● “What we're working on is immortality.”
(Atwood 292)
● “These are the floor models.” (Atwood 302)

7. Aristotelian Definition of Human Nature
● Humans are pairing
● Humans are political
● Humans are creative

8. Pairing
● “The friendship between husband and wife appears to be a natural
instinct; since man is by nature a pairing creature even more than he is
a political creature.” (Nicomachean Ethics)
● “In your plan we'd just be a bunch of hormone robots. . .There'd be no
free choice.” (Atwood 166)
● “There'll be the standard quintuplet, four men and the woman in heat.”
(Atwood 164)

9. Political
● “Hence every city-state exists by nature, inasmuch as the first
partnerships so exist; for the city-state is the end of the other
partnerships, and nature is an end” (Politics)
● “Hierarchy could not exist among them, because they lacked the
neural complexes that would have created it.” (Atwood 305)
● “He's [Abraham Lincoln] getting to be a bit of a leader, that one.
Watch out for leaders, Crake used to say. First the leaders and the
led, then the tyrants and the slaves, then the massacres.” (Atwood
155)

10. Creative, Expressive
● “We have, then, a natural instinct for representation and for tune and
rhythm” (Poetics)
● “Well, what about art?” said Jimmy. . .
“What about it?” said Crake, smiling his calm smile.” (Atwood 166)
● “Symbolic thinking of any kind would signal downfall, in Crake's view.
Next they'd be inventing idols, and funerals, and grave goods, and
the afterlife, and sin, and Linear B, and then slavery and war.”
(Atwood 361)

11. ● “He couldn't get rid of the singing either.”
(Atwood 352)
● “Today they asked who made them.” (Atwood
311)
● “We made a picture of you, to help us send out
our voices to you.” (Atwood 361)

12. Summary
● The Children of Crake are transgenic humans,
but they are indeed human
● Crake successfully removes the pairing
tendencies, because that is primarily biology
● Crake thinks he has successfully removed
political tendencies, but they reemerge
● Crake cannot remove artistic tendencies,
specifically singing and representation
● These things are inherent to humanity and
imply that the Crakers are human